A call to a critical interpretive interactionism

There is considerable appeal for a critical interactionist approach to the study of culture. This is a period of ferment and explosion. It is defined by breaks from the past, a focus on previously silenced voices, a turn to performance texts, and a concern with moral discourse, with critical conversations about democracy, race, gender, class, nation, freedom and democracy. These are traditional foundational concerns within the interactionist community. Indeed, at the mid-point in the second decade of the 21st century, there is a pressing demand to show how the practices of a critical, interactionist approach to cultural studies can help change the world in positive ways. It is necessary to examine new ways of making the practices of critical cultural inquiry central to the workings of a free democratic society. Further, there is a need to bring these practices more centrally into the field of interactionist inquiry. This is my agenda: to show how the discourses of cultural studies can be put to critical advantage by interactionist researchers.