Schutzian Research

Volume 10, 2018

Towards a Schützian Approach to Group-membership

The aim of this paper is to show that we are entitled to see in Schütz’s article “Equality and the Social Meaning Structure” the proposal for a formal analysis of group membership understood as a kind of We-experience irreducible to pure We-relationships (Wirbeziehung). First I argue that such an account defines the experience of group membership as a “situation definition process”. Then I show the relevance of this approach for the description of membership experiences and current debates on Collective Intentionality. Finally, I point to its unclarified conceptual presuppositions—such as the at­tribution of situations to groups—, and propose an interpretative solution by drawing on the notions of “social situation” and community of relevances from The Structures of the Life-World.