European University Institute Library

The hinge, civil society, group cultures, and the power of local commitments, Gary Alan Fine

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

index present

non fiction

The hinge

bibliography

1195820015

Gary Alan Fine

civil society, group cultures, and the power of local commitments

"Most of the time, our daily lives are governed by structures that seem determined from above: laws that dictate our behavior, companies that pay our wages, even climate patterns that determine what we eat or where we live. And though these forces may seem beyond our individual grasp, we often come together to try to change the circumstances that would otherwise completely flatten us. In The Hinge, Gary Alan Fine sets out to give due consideration to the collectives that bridge our individual interest and the larger structures that influence our lives, or meso-level forms of social interaction. He describes these meso-level social collectives as "hinges": groups that come together to pursue a shared social goal, bridging the distance between the individual and the broader society. Fine argues that understanding these hinges is crucial to explaining how societies function, creating links between the micro-and macro-orders of society. Fine turns to historical cases and fieldwork to illustrate how these hinges work and how to describe them. In The Hinge, Fine has given us new theoretical tools for understanding an essential part of our social worlds"--, Provided by publisher

Introduction: A Mesoworld -- Coordination: The Dynamics of Collaboration and Commitment -- Relations: Friendship and the Politics of Sociability -- Association: Bonding, Banding, and Bridging -- Place: Performance and Solidarity -- Conflict: Scratching Consensus's Veneer -- Control: Patrolling Civil Society -- Extensions: Tiny Publics and Distant Worlds -- Conclusion: Circuits of Action -- Afterword: The COVID Hinge