Recognizing the New: The Emergence and Dissolution of Social Realities

Abstract

How do novel or aberrant social arrangements become new realities? What are the processes by which new kinds of organizations, products, and phenomena become “real” enough to be recognized as elements of classifications systems, be it with a positive or negative valence? The goal of this symposium is to bring together a diverse set of scholars to begin a discussion about the kind of theory that engages questions about how proposed or nascent categories become “real” in people’s minds. We view these questions as part of a broader research agenda that we refer to as an ontological turn in research on categories and social realities. Rather than studying e.g. categories as devices that discipline society or provide ingredients for re-imagining it, we see this symposium outlining a research agenda that focuses on fundamental questions about how categories emerge and fall out of use. Our hope is to convene a creative yet productive conversation about the role that meaning-making plays in emergence of new social structures. A Relational Account of Social Ontologies Presenter: Mark Thomas Kennedy; Imperial College Business School Presenter: Peer C. Fiss; U. of Southern California A Relational Model of Field Formation Presenter: Maria T. Farkas; Imperial College Business School Using Text Analysis to Identify Innovative Breakthroughs Presenter: Sarah Kaplan; U. of Toronto