For a Sociology of Deceit: Doubled Identities, Interested Actions and Situational Logics of Opportunity

Abstract

Deceit occupies a significant role in historical conceptualizations of social order, but dominant approaches to the subject are limited by the normative assumptions and conceptions of agency and structure on which they rest. This article suggests that renewed sociological engagement with deceit is overdue and can illuminate the ‘situational logics of opportunity’ within modernity (Archer, 2010). Focusing on the contemporary era, and building upon Simmel’s argument that individuals lead a ‘doubled existence’, within and outside social forms, we view deceit as neither a personal trait nor an effect of social structures. Instead, it emerges through, and assumes contrasting meanings as a consequence of, people’s interested and strategic engagements with the social world. Developing this theoretical analysis substantively, we then focus on several examples of how deceit is used to subvert or reaffirm boundaries between ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ groups, including those emergent from sociology’s own ‘doubled existence’ relative to modern life.