Social worlds are networks of interaction formed around shared activities or interests. They provide normative frameworks that shape interactions within the world and influence participants' identities. Individual psychobiographies, or life transitions and experiences, converge to (re)constitute specific social worlds over time. For example, asexuality social worlds emerged online as individuals discovered language to reinterpret experiences of lacking sexual attraction, previously seen as problematic, and to connect with others. Understanding how psychobiographical trajectories shape social worlds moves analysis beyond essentializing groups to consider temporal agency and diversity in sexuality.

1. SUBCULTURE,
SEXUALITY AND
BIOGRAPHY
@mark_carrigan
mark@markcarrigan.net
Saturday, 8 June 13

2. Social Worlds
Social worlds are networks of interaction demarcated by their
participants' mutual involvement in specifiable sets of activities. They
form around sports, art forms and genres, pastimes, occupations,
locations, conflicts and controversies, and projects, anything that can
become a focus for collective interest and action. Worlds are networks
whose members manifest a shared orientated towards specific conventions
and common adherence to a shared framework of meaning. They are
generated by interaction but also function as a context and environment
which shapes interaction. As actors 'enter' a world, interacting with others
whom they recognize as members of it, they shift their orientation and
perhaps also their identity, thereby collaboratively with the other
(re)generating their part of that world. (Crossley 2010: 138)
Saturday, 8 June 13

3. The nature of social worlds
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4. The nature of social worlds
Continually (re)constituted through interaction
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5. The nature of social worlds
Continually (re)constituted through interaction
Mediated interaction and/or face to face interaction
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6. The nature of social worlds
Continually (re)constituted through interaction
Mediated interaction and/or face to face interaction
Irreducible to territory though often (re)constituted
territorially
Saturday, 8 June 13

7. The nature of social worlds
Continually (re)constituted through interaction
Mediated interaction and/or face to face interaction
Irreducible to territory though often (re)constituted
territorially
Provides normative frames of reference which
participants can use ‘outside’ the social world
Saturday, 8 June 13

8. The nature of social worlds
Continually (re)constituted through interaction
Mediated interaction and/or face to face interaction
Irreducible to territory though often (re)constituted
territorially
Provides normative frames of reference which
participants can use ‘outside’ the social world
Fuzzily bounded but nonetheless experienced ‘inside’
and ‘outside’ or ‘inwards’/‘outwards’ facing interaction
Saturday, 8 June 13

9. The nature of social worlds
Continually (re)constituted through interaction
Mediated interaction and/or face to face interaction
Irreducible to territory though often (re)constituted
territorially
Provides normative frames of reference which
participants can use ‘outside’ the social world
Fuzzily bounded but nonetheless experienced ‘inside’
and ‘outside’ or ‘inwards’/‘outwards’ facing interaction
Opens up the questions of temporal ‘entry’ and ‘exit’
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10. Myth of Cultural Integration
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11. Myth of Cultural Integration
Specific conventions and common adherence to a
shared framework of meaning...?
Saturday, 8 June 13

12. Myth of Cultural Integration
Specific conventions and common adherence to a
shared framework of meaning...?
Common tendency to conflate the ‘community’
and the ‘meaning’ in sociological understandings
of culture
Saturday, 8 June 13

13. Myth of Cultural Integration
Specific conventions and common adherence to a
shared framework of meaning...?
Common tendency to conflate the ‘community’
and the ‘meaning’ in sociological understandings
of culture
Mistake to infer shared belief from shared practice
or vice versa
Saturday, 8 June 13

14. Myth of Cultural Integration
Specific conventions and common adherence to a
shared framework of meaning...?
Common tendency to conflate the ‘community’
and the ‘meaning’ in sociological understandings
of culture
Mistake to infer shared belief from shared practice
or vice versa
If we accept this then subjectivity becomes crucial
to understanding reproduction and
transformation of social worlds
Saturday, 8 June 13

15. Psychobiography
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16. Psychobiography
‘Entry’ and ‘exit’ into social worlds are temporal concepts.
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17. Psychobiography
‘Entry’ and ‘exit’ into social worlds are temporal concepts.
Psychobiography as concept to recognize the “linked series of
evolutionary transitions” which unfold at “various significant
junctures in the lives of individuals” (Layder 1997: 47)
Saturday, 8 June 13

18. Psychobiography
‘Entry’ and ‘exit’ into social worlds are temporal concepts.
Psychobiography as concept to recognize the “linked series of
evolutionary transitions” which unfold at “various significant
junctures in the lives of individuals” (Layder 1997: 47)
So how do people ‘enter’ and ‘exit’ social worlds?
Saturday, 8 June 13

19. Psychobiography
‘Entry’ and ‘exit’ into social worlds are temporal concepts.
Psychobiography as concept to recognize the “linked series of
evolutionary transitions” which unfold at “various significant
junctures in the lives of individuals” (Layder 1997: 47)
So how do people ‘enter’ and ‘exit’ social worlds?
How does this manner of entry and exit (direction, meaning,
velocity) shape their participation in its (re)constitution?
Saturday, 8 June 13

20. Psychobiography
‘Entry’ and ‘exit’ into social worlds are temporal concepts.
Psychobiography as concept to recognize the “linked series of
evolutionary transitions” which unfold at “various significant
junctures in the lives of individuals” (Layder 1997: 47)
So how do people ‘enter’ and ‘exit’ social worlds?
How does this manner of entry and exit (direction, meaning,
velocity) shape their participation in its (re)constitution?
Social worlds as emergent from particular configurations of
convergent psychobiographies
Saturday, 8 June 13

21. Case Study: Asexuality
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22. Case Study: Asexuality
People “who do not experience sexual attraction”
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23. Case Study: Asexuality
People “who do not experience sexual attraction”
Great deal of diversity underlying ‘umbrella definition’
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24. Case Study: Asexuality
People “who do not experience sexual attraction”
Great deal of diversity underlying ‘umbrella definition’
Online communities began to form 2001 onwards
(though some pre-history)
Saturday, 8 June 13

25. Case Study: Asexuality
People “who do not experience sexual attraction”
Great deal of diversity underlying ‘umbrella definition’
Online communities began to form 2001 onwards
(though some pre-history)
Attracted much media attention which brings new
people into community
Saturday, 8 June 13

26. Case Study: Asexuality
People “who do not experience sexual attraction”
Great deal of diversity underlying ‘umbrella definition’
Online communities began to form 2001 onwards
(though some pre-history)
Attracted much media attention which brings new
people into community
Online: forums, blogs, youtube, tumblr
Saturday, 8 June 13

27. Case Study: Asexuality
People “who do not experience sexual attraction”
Great deal of diversity underlying ‘umbrella definition’
Online communities began to form 2001 onwards
(though some pre-history)
Attracted much media attention which brings new
people into community
Online: forums, blogs, youtube, tumblr
‘Offline’ meet-ups and activism
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28. Psychobiographical Convergence
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29. Psychobiographical Convergence
Lack of sexual attraction (heterogenous across the
group) previously rendered situationally problematic
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30. Psychobiographical Convergence
Lack of sexual attraction (heterogenous across the
group) previously rendered situationally problematic
Both relations (“you’re just a late bloomer!”) and ideas
(“if I’m not sexual then I must be broken”) at work
here
Saturday, 8 June 13

31. Psychobiographical Convergence
Lack of sexual attraction (heterogenous across the
group) previously rendered situationally problematic
Both relations (“you’re just a late bloomer!”) and ideas
(“if I’m not sexual then I must be broken”) at work
here
Discovery of the asexual social world: directly
(e.g.google etc) or indirectly (e.g. media article or
friend/acquaintance)
Saturday, 8 June 13

32. Psychobiographical Convergence
Lack of sexual attraction (heterogenous across the
group) previously rendered situationally problematic
Both relations (“you’re just a late bloomer!”) and ideas
(“if I’m not sexual then I must be broken”) at work
here
Discovery of the asexual social world: directly
(e.g.google etc) or indirectly (e.g. media article or
friend/acquaintance)
Reappraisal of prior self-interpretation and assumption
of pathology
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33. Conclusion
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34. Conclusion
Recognizing the independent variability of subjectivity
and refusing the homogenization of ‘sub-cultures’
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35. Conclusion
Recognizing the independent variability of subjectivity
and refusing the homogenization of ‘sub-cultures’
Treating subjectivity in a way which foregrounds
temporality and agency
Saturday, 8 June 13

36. Conclusion
Recognizing the independent variability of subjectivity
and refusing the homogenization of ‘sub-cultures’
Treating subjectivity in a way which foregrounds
temporality and agency
Moving from ‘groups’ to individuals, networks and social
worlds in sexuality studies. Getting beyond essentialism
debates.
Saturday, 8 June 13

37. Conclusion
Recognizing the independent variability of subjectivity
and refusing the homogenization of ‘sub-cultures’
Treating subjectivity in a way which foregrounds
temporality and agency
Moving from ‘groups’ to individuals, networks and social
worlds in sexuality studies. Getting beyond essentialism
debates.
The crucial question: how do identifiable psychobiographical
trajectories shape the (re)constitution of specific social worlds?
Saturday, 8 June 13

38. Conclusion
Recognizing the independent variability of subjectivity
and refusing the homogenization of ‘sub-cultures’
Treating subjectivity in a way which foregrounds
temporality and agency
Moving from ‘groups’ to individuals, networks and social
worlds in sexuality studies. Getting beyond essentialism
debates.
The crucial question: how do identifiable psychobiographical
trajectories shape the (re)constitution of specific social worlds?
Thoughts appreciated! This is plan for analysis yet to be
undertaken....
Saturday, 8 June 13