Prologue: why categories matter

To categorize is human. 1 This book focuses on how, throughout our daily interactions, we categorize ourselves and other people, individuals and groups, unavoidably, in myriad ways. Although categories are implicated in places, spaces, and settings, and events, objects, and actions, the book pays most attention to categories of people. We ubiquitously invoke, describe, and construct such categories; we ascribe and resist them; we imply, infer, and deny them, in the course of doing the actions that comprise our day-to-day lives. Categories and categorizing can be mundane and ordinary; they can be profound and spectacular. Categorization is as ubiquitous as social action because it is a form of social action.