ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the parallels between one tradition in ethnographic research, associated with symbolic interactionism, and literary conventions or precedents. It suggests that there was something of a contradiction between the epistemological stance of interactionist ethnography, and the conventional means used to represent it. The chapter suggests that the pragmatist tradition within symbolic interactionism has always stressed the exploratory nature of a social world in constant flux. A close attention to textual forms may be seen as an extension of symbolic interactionism rather than a radical break with the past. Symbolic interactionism is marked by a high degree of coherence, in terms of the relationship between theory and method, and an impressive tradition of theory and research. The sociologists and novelists of the time shared very similar backgrounds and preoccupations. The conventional character of realism, or vraisemblance has been demonstrated repeatedly in relation to the conventions of scientific and other scholarly styles.
