Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Herbert Blumer was the most influential crowd sociologist of the twentieth century. To his credit, he recognized in mid-career that “sociologists had done a rather miserable job in studying the crowd systematically because they had done little to assemble empirical accounts” ( Blumer 1957 ). He attributed this to the lack of “a well thought out analytic scheme which would provide fruitful hypotheses and lead to more incisive observations.” But systematic study of “the crowd” proves to be impossible precisely because that concept, despite considerable cachet, is not a useful tool for investigating the phenomenon to which it purportedly refers. “The crowd” implies a homogeneity of actors and motives and, consequently, continuous and mutually inclusive action. Scholars who have taken a slightly different tack have produced extensive empirical evidence that refutes both those implications and their consequences. Over the past two decades sociologists working at different levels of analysis have adopted “the gathering” as a more neutral and useful concept for referring to a temporary collection of at least two persons in a common location in space and time without regard to their actions or motives. All temporary gatherings have a life course consisting of three phases. An assembling process forms the gathering by bringing two or more persons together in a common location. A dispersing ... log in or subscribe to read full text