Sunday, April 20, 2008

Blog Spotlight: Mybackstage by Pitse1eh


This blog is awesome.
I too, love fun socks. I have no idea how to pronounce that handle.

The blog author seems to be taking a blog break. I want to encourage this wife, lover of bad television and fun socks, social psychologist and sociologist to keep blogging though. Yeah, the blog is pretty much about that. I wish I could identify myself so succinctly and yet complexly:]


Primarily I identify as a social psychologist. Within this sub discipline, I categorize myself as a structural symbolic interactionist. Meaning, I took to heart Stryker’s (1977) command to return to the “fundamental insight” of sociological social psychology–the interplay between structure and agency. I am fascinated by how individuals create and manage identities within structure–and how they attempt (and sometimes manage) to manipulate that structure to allow their portrayals. So, primarily I ask questions about identity (of all types–gender, race, and even larger scale). I am interested in emotions and in groups. I am also really interested in networks and how these networks come into play during identity negotiation. But, as you will see throughout my blogging, this is nowhere near a complete list of my interests.


I'm going to start reading this blog because I too, am interested in everyday sociology and the interplay between social structure and human agency. I am also interested in everything else. My work in employment discriminatoin law demands that I be equally sensitive to organizational constraints and individual choice (although I argue that emerging choices are themselves products of constraint). So, thank you for blogging, Pitse1eh.

Why do I blog? Heck if I know. People keep reading, so I keep blogging, and I feel commensurate pulls to be 1) serious and academic and 2) fun and weird. I find Pitse1eh's blog to be the same awesome combo. Although I could have done without seeing the picture of the little boy with a butter knife stuck in his head. Ouch.