VOLUME EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION:
THE DIVERSITY OF SYMBOLIC
INTERACTION IN EUROPE
In the first days of July 46, 2012, the third conference of the European
SSSI was held at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. The meeting was
called “Conflict, Cooperation and Transformation in Everyday Life” and
was hosted by the School of Law and the department of Criminology.
More than 100 persons attended from a diverse range of countries such as
Canada, Australia, Sweden, the United States, the Netherlands, Germany,
Poland, and the Ukraine. During the three days, a vibrant academic com-
munity was created in the sessions and during the social meetings such as
the lunches, drinks, dinners, and a barbeque.
The first two meetings of the European SSSI were held in Pisa, Italy
(2010) and Kassel, Germany (2011). Since Rotterdam there were two other
meetings: Uppsala, Sweden (2013) and Aalborg, Denmark (2014). In 2015,
the conference will be held in Manchester, England. A temporary board is
in the process of creating a constitution which will formalize the European
SSSI. Until now the European SSSI has depended on the commitment of
several active academics, such as Andrea Salvini, Michael Dellwing,
Vassela Misheva, Emma Engdahl, Robert Dingwall, and myself.
In 2014, it was clear that the European SSSI is thriving, and some of
the results are Volumes 44 and 45 ofStudies in Symbolic Interaction. The
papers in this volume form a selection of European contributions to the
Rotterdam conference. I have selected 15 papers which cover a diverse
range of topics which were divided in two main categories. The first one is
“Reflections on Methods,” the second one is on (interactions of) “Conflict
and Cooperation.” The core of this current volume consists of papers on
“Reflections on Methods.” The last two papers are on conflict and coop-
eration and deal with two social problems: obesity and (soft-)drugs. What
comes immediately to the surface is that the studies which are described in
the papers refer to different countries such as the Netherlands, Israel/
Palestine, Belgium, South Africa, and Indonesia. Four papers on
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