........................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................... iv Statement of Originality ................................................................................................. v Abbreviations ................................................................................................................. vi Interviewees .................................................................................................................. vi

Reconciling the Discursive and the Material Dimensions of Social Stability and Social Change: A Critical Retheorisation and Non-syncretic Synthesis of Bhaskar, Foucault, and Althusser

Theories on gambling are as disparate as they are diverse. While on the one hand gambling is condemned as being pathological, a curable addiction, on the other it is regarded as merely leisure. While playing on the exterior features of gambling, these two perspectives narrow the vistas of gambling research. I contribute to the debate by treating gambling (poker playing in particular) through the meaning conveyed by players upon it, discussing games and play as part and parcel of everyday experience. My research is centered on how poker players make professional claims and the way they justify poker playing as a profession. By discussing games as world building practices (Schutz, 1945; Huizinga, 1950; Goffman, 1961) I deemphasize the deviant character gambling actuates and advert on its informative potential on emergent societal and cultural transformations. Making a living out of poker, making sense of the game, at the same time, as a lens that organizes their way of going through the world, players connect the reality of the world of daily life to the reality of the game. I argue that the horizons of this finite province of meaning (Schutz, 1945) are not confined to the world of poker, but communicate extensively with the wider reality through its characteristics, from its unique time structure and the pervasive identities created in the game, to the money players circulate.

From pathological to professional: gambling stories

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Negotiating reality through play - the case of romanian poker players

Discussions about the alleged "death of class" and "individualization" indicate the need for an in-depth analysis of the assumptions underlying the class concept. The authors focus on the distinction between two aspects of the class concept following Weber's theory of causality. As a concept "devoid of meaning," class refers to probabilistic influences of the occupational world on human behaviour in social relationships outside work. As a concept of "meaningful" human behaviour, class refers to the typical conduct of occupational groups at work. Following John H. Goldthorpe's call for the complementarity of statistics and hermeneutics, the authors argue that the measurement of class- and domain-specific causal attributions can help to test hypotheses on the microstructures of unequal life courses. This view makes intelligible the class-related differences in behaviour within and away from the work environment and the consequences of differential attributions of cause and effect for inequality. Resume. Discussions sur la mort pretendue des classes indiquent la necessite d'une analyse profonde des suppositions de la recherche. Les auteurs se concentrent sur la distinction entre deux aspects du concept de classe. D'une part, classe fait reference aux effets probabiliste du monde professionnel sur les relations sociales au de hors de travail. D'autre part, classe veut dire le comportement typique des groupes professionnelles dans le monde de travail. C'est pourquoi le concept de classe signifie deux types d'assertion causale qu'il faudrait detacher precisement.

The Twofold Class Concept: Traditional Limitations and New Perspectives of Class Research

Negotiating a Collective Agreement Using Positional and Interest-based Processes

This article uses aspects of poker (no prior knowledge of the game is required) as a heuristic example to facilitate arguments to the following conclusions. Micro social structures have a sui generis aspect to them. Social structures are simultaneously a set of relations between positions and interactional relations between people. Micro structures have some of the features usually only associated with macro structures but nonetheless there are qualitative differences in kind between macro and micro structures. The article thus retains the insights associated with both interactionist and structuralist positions with respect to sociology's long history of debate about structure and agency. But it also shows both poles of debate to be significantly mistaken. Resume Cet article emploie des aspects de "poker" [un jeu des cartes] (aucune connaissance anterieure du jeu nest exigee) comme exemple heuristique pour faciliter des arguments aux conclusions suivantes. Les structures sociales micro ont un aspect sui generis a elles. Les structures sociales sont simultaniment un ensemble de relations entre les positions etles relations interactionnelles entre les personnes. Les structures micro ont certains des dispositifs habitue1lement seulementlies a de macro structures mais neanmoins il y a des differences qualitatives en nature entre tie macro et micro structures. L'article maintient ainsi les perspicacites liees aux positions d'interactionist et de structuralist en ce qui concerne l'histoire de la sociologie longtemps tie la discussion au sujet de la structure et de l'agence. Mais il montre egalement les deux poteaux de la discussion a confondre sensiblement. Introduction The intention of this article is to provide a new lens through which to focus attention upon the long standing debates and theoretical issues concerning the relationship between human agency and sui generis social structure. We shall examine the emergence of a particular kind of micro social structure found in a particular example of social interactive phenomena: games of poker. Two things must be made clear from the start. First, no knowledge of the game of poker will be required to understand the sociological points made in this article. Good players will find the descriptions of the game's features, examples of strategy etc. relatively unremarkable and incontrovertible. Those who have never played should also find nothing difficult to grasp about such features of the game as are analysed here. On the other hand, those who do play often yet are not very good at it (which is to say most players) may import some of their poker confusion and misconceptions into the interpretation of the article. This is perhap s unavoidable but if the points concerning structure and agency are missed, such readers might at least find some suggestive ideas for improving their play. The second thing which must be made clear is that though poker is a game and lam using it to make some sociological points, I am not a "game theorist." I have serious reservations about such theory in all its formulations and applications. Nor do I wish to make the claim that the game of poker is in every sense analogous to the "game of life." Poker as I shall be using it here is not intended as either metaphor or model. The aspect of poker which I shall analyse here as a type of sui generis social structure is very definitely not analogous to social structure in general. It is not intended as a metaphor at all. Rather it is an example of a form of social structure. But it is a form, not the form. One of the crucial points which I wish to make is that there are social structures and social structures. The example of poker is ideally suited to demonstrate features of social reality focussed upon by interactionist perspectives. It involves rules, explicit and implicit interpretation (including the body language of unconscious clues), calculation and deception, "impression management," (variably) stable patterns of play, the accessibility and inaccessibility of knowledge, memory and many other subtle features of interaction. …

Garry Potter

Papers

Sui Generis Micro Social Structures: The Heuristic Example of Poker