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Author-Supplied Abstracts and Keywords
Wiktor Marzec
University of Łódź, Poland
Frontiers of the social worlds’ theory
This essay opens to scrutiny the Anselm Strauss's social worlds theoretical
perspective applicability borders problem. Applying a specific conceptual experiment
that consists of an attempt to explore the “extreme” phenomenon of the consensual
SM communities by reconstructing the foregoing phenomenon in frame of the social
worlds’ theory, this argument is about to elucidate these elements of the theory, that
despite of being hard to apprehend, comprise the crucial aspects of the analyzed
phenomenon. A unique way of organizing the subjectively lived experience and
shared definition of the situation (in this case the interpretations of sexual violence
practice) could not be conceptualized on the base of the participant’s subjective selfconsciousness.
The symbolic interactionist tradition is indirectly based on the idea of
Cartesian, self-conscious individual that mainly express its experiences on a verbal
interactional level. Therefore, tracing how the notion of the person acting evolves in
the interactionist and pragmatic tradition (in which Strauss's theory is rooted in),
facilitates recognition of this concept’s potential limits. In fact, strict revisions in the
area of subjectivity idea applied in any human and social sciences, that should not be
overestimated in the foregoing context, allow a more theoretically conscious look on
the social worlds’ theory.
Keywords:
Social worlds; Anselm Strauss; Symbolic Interactionism; Rational person acting;
Body, Sadomasochism, BDSM, Experience.
Katarzyna Niziołek
University of Bialystok, Poland
Participatory photography. From qualitative research of social worlds to
sociological intervention
In the article, resorting to the phenomenological understanding of the “social world”,
the authoress looks for the new possibilities of researching social worlds with the use
of participatory photography, and by integrating research and citizen practice. One
may speak of participatory photography when individuals or groups that would
traditionally constitute the objects of observation take and interpret photographs
representing significant parts of their lives and experiences themselves. Hence, as a
research technique, participatory photography changes the perspective of cognition
from the position of an outsider to the one of an insider. In this way, it allows insight,
in accordance with the directives of interpretative sociology, into the subjective
definitions of the observed situations, as constructed by the participants. Then, it
©2011 PSJ Tom VII Numer 1 Przegląd Socjologii Jakościowej 99
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