The Hinge - by Gary Alan Fine (Paperback)

About the Book

"Most of the time, our daily lives are governed by structures that seem determined from above: laws that dictate our behavior, companies that pay our wages, even climate patterns that determine what we eat or where we live. And though these forces may seem beyond our individual grasp, we often come together to try to change the circumstances that would otherwise completely flatten us. In The Hinge, Gary Alan Fine sets out to give due consideration to the collectives that bridge our individual interest and the larger structures that influence our lives, or meso-level forms of social interaction. He describes these meso-level social collectives as "hinges": groups that come together to pursue a shared social goal, bridging the distance between the individual and the broader society. Fine argues that understanding these hinges is crucial to explaining how societies function, creating links between the micro-and macro-orders of society. Fine turns to historical cases and fieldwork to illustrate how these hinges work and how to describe them. In The Hinge, Fine has given us new theoretical tools for understanding an essential part of our social worlds"--

Book Synopsis

Most of the time, we believe our daily lives to be governed by structures determined from above: laws that dictate our behavior, companies that pay our wages, even climate patterns that determine what we eat or where we live. In contrast, social organization is often a feature of local organization. While those forces may seem beyond individual grasp, we often come together in small communities to change circumstances that would otherwise flatten us. Challenging traditional sociological models of powerful forces, in The Hinge, Gary Alan Fine emphasizes and describes those meso-level collectives, the organizations that bridge our individual interests and the larger structures that shape our lives. Focusing on "tiny publics," he describes meso-level social collectives as "hinges" groups that come together to pursue a shared social goal, bridging the individual and the broader society. Understanding these hinges, Fine argues, is crucial to explaining how societies function, creating links between the micro- and macro-orders of society. He draws on historical cases and fieldwork to illustrate how these hinges work and how to describe them. In The Hinge, Fine has given us powerful new theoretical tools for understanding an essential part of our social worlds.

Review Quotes

"Gary Alan Fine's The Hinge: Civil Society, Group Cultures, and the Power of Local Commitments develops a set of analytical tools for meso-level analysis of collective behavior. The work registers the constitutive nature of micro and macro phenomena via group dynamics--what he terms 'the hinge.' While not dismissing earlier approaches, Fine successfully substantiates the importance of the unique interactive processes that occur when individuals come together."-- "Mobilization"

"The Hinge takes up an ambitious task and delivers a formidable response; it successfully situates the mesolevel at the center of the classic macro-micro puzzle of sociology. . . With The Hinge, Fine has equipped the platoon of small group scholars with a powerful set of tools that will serve them well as they continue to advance the front line."-- "Contemporary Sociology"

"Fine's new book... offers a theoretically informed research agenda for thinking about the local in a social media saturated global world. It is compelling [and] well written, and [it] opens up a range of new possibilities for research."-- "Symbolic Interactions"

About the Author

Gary Alan Fine is the James E. Johnson Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University. He has written many books, including, most recently Talking Art: The Culture of Practice and the Practice of Culture and Players and Pawns: How Chess Builds Community and Culture, both published by the University of Chicago Press.