ABSTRACT
Perhaps it is because it is often playful and just plain banal that sociality has frequently been taken for granted or overlooked by mainstream social science. It has been left to inspired mavericks like Simmel (1950), Goffman (1956, 1961, 1963, 1971) and Garfinkel (1967) to study the patterns and dynamics of sociality. Nonetheless, an increasingly wide range of research by sociologists, anthropologists (who, to be fair, had always demonstrated more interest in sociality than researchers from other parts of the social sciences; see Hannerz 1980) and human geographers have come to recognize the importance of sociality in the structuring of social forms. In part this renewed interest reflects a resurgent theoretical concern for practice, a theoretical refocusing that is organized around a heightened appreciation of the significance of everyday interactions in the production and reproduction of wider social structures. In part, too, sociality is being recognized as central to understanding new emergent patterns of social cohesion and community in contemporary societies. Ray Pahl (2000: 11), for example, talking about a key element of sociality – friendship – has suggested that ‘informal solidarity . . . may well become more important by providing the necessary cement to hold the bricks of an increasingly fragmented social structure together.’ Michel Maffesoli (1996a) goes further, arguing that spontaneous sociality has become the key organizing principle within contemporary societies, replacing more traditional axes of association and differentiation such as work, social class and kinship. As he writes, ‘electronic mail, sexual networks, various solidarities including sporting and musical gatherings are so many signs of an ethos in gestation. Such trends are the framework of a new spirit of the times which we call sociality’ (Maffesoli 1996a: 73).
