The Sources of Variation in Agricultural Workers' Images of Society
C. Bell, H. Newby
May 1, 1973
Citations
19
Citations
Journal
The Sociological Review
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Key Takeaway Key Takeaway: Agricultural workers' social imagery is shaped by their interactional status in local social systems, influenced by their personal social networks.'
Abstract
Much of the empirical literature on rural England and Wales published before i960 has been summarised in a well-known paper by Plowman, Minchinton and Stacey.^ Their empirical findings, however, are rarely directly relevant to our purpose here, as the locality studies on which they base their discussion were predominantly of 'Highland Zone' villages where there are comparatively few agricultural workers who are not kinsmen of farmers. This notwithstanding, in pointing to the interactional, as opposed to the attributional nature of local stratification they opened the way to an understanding of one of the bases of social imagery.^ There are a variety of types of local interactional social systems and below we will specify some that are particularly relevant to agricultural workers. In using the term 'local social system' we are largely following Margaret Stacey's objection to the term 'comjnunity'.-^ Certainly we wish to move away from calling all 'non-work' aspects of workers' lives 'community'.^ The local social environment of individuals is better conceptualised as a 'social network' rather than as a 'community'. In this we are following Elizabeth Bott and other network analysts who have given us a vocabulary that allows the fairly precise specification of both the structure and the content of an individual's personal social networks.^ When we refer to the particular 'local social situation' of particular agricultural workers, we are referring to their personal social networks. Interactional status in a local social system is both a cause and a consequence of an individual's social imagery. As David Lockwood has remarked, 'for