1st Edition

Against the Background of Social Reality Defaults, Commonplaces, and the Sociology of the Unmarked

Edited By Carmelo Lombardo, Lorenzo Sabetta Copyright 2024
190 Pages 1 Color Illustrations
by Routledge

190 Pages 1 Color Illustrations
by Routledge

190 Pages 1 Color Illustrations
by Routledge

The first wide-ranging, organic analysis of the sociology of unmarkedness and taken-for-grantedness, this volume investigates the asymmetry between how we attend to the culturally emphasized features of social reality and ignore the culturally unmarked ones. Concerned with the structures of cultural invisibility, unconscious rules of irrelevance, automatic frames of meaning, and collective... Read more

List of  Figures and Tables

List of Contributors

Chapter 1: What is Done When Nothing Special is Being Done. Social Theory and the Power of the Unmarked
Lorenzo Sabetta and Carmelo Lombardo

Theoretical Outlines

Chapter 2: Taken for Granted: Semiotic Asymmetry and the Sociocognitive Production of Normality
Eviatar Zerubavel

Chapter 3: Routines, Rituals and Reflexes: The Powerful Undercurrents in Everyday Life
Orvar Löfgren

Core Arguments and Epistemological Implications

Chapter 4: Sociocultural Defaults at Rest and in Motion: Cognitive Sociologies of the Unmarked
Wayne H. Brekhus

Chapter 5: Nothing Important: Exploring the Personal and Social Meanings of Negative Experience
Susie Scott

Chapter 6: From Background to Default: The Epistemic Role of the Unmarked
Massimiliano Badino and Gerardo Ienna

Variations on the Theme

Chapter 7: Early Detection’s Blind Spots: Attentional Conflict in the Mammography Wars
Asia Friedman

Chapter 8: Normalization of the Wrong Normal: Unmarked Futures in the 2015-2016 Refugee Crisis in Poland
Adriana Mica, Mikolaj Pawlak, Pawel Kubicki, and Anna Horolets

Conclusive Remarks

Chapter 9: "Noise or Music? Clutter or Shoe? On Attachment and Foreground Producing Strategies
Claudio E. Benzecry

Chapter 10: The Unmarked and the Methodology of Social Research
Antonio Fasanella

Chapter 11: Remarks About What Is Considered Important and Unimportant in Sociology
Krzysztof T. Konecki

Index

Biography

Carmelo Lombardo is Full Professor of Sociology at Sapienza-University of Rome, Italy.

Lorenzo Sabetta is Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of Sociology at Sapienza-University of Rome, Italy.

"Sociology suffers from an attention deficit disorder of sorts, focusing on .001% of human action that takes place against a background of the taken for granted which occupies the rest of our experience. Here, in this adventurous volume, Lombardo and Sabetta gather essays that collectively redirect our gaze to the vast unmarked world, bringing opportunity for fresh insight."
Peter Bearman, Columbia University