Herbert Blumer

Abstract

Herbert Blumer — ‘an inspiring teacher, engaging writer, talented administrator, charismatic personality, and forceful intellectua’¹ — is probably the sociologist who is least known about by the students who read this book. Yet he is the carrier of a very distinctive sociological tradition — symbolic interactionism; with a very specific set of practical concerns — to do sociology ‘naturalistically’. This brief article aims to introduce some of his ideas.

His work was lodged in the tradition of American Pragmatism, of James, Dewey and Mead. Indeed, it could be said that Herbert Blumer was the last sonorous voice of that tradition in this century. (Duster 1987, p. 16)

Though we seldom recognise his enormous impact, few sociologists are untouched by his thought. (Becker 1988, p. 15)