ABSTRACT
This chapter provides context and background to the sociology of the unmarked, while also presenting an overview of key concepts and findings discussed in the subsequent chapters of this volume. Further, remarks are made on future research possibilities associated with this perspective. The main hypothesis behind this chapter is that the insignificant situations and unremarkable features of social life are not so insignificant and unremarkable as it first seems, representing instead a privileged research site for social scientists. Five interconnected dimensions of the unmarked are analyzed: its frequency (how the unmarked is never rare), practical value (the fact that laymen have good reasons for taking for granted what they disregard), eticness (the analytical genesis of unmarked categories), deconstructiveness (how reification processes are always based on unmarking mechanisms), and cultural-cognitive determinants (the link between cultural sociology of cognition and the sociology of the unmarked).
