The “situation” in the sociology of justifications and engagements: An interactionist rejoinder

Abstract This article focuses on a key concept in the sociologies of justification and engagement: “the situation.” We argue that despite the centrality of “the disposition of the situation” in such theorizations, the situation remains under-defined and that sociologists working along these lines would benefit from grappling more with interactional-pragmatist theoretical traditions that focused on the structuring of the situation. Using empirical examples, we outline the intellectual payoff of working through two such interactionist theories—Goffman's interaction ritual theory and the Chicago School tradition of studying forms in motion—and show how such analysis can productively push forward both the empirical study of participation and situational theory more generally.