Study of Boundaries in Social Sciences

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10.1146/annurev.soc.28.110601.141107
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2002. 28:16795

doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.28.110601.141107
c 2002 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved
Copyright
THE STUDY OF BOUNDARIES IN THE

SOCIAL SCIENCES
Michèle Lamont and Virag Molnar
Department of Sociology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08540;
e-mail: [email protected], [email protected]
Key Words culture, identity, inequality, community, borders

Abstract In recent years, the concept of boundaries has been at the center of
influential research agendas in anthropology, history, political science, social psychology, and sociology. This article surveys some of these developments while describing
the value added provided by the concept, particularly concerning the study of relational
processes. It discusses literatures on (a) social and collective identity; (b) class, ethnic/racial, and gender/sex inequality; (c) professions, knowledge, and science; and (d )
communities, national identities, and spatial boundaries. It points to similar processes
at work across a range of institutions and social locations. It also suggests paths for
further developments, focusing on the relationship between social and symbolic boundaries, cultural mechanisms for the production of boundaries, difference and hybridity,
and cultural membership and group classifications.
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the idea of boundaries has come to play a key role in important
new lines of scholarship across the social sciences. It has been associated with
research on cognition, social and collective identity, commensuration, census categories, cultural capital, cultural membership, racial and ethnic group positioning,
hegemonic masculinity, professional jurisdictions, scientific controversies, group
rights, immigration, and contentious politics, to mention only some of the most
visible examples. Moreover, boundaries and its twin concept, borders, have been
the object of a number of special issues in scholarly journals, edited volumes, and
conferences (e.g., for a list in anthropology, see Alvarez 1995; for sociology, see
the activities of the Symbolic Boundaries Network of the American Sociological
Association at http://www.people.virginia.edu/bb3v/symbound).
This renewed interest builds on a well-established tradition since boundaries
are part of the classical conceptual tool-kit of social scientists. Already in The
Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durkheim (1965) defined the realm of the
sacred in contrast to that of the profane. While Marx often depicted the proletariat
as the negation of the capitalist class, The Eighteenth Brumaire (Marx 1963) is
0360-0572/02/0811-0167$14.00
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still read for its account of the dynamics between several class boundaries. As for
Weber, his analysis of ethnic and status groups continues to stand out as one of
the most influential sections in Economy and Society (1978) (on the history of the
concept, see Lamont 2001a and Schwartz 1981).
Unsurprisingly, the multifarious recent developments around the concept of
boundaries have yet to lead to synthetic efforts. Greater integration is desirable because it could facilitate the identification of theoretically illuminating similarities
and differences in how boundaries are drawn across contexts and types of groups,
and at the social psychological, cultural, and structural levels. Whereas empirical
research almost always concerns a particular dependent variable or a subarea of
sociology, focusing on boundaries themselves may generate new theoretical insights about a whole range of general social processes present across a wide variety
of apparently unrelated phenomenaprocesses such as boundary-work, boundary
crossing, boundaries shifting, and the territorialization, politicization, relocation,
and institutionalization of boundaries. We do not pretend to provide such a grand
synthesis in the limited space we have at our disposal: Given the current stage of
the literature, such a summing-up is impossible, at least in a review article format. Instead, we endeavor to begin clearing the terrain by sketching some of the
most interesting and promising developments across a number of disciplines. We
also highlight the value added brought by the concept of boundaries to specific
substantive topics, and we point to a few areas of possible theory building. These
tasks are particularly important because citation patterns suggest that researchers
who draw on the concept of boundaries are largely unaware of the use to which it
is put beyond their own specialties and across the social sciences.
One general theme that runs through this literature across the disciplines is the
search for understanding the role of symbolic resources (e.g., conceptual distinctions, interpretive strategies, cultural traditions) in creating, maintaining, contesting, or even dissolving institutionalized social differences (e.g., class, gender, race,
territorial inequality). In order to capture this process better, we think it is useful to introduce a distinction between symbolic and social boundaries. Symbolic
boundaries are conceptual distinctions made by social actors to categorize objects,
people, practices, and even time and space. They are tools by which individuals
and groups struggle over and come to agree upon definitions of reality. Examining
them allows us to capture the dynamic dimensions of social relations, as groups
compete in the production, diffusion, and institutionalization of alternative systems and principles of classifications. Symbolic boundaries also separate people
into groups and generate feelings of similarity and group membership (Epstein
1992, p. 232). They are an essential medium through which people acquire status
and monopolize resources.
Social boundaries are objectified forms of social differences manifested in unequal access to and unequal distribution of resources (material and nonmaterial)
and social opportunities. They are also revealed in stable behavioral patterns of
association, as manifested in connubiality and commensality. Only when symbolic
boundaries are widely agreed upon can they take on a constraining character and
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pattern social interaction in important ways. Moreover, only then can they become
social boundaries, i.e., translate, for instance, into identifiable patterns of social exclusion or class and racial segregation (e.g., Massey & Denton 1993, Stinchcombe
1995, Logan et al. 1996). But symbolic and social boundaries should be viewed as
equally real: The former exist at the intersubjective level whereas the latter manifest
themselves as groupings of individuals. At the causal level, symbolic boundaries
can be thought of as a necessary but insufficient condition for the existence of
social boundaries (Lamont 1992, Ch. 7).
While the relationship of symbolic and social boundaries is at the heart of the
literature under review here, it most often remains implicit. Whereas the earlier
literature tended to focus on social boundaries and monopolization processesin
a neo-Weberian fashionthe more recent work points to the articulation between
symbolic and social boundaries. In the conclusion, we highlight how a focus on this
relationship can help deepen theoretical progress. We also formulate alternative
strategies through which this literature could, and should, be pushed toward greater
integration in the study of cultural mechanisms for the production of boundaries,
of difference and hybridity, and of cultural membership and group classifications.
If the notion of boundaries has become one of our most fertile thinking tools,
it is in part because it captures a fundamental social process, that of relationality (Somers 1994, Emirbayer 1997). This notion points to fundamental relational
processes at work across a wide range of social phenomena, institutions, and locations. Our discussion focuses on the following substantive areas, moving from
micro to macro levels of analysis: (a) social and collective identity; (b) class, ethnic/racial and gender/sexual inequality; (c) professions, science and knowledge;
and (d ) communities, national identities, and spatial boundaries. Together, these
topics encompass a sizable portion of the boundary-related research conducted in
anthropology, history, political science, social psychology, and sociology. Because
we are covering a vast intellectual terrain, our goal is not to provide an exhaustive
overview but to inform the reader about various trends across a range of fields.
Due to space limitations, we focus on how boundaries work in social relations, and
we do not discuss important developments in the growing literature on cognition
and on spatial, visual, and temporal cognitive distinctions in particular, since these
have been discussed recently in Howard (1995), DiMaggio (1997), and Zerubavel
(1997). Also, given our multi-disciplinary focus, we cover only part of the important sociological literature on changes in boundariesthis topic receives attention
elsewhere (e.g., Tilly 2001).
SOCIAL AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

Over the last twenty years, British and American social psychologists working
on group categorization and identification have been studying the segmentation
between us and them. In particular, focusing implicitly on symbolic boundaries, social identity theory suggests that Pressures to evaluate ones own group
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positively through in-group/out-group comparison lead social groups to attempt

to differentiate themselves from each other (Tajfel & Turner 1985, pp. 1617).
This process of differentiation aims to maintain and achieve superiority over an
out-group on some dimension (Tajfel & Turner 1985, pp. 1617; also Hogg &
Abrams 1988). Hence, in-group favoritism is common, especially among high status groups (Brewer & Brown 1998; for reviews, see Sidanius & Pratto 1999 and
Prentice & Miller 1999).
Social identity theory has been particularly concerned with the permeability
of what we call symbolic and social boundaries and its effect on individual and
collective mobility strategy. It has been argued that perceiving group boundaries
as impermeable makes social change more likely for low-status groups: They then
engage in social competition as opposed to individual mobility (Ellemers 1993).
Moreover, social psychologists show that people adapt to their environment
through cognitive categorization and stereotyping. Also concerned with symbolic
boundaries, Fiske (1998) in particular argues that in-groups and out-groups result
from this automatic process, which generates categorization by race and gender.
It also affects how we account for peoples success and failuresexternal/environmental, as opposed to internal/individual and self-blaming explanations are more
readily used for males than for females (Crocker et al. 1998).
Among sociologists, Jenkins (1996, Ch. 4) work on collective identity complements that of social psychologists. He describes collective identity as constituted
by a dialectic interplay of processes of internal and external definition. On the one
hand, individuals must be able to differentiate themselves from others by drawing
on criteria of community and a sense of shared belonging within their subgroup.
On the other hand, this internal identification process must be recognized by outsiders for an objectified collective identity to emerge (for similar arguments, see
Cornell & Hartman 1997, Ch. 4; Brubaker & Cooper 2000, pp. 1421).
Group boundaries also figure prominently in the work on the role played by
collective identity in social movements (e.g., Taylor & Whittier 1992). Melluci
(1996) emphasizes the centrality of social networks in generating shared definitions
of us/them and in collective mobilization. Similarly, W. Gamson (1992) shows
that the impact of collective identity and group boundaries on the framing of
political issues varies with the composition of the group. For their part, using an
ecological approach akin to Abbott (1995), McAdam et al. (2001, Ch. 5) study
the constitution of social actors through boundaries, which they view as a central
process in contentious politics. Drawing on a large number of historical case
studies, they show how the formation of categories of social actors (what they call
category formation) results from the invention and borrowing of boundaries,
as well as from encounters between previously distinct and competing networks.
Their work complements Tillys (1998) on the production of inequality, which also
concerned mechanisms of social boundary formation.
More work is needed to integrate the psychological, cultural, and social mechanisms involved in this process of boundary construction. Sociologists working on discrimination, such as Reskin (2000), are linking systematic patterns of
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discrimination to nonconscious cognitive processes that bias evaluation based on

status group membership (also Hollander & Howard 2000, DiTomaso 2000). These
authors analyze mechanisms of exclusion at the micro level that translate into
broader patterns of inequality. In their cognitive focus, they are less concerned
with how available cultural schemas and structures (Sewell 1992) frame cognition. Comparative research could play a key role in bringing such cultural schemas
to the fore, to the extent that it aims to highlight patterns of contrast and similarity
(Ragin 1987).
Along the same lines, psychologists generally understand social categorization
and identification as universal social processes. A number of cultural sociologists and anthropologists have been more concerned with the accomplishment
of boundary-work, that is with what kinds of typification systems, or inferences
concerning similarities and differences, groups mobilize to define who they are.
In other words, they are more concerned with the content and interpretative dimensions of boundary-work than with intra-individual processes. For instance,
Newman (1999) analyzes how fast-food workers in Harlem contrast themselves
to the unemployed poor. For her part, Kefelas (2002) analyzes how white working
class people in Chicago define and defend themselves (largely against blacks) in
what they perceive to be an imperiled world, through the care with which they keep
their homes clean, cultivate their gardens, maintain their property, defend the neighborhoods, and celebrate the nation. Cultural sociologists center their attention on
how boundaries are shaped by context, and particularly by the cultural repertoires,
traditions, and narratives that individuals have access to (Lamont 2000, Somers
1994, Swidler 2001). They focus on meaningful patterns of boundary drawing
within and across societies and view them as embedded in the environment, as
opposed to created by atomized individuals. Their work suggests that we need to
address how conceptions of self-worth and group boundaries are shaped by institutionalized definitions of cultural membershipa topic rarely visited by social
psychologists working on the self and identity (as for instance reviewed in Gecas &
Burke 1995; but see Markus & Kitayama 1991 on the self and Reicher & Hopkins
2001 on the historical character of social categorization). This requires considering
how (self-) worth is formed for low and high status groups, and more generally
how it is tied differently to the meanings associated with various group identities
(Rosenfield 1998 is moving in this direction). The latter topic is the object of the
literature on class, race, and gender boundaries.
CLASS, ETHNIC/RACIAL, AND GENDER/SEXUAL

INEQUALITY
Building on Weber (1978), the voluminous scholarship on class, race, and gender inequality analyzes closure between social groups (e.g., Parkin 1974). While
the earlier work centered on closure and social boundaries, symbolic boundaries
have become more central to this literature in the last twenty years. From the
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research on class boundaries, we center our attention on cultural consumption,

class markers, and class reproduction and on how the self is shaped by class inequality because these two topics have generated a particularly large literature
(only partially covered here). The section on ethnic and racial inequality discusses
the institutionalization of classification systems, threats to group positioning, and
ethnic and racial identity. The section on gender and sexual inequality focuses on
how gender and sexual categories shape expectations and work life. These three
sections describe the same fundamental social process at work, that of the relational definition of identity and social position, and stress the need for a more
cumulative research agenda (see also Tilly 1998).
Class Inequality
Particularly germinal in the study of class boundaries has been the work of Pierre
Bourdieu and his collaborators, and especially Bourdieu & Passeron (1972, transl.
1977) who proposed that the lower academic performance of working class children is accounted for not by lower ability but by institutional biases against them.
They suggested that schools evaluate all children on the basis of their cultural
capitaltheir familiarity with the culture of the dominant classand thus penalize lower-class students. Having an extensive vocabulary, wide-ranging cultural
references, and command of high culture are valued by the school system; students from higher social backgrounds acquire these class resources in their home
environment. Hence, lower class children are more strenuously selected by the
educational system. They are not aware of it, as they remain under the spell of
the culture of the dominant class. They blame themselves for their failure, which
leads them to drop out or to sort themselves into lower prestige educational tracks.
Hence, direct exclusion, overselection, self-exclusion, and lower level tracking are
key mechanisms in the reproduction of inequality and social boundaries. They
are generated by symbolic class markerssymbolic boundariesvalued by the
French educational system and are central in the creation of social class boundaries.
In Distinction, Bourdieu (1984, transl. 1984) broadened this analysis to the
world of tastes and cultural practices at large. He showed how the logic of class
struggle extends to the realm of taste and lifestyle and that symbolic classification is key to the reproduction of class privileges: Dominant groups generally
succeed in legitimizing their own culture and ways as superior to those of lower
classes, through oppositions such as distinguished/vulgar, aesthetic/practical, and
pure/impure (p. 245). They thereby exercise symbolic violence, i.e., impose a
specific meaning as legitimate while concealing the power relations that are the basis of its force (Bourdieu & Passeron 1972, transl. 1977, p. 4). They use their legitimate culture to mark cultural distance and proximity, to monopolize privileges, and
to exclude and recruit new occupants to high status positions (p. 31)translating
symbolic distinction into closure. Hence, through the incorporation of habitus or
cultural dispositions, cultural practices have inescapable and unconscious classificatory effects that shape social positions by defining (social) class boundaries.
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Classification struggles to impose the superiority of ones worldview are equally

central to Bourdieus conception of fields, defined as networks of social relations
structured around competition over various stakes, such as academic, artistic, and
literary prestige (e.g. Bourdieu 1984).
A large American literature applying, extending, and assessing the contributions of Bourdieu and his collaborators appeared in the wake of their translation
into English. One important branch focused on cultural consumption and social
reproduction, analyzing how levels of cultural capital and other factors influence
educational and occupational attainment (i.e., social class boundaries) in the United
States and elsewhere. Another branch concerned the process of institutionalization of artistic genres and high culture categories and its relationship with the
organizational and social structural environment (e.g., DiMaggio 1987). A third
one, in a more critical vein, provided systematic empirical evaluation of Bourdieus
work. For instance, Lamont (1992) extended the concept of boundary-work (Gieryn
1983) to identity (p. 233, note 5) to demonstrate the importance of moral boundaries in the culture of the French and the American upper-middle classes.
In contrast to Bourdieus more exclusive focus on cultural capital and social
position, Lamont argued in favor of an inductive, interview-based approach to the
study of symbolic class boundaries to assess the permeability and relative importance of different sorts of boundaries (socioeconomic, moral, cultural) across
national and group contexts. Halles (1993) study of group variations in home decoration in the New York area suggested that art consumption does not necessarily
generate social boundaries and that cultural consumption is less differentiated than
cultural capital theory suggestswith landscape art being appreciated by all social groups for instance. He concludes that the link between involvement in high
culture and access to dominant class circles . . . is undemonstrated (p. 198). In a
theoretical piece, Hall (1992) emphasized the existence of heterogeneous markets
and of multiple kinds of cultural capital. In a critique of an overarching market of
cultural capital, he proposed a cultural structuralism that addresses the multiplicity
of status situations (also Lamont & Lareau 1988).
On the topic of the permeability of cultural boundaries, Bryson (1996), Erickson
(1996), and Peterson & Kern (1996) also suggested that cultural breadth is a highly
valued resource in the upper and upper-middle classes. Hence they contradict
Bourdieus view of the dominant class as essentially exclusive and intolerant of
other class cultures. Bryson (1996) finds that in the United States, musical exclusiveness decreases with education. She proposes that cultural tolerance for a
range of musical genres (anything but heavy metal) constitutes a multicultural
capital more strongly concentrated in the middle and upper classes than in the
lower classes. Erickson (1996) suggests that although familiarity with high-status
culture correlates with class, it is not used in the management of class relations in
the workplace. She writes that in the Toronto security industry, as is the case for
familiarity with sport, the culture useful for coordination is uncorrelated . . . with
class, popular in every class (p. 248) and that the most useful overall cultural
resource is variety plus a well-honed understanding of which [culture] genre to use
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in which setting (p. 249). Peterson & Kern (1996) document a shift in high-status
persons from snobbish exclusion to omnivorous appropriation in their musical
taste. In the United States, these studies all call for a more multidimensional understanding of cultural capital (a type of symbolic boundary) as a basis for drawing
social boundaries, and they counter Bourdieus postulate that the value of tastes is
defined relationally through a binary or oppositional logic.
A number of sociologists are now engaged in analyzing how the self is shaped
by class and is produced through boundaries and differences. For instance, drawing
on extensive fieldwork with poor, working class, and middle class families, Lareau
(2000) shows important differences in childhood socialization across social classes,
with black and white upper-middle class parents explicitly favoring concerted cultivation and the pursuit of self-actualization, as opposed to the natural growth
advocated by working class people. The anthropologist John Jackson (2001) dissects how African-Americans living in Harlem understand and perform symbolic class boundaries in the context of intra-racial relationship. Alford Young, Jr.
(2001) provides a rich analysis of the identity of poor young black men and of
how they account for their distinctive social position in relation to that of others.
These studies point to the role of relationality in the definition of identity. As with
the more recent literature on the fluidity of cultural boundaries, it would be useful
to explore the extent to which this process follows a binary logic as opposed to a
multiplex one. In other words, we need to explore whether identities are defined
in opposition to a privileged Other, or in juxtaposition to a number of possible
others: Symbolic boundaries may be more likely to generate social boundaries
when they are drawn in opposition to one group as opposed to multiple, often
competing out-groups.
Ethnic/Racial Inequality
The concept of boundary has been central to the study of ethnic and racial inequality as an alternative to more static cultural or even biological theories of ethnic
and racial differences. Particularly germinal here was Norwegian anthropologist
Fredrick Barth (1969) who rejected a view of ethnicity that stressed shared culture
in favor of a more relational approach emphasizing that feelings of communality
are defined in opposition to the perceived identity of other racial and ethnic groups
(also Hechter 1975, Horowitz 1985). Among the several recent contributions inspired by this work, Verdery (1994) analyzed how a nation state acts as a producer
of differences and as an internal homogenizer of populations (also Starr 1992). Following Davis (1991) and others, the study of the production of racial and ethnic
classification by the state (at the level of census categories) has become a growth
industry in the United States, and it is a particularly fruitful terrain for studying shifts in the definition of social boundaries. Until recently, these categories
forced people to chose only one racial category, as it assumed that racial groups
were mutually exclusive (Lee 1993). In the last few years, Shanahan & Olzak
(1999) and Gans (1999) have analyzed the factors that are leading to a growing
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polarization between whites and nonwhites: Immigrants are led to identify with the
white population in the defense of their privileged market position or status, which
leads to violence against nonwhites. While intergroup boundaries have attracted
most scholarly attention [see also Liebersons highly original study (2000) of patterns in choice of first names throughout the century], recently Espiritu (2000) has
focused on how moral discourse is used to draw symbolic boundaries within and
between groups. This suggests an intensified dialogue between cultural sociologists and immigration specialists (also Waters 1999, Levitt 2001, Morawska 2001;
in anthropology, Ong 1996).
Among students of American racism, Bobo & Hutchings (1996) adopt a relational logic akin to Barths to explain racism as resulting from threats to group
positioning. However, they follow Blumer (1958) who advocates shift[ing] study
and analysis from a preoccupation with feelings as lodged in individuals to a concern with the relationships of racial groups . . . [and with] the collective process
by which a racial group comes to define and redefine another racial group (p. 3)
This and other contributions (Rieder 1987) point to self-interest as the source of
ethnic conflict and to how such conflicts are tied with closurewith the protection
of acquired privileges. Such dynamics have shaped working class formation in the
United States (Roediger 1991). They are also the object of a growing number of
studies concerned with the study of whiteness as a nonsalient, taken-for-granted,
hegemonic racial category.
This relational perspective resonates with more recent work on racial and ethnic
identity construction that considers how these identities are the result of a process
of self-definition and the construction of symbolic boundaries and assignment of
collective identities by others (Cornell & Hartmann 1997, Ch. 4; also Portes &
Rumbaut 2001). For instance, Waters (1999) examined the repertoires of cultures
and identity that West Indian immigrants bring to the United States as well as their
strategies of self-presentation and the boundaries they draw in relation to AfricanAmericans (p. 12). DiTomaso (2000) also sheds new light on white opposition
to affirmative action by looking at how middle class and working class whites
construct their experiences in the labor market compared to those of blacks, and
particularly whether they and their children receive more help than blacks. Lamont
(2000) analyzes how the broad moral worldviews of workers lead them to draw
racial boundarieswhite workers associate blacks with the poor and lack of work
ethic, while black workers associate whites with middle class egotism. Here again,
the literature is in need of greater systematization, particularly when it comes to
specifying boundary processes, ranging from symbolic boundary-work to how social boundaries are transported by immigrants from one national context to another.
Gender and Sexual Inequality

The literature on gender includes a rich treatment of boundaries defined as the
complex structuresphysical, social, ideological, and psychologicalwhich establish the differences and commonalities between women and men, among women,
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and among men, shaping and constraining the behavior and attitudes of each gender
group (Gerson & Peiss 1985, p. 318).
At the social psychological level, Ridgeway (1997) explains gender inequality in terms of interactional processes and the construction of boundaries. She
argues that we automatically and unconsciously gender-categorize any specific
other to whom we must relate and that when occupational roles are activated in
the process of perceiving a specific person, they become nested within the prior,
automatic categorization of that person as male or female, and take on a slightly
different meaning as a result (1997, p. 220). Hence, male workers are believed to
be more competent than female workers. Those who violate gender boundaries,
concerning appropriate norms for time management for instance, often experience
punishment and stigmatization in the workplace, or even at home (Epstein 2000,
1988)symbolic boundaries translated into social boundaries. Similarly, in her
study of body management on college campuses, Martin (2001) shows how sorority girls and feminist and athlete students are confronted with boundary patrolling
practices concerning hegemonic femininity (a concept she derives from Connell
1987). Earlier studies on the accomplishment of gender are also primarily concerned with the creation of gender boundaries, although they may not explicitly
use this term (West & Zimmerman 1987).
Sociologists have also analyzed the creation of gender-based social boundaries
in organizations and professions (Reskin & Hartmann 1986), focusing on the glass
ceiling (Epstein 1981, Kay & Hagan 1999) and strategies developed to break it
(e.g., Lorber 1984). Boundary maintenance is analyzed through the rules that
apply to men and women working in strongly gendered occupations. For instance,
Williams (1995) shows that in occupations such as nursing, men are given more
leeway than women and move faster up the professional ladder. At a more general
level, Tilly (1998) argues that dichotomous categories such as male and female
(but also white and black) are used by dominant groups to marginalize other groups
and block their access to resources. He extends the Weberian scheme by pointing
to various mechanisms by which this is accomplished, such as exploitation and
opportunity hoarding. He asserts that durable inequality most often results from
cumulative, individual, and often unnoticed organizational processes.
Sociologists have also written on sexual boundaries. For instance, Stein (1997)
analyzes how feminists collectively contested the dominant meaning of lesbianism
and how the symbolic boundaries around the lesbian category changed over the
course of the movements influence: They reframed the meaning [of homosexuality], suggesting that the boundaries separating heterosexuality and homosexuality
were in fact permeable (p. 25) instead of essentialized. Also focusing on symbolic
boundaries, J. Gamson (1998) analyzes how the portrayal of gay people on entertainment television validates middle class professionals and gays who maintain a
distinction between the public and the private, but that it also delegitimizes working
class gay people. Brekhus (1996) describes social marking and mental coloring as
two basic processes by which deviant sexual identity is defined against a neutral
standard.
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Gender and sexual boundaries are a fertile terrain for the study of boundary
crossing and boundary shifting as well as the institutionalization and diffusion of
boundariesprecisely because they have become highly contested and because a
rich literature on gender socialization and reproduction is available. As for the study
of class and racial/ethnic boundaries, there is a need for greater systematization
and theorization concerning these topics. Researchers should also pay particular
attention to the roles played respectively by symbolic and social boundaries in
the making of gender/sexual inequality. While Ridgeway (1997) and Tilly (1998)
make important strides in specifying the cognitive and social mechanisms involved
in gender boundary-work, similar analyses are needed concerning cultural narratives that play a crucial role in the reproduction of gender boundaries [along the
lines developed by Blair-Loy (2001) concerning the family devotion and work
devotion schemas used by women finance executives, or by Hays (1996) a` propos
of the concept of intensive mothering].
PROFESSIONS, SCIENCE, AND KNOWLEDGE

The literature on professions, science, and social knowledge illustrates exceptionally well the usefulness of the concept of boundaries as it is used to understand how
professions came to be distinguished from one anotherexperts from laymen, science from nonscience, disciplines between themselves, and more generally how
systems of classification emerge to bring order in our lives. Focus on these social
boundaries prompts researchers to develop a relational and systemic (often ecological) perspective on knowledge production sensitive to historical processes and symbolic strategies in defining the content and institutional contours of professional
and scientific activity. The notion of boundaries is also an essential tool to map
how models of knowledge are diffused across countries and impact local institutions and identities. Some (Bowker & Star 1999, Star & Griesemer 1989) approach
boundaries as means of communication, as opposed to division, and show that they
are essential to the circulation of knowledge and information across social worlds.
Professions and Work

Research on professions and work includes some of the most influentialand
by now, canonizedresearch on boundaries produced over the last thirty years.
Indeed, the notion of professions originally emerged as a demarcation problem
i.e., a problem of boundariesbetween special and ordinary occupations. The
issue was whether professions should be defined by their particular knowledge
base, as a particular phase in the development of occupations, or as a particular
type of institutional organization giving practitioners control over access, training,
credentialing, and evaluation of performance. The latter view emphasized monopolistic closure (or social boundary drawing) as the defining element of modern
professions (Parkin 1974). This approach argued that the strategies professionals
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used to define and institutionalize the boundaries of the profession against outsiders
constitute the essence of the professionalization project (Sarfatti-Larson 1979).
This conflict-oriented theory incorporated an understanding of professionalization
as a normative framework of social and ideological control (p. 238).
In a similar vein, critical analyses of education examined the credentialing
system as a mechanism through which monopolistic closure in the professions
is achieved. Collins (1979) found a surprisingly weak correlation between the
requirements of educational credentials and the skill/knowledge requirements of
jobs. On the basis of this empirical observation he argued that education serves to
socialize prospective professionals into status cultures by drawing a line between
insiders and outsiders (also Manza 1992, p. 279). Closure models of the professions
show great affinity with, and are in fact integrated into, a more general theory of the
production of inequality through social closure and networks (e.g., Collins 2001).
Abbott (1988) shifted the analytical focus from the organizational forms to
the contents of professional life, and from the struggles of professionals against
outsiders to the struggles of professionals among themselves. In contrast to the
closure model that described professions as a closed system (where a profession is a
clearly bounded natural analytical unit emerging from functional specialization),
Abbott argued that professions constitute an open, ecological system in which
individual professions exist in interdependence. They compete with one another
for jurisdictional monopolies, for the legitimacy of their claimed expertise, thereby
constituting a constantly changing system of professions. This competition usually
assumes the form of disputes over jurisdictional boundaries, i.e., it is waged to
redraw the social boundaries between professions.
The literature on professions has paid less attention to how boundaries between
experts and laymen (e.g., professionals and manual laborers) are enacted in work
situations. Vallas (2001) aims to expand existing research in this direction by
looking at distinctions between engineers and skilled manual workers in six paper
mills at a time of technological change. He sees professional boundaries as resulting
not only from interprofessional competition a` la Abbott, but also from disputes
with subordinates at the workplace, as there is often considerable overlap between
the tasks they are expected to perform. He traces how cultural boundaries in the
form of scientific and technical knowledge (the mark of the trained engineer)
provide a salient mechanism for the production of social boundaries. At the same
time he notes that the deployment of symbolic boundaries is a contested process,
the outcome of which is largely context dependent. His work underscores the
importance of considering the interface between dominant and dominated groups
in the production of symbolic and social boundaries.
Science, Disciplines, and Knowledge

Like professionals, scientists have also wanted to distinguish themselves from amateurs and charlatans by erecting the boundaries of real science. Gieryn (1983)
coined the term boundary-work to describe the discursive practices by which
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scientists attempt to attribute selected qualities to scientists, scientific methods,

and scientific claims in order to draw a rhetorical boundary between science
and some less authoritative, residual non-science (Gieryn 1999, pp. 45; 1983,
p. 781; 1995). He argues that boundary-work is an important resource that translates
into strategic practical action (1999, p. 23) for the purpose of establishing epistemic authority. The drawing and redrawing of the boundaries of science amount
to credibility contests that employ three genres of boundary-work: expulsion, expansion, and protection of autonomy. Expulsion characterizes contests between
rival authorities when each claims to be scientific. In this context boundarywork becomes a means of social control (p. 16), sanctioning the transgression of
the (symbolic) boundaries of legitimacy. Expansion is used when rival epistemic
authorities try to monopolize jurisdictional control over a disputed ontological domain. Finally, boundary-work is mobilized in the service of protecting professional
autonomy against outside powers (legislators, corporate managers) that endeavor
to encroach upon or exploit scientists epistemic authority for their own purposes
(pp. 517).
While Abbott emphasized the objective character of the tasks that create competition to transform professional jurisdictions, Gieryn (1999, p. 16, ftnt 21) stresses
the power (flexibility and often arbitrariness) of interpretative strategies in constructing a space for science in pursuit of epistemic authority. In this instance, he
takes inspiration from the work of historian Robert Darnton (1984) who follows
Enlightenment philosophers in their ambitious endeavor to redraw the boundaries
of the world of knowledge in Diderots Encyclopedie. He shows how Diderot and
dAlembert chose selectively among elements of earlier topographies of knowledge in charting a new line between the known and the unknowable and how
the diagrammatic impulsea tendency to map, outline, spatialize segments of
knowledge has been simultaneously an exercise in power (pp. 19394). Darnton
(1984) with Davis (1975) are two of the most illustrious representatives of a large
literature in cultural history on symbolic distinctions (from the perspective of historical sociology, see also Zelizer 1985) on the construction of children as objects
of affection and sources of labor).
That boundary-work is an immensely useful concept to illuminate the social
organization of scientific knowledge is also demonstrated by its successful applications in a wide range of case studies. Indeed, it also imprints the formation and
institutionalization of disciplines, specialties, and theoretical orientations within
science. Gieryn traces the shifting boundaries of the cartographically ambiguous
place of social science (1999, p. 31) through the debates of the late 1940s that
charted the future legislative terrain of the National Science Foundation. Moore
(1996) examines the contentious boundary between science and politics, showing how activist scientists sometimes successfully play both sides of the fence.
Gaziano (1996) reviews academic debates about the association of biology and
sociology in the wake of the new field of human ecology. Small (1999) compares the practice of boundary-work in emerging disciplines in a case study of
the legitimation of African-American studies at Temple University and Harvard
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University that helps us understand why Henry Louis Gates goes to such length
to oppose afrocentricity. Gal & Irvine (1995) describe the field of sociolinguistics
as institutionalizing differences among languages and dialects and as producing
linguistic ideologies that are an intrinsic part of disciplinary boundaries. Fuller
(1991) surveys the canonical historiography of five social science disciplines. He
contends that disciplinary boundaries provide the structure for a variety of functions, ranging from the allocation of cognitive authority and material resources to
the establishment of reliable access to some extra-social reality (p. 302). These
studies point to the presence of relational (and often political) processes operating
across institutions and contexts.
The analytical focus on boundaries also highlights the countless parallels and
interconnections between the development of the professions and disciplines. The
historian Thomas Bender (1984) argues that the creation of specialized and certified
communities of discourse, a segmented structure of professional disciplines,
was partly triggered by profound historical changes in the spatial organization of
the nineteenth century American city (the locus of intellectuals) that increasingly
emphasized exclusion over inclusion, segregation over diversity. Recent works
on the historical trajectories of social science disciplines in the United States
and Europe document a remarkable variation in national profiles rooted in the
different relationships of the sciences to various parts of society such as the state,
professionals, and markets (Wagner et al. 1991a,b, Rueschemeyer & Skocpol 1996,
Fourcade-Gourinchas 2000).
In contrast to studies that so far treated boundaries as markers of difference,
Susan Leigh Star and her collaborators conceptualize boundaries as interfaces facilitating knowledge production. They use this understanding of conceptual boundaries to explore how interrelated sets of categories, i.e., systems of classification,
come to be delineated. They agree with Foucault that the creation of classification
schemes by setting the boundaries of categories valorizes some point of view
and silences another (Bowker & Star 1999, p. 5), reflecting ethical and political
choices and institutionalizing differences. But they point out that these boundaries
also act as important interfaces enabling communication across communities (by
virtue of standardization, for instance). They coin the term boundary object to
describe these interfaces that are key to developing and maintaining coherence
across social worlds (Star & Griesemer 1989, p. 393). Boundary objects can be
material objects, organizational forms, conceptual spaces or procedures. In the
spirit of the influential material turn in science studies, they argue that objects of
scientific inquiry inhabit multiple intersecting social worlds just as classifications
are also powerful technologies that may link thousands of communities. In their
most recent study, Bowker & Star (1999) apply this analytical tool to understand
how such classification systems as the International Classification of Diseases,
race classification under apartheid in South Africa, the Nursing Intervention Classification, and the classification of viruses make the coordination of social action
possible (on this point, see also Thenevot 1984, Boltanski & Thevenot 1991). They
view classifications as simultaneously material and symbolic, and as ecological
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systems where categories are constructed and often naturalized. The concept of
the boundary object allows them to expand earlier work on the emergence and the
working of classification systems in modern societies (Foucault 1970, Hacking
1992, Desrosières 1993). This concept is particularly important because it underlines that boundaries are conditions not only for separation and exclusion, but
also for communication, exchange, bridging, and inclusion, echoing the theme of
omnivorousness encountered in the literature on class and cultural consumption
(e.g., Bryson 1996, Peterson & Kern 1996).
COMMUNITIES, NATIONAL IDENTITIES,

AND SPATIAL BOUNDARIES
Boundaries have always been a central concern of studies of urban and national
communities. Indeed, following Durkheim (1965), communities have been defined
by their internal segmentation as much as by their external perimeter. Accordingly,
the literatures on symbolic and network-driven communities have focused on these
very dimensions, again pointing to relational processes at work. Similarly, the
recent literatures on national identity and state building have looked at boundaries
and borders to show that place, nation, and culture are not necessarily isomorphic.
They also pinpoint the extent to which national identity, like nation building,
is defined relationally and emerges from dynamic processes of interaction and
negotiation between local and national forces.
Communities
Research on boundary-work and community can be grouped in four categories.
First, there is a long tradition of research, directly inspired by the Chicago School
of community studies, that concerns the internal symbolic boundaries of communities and largely emphasizes labeling and categorization (e.g. Erikson 1966,
Suttles 1968). Anderson (1999), on the poor black neighborhoods of Philadelphia,
points to the internal segmentation of the world he studies, based on the distinctions that are made by respondents themselvesfor instance, between street and
decent people (also Pattillo-McCoy 1999). Among recent studies, several scholars have focused on the symbolic boundaries found within specific institutional
spheres, such as religious communities. For instance, Becker (1999) studies how
religious communities build boundaries between themselves and the public by
analyzing the discourse of larger religious traditions and how local congregations
reconfigure the public-private divide. Lichterman (2001) explores how members
of conservative and liberal Christian congregations define their bonds of solidarity
with various groups, exploring the limits of what he calls their definitions of social
membership.
Second, a number of sociologists tie communities, networks, and meaning systems together (Gould 1995, White 1992, Tilly 1998). For instance, Gould (1995)
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explains changes in the salience of class in collective mobilization in the 1848

French revolution and the 1871 Paris Commune by the emergence of strongly
residential neighborhoods, which made the local community more central in mobilizing individuals by 1871 (p. 28). Hence, while the first revolution activated the
boundary between workers and the bourgeoisie, the second opposed city dwellers
and the state. Gould shows that the appeals of different networks involved in the
production of collective mobilization were responsible for the relative salience of
these identities as bases for recruitment. His model posits that meaningful group
boundaries are predicated on the presence (and perception) of common patterns
of durable ties (p. 19).
Third, there is a growing literature on communities that do not involve faceto-face contacts. According to Calhoun (1991), these indirect relationships include those mediated by information technology, technocratic organizations, and
impersonal markets. They consist of a world of imagined personal connections
through some medium such as television, visual or printed representation, or tradition (Cerulo 1997, Swidler 2001). They can also be large-scale collectivities where
members are linked primarily by common identities but minimally by networks of
directly interpersonal relationshipsnation, races, classes, genders, Republicans,
Muslims and civilized people (Anderson 1983, p. 96). Individuals within such
categorical communities have at their disposal common categorization systems to
differentiate between insiders and outsiders and common vocabularies and symbols through which they create a shared identity. People who share such categories
can be considered to be members of the same symbolic community even if their
living conditions vary in important ways (Hunter 1974, Wuthnow 1989, Lamont
1992, also Calhoun 1991, p. 108).
In American sociology, one finds a large number of influential studies that
deal with symbolic and social boundaries within such communities. For instance,
Gusfield (1963) interprets the nineteenth century American temperance movement
as a creation of small-town Protestants aiming to bolster their social position against
that of urban Catholic immigrants. Along similar lines, Luker (1984) shows that
American anti-abortion and pro-choice activists have incompatible beliefs about
womens careers, family, sexuality, and reproduction, and that they talk past one
another and largely define themselves in opposition to one another. Alexander
(1992) provides a semiotic analysis of the symbolic codes of civic society that
suggests that the democratic code involves clear distinctions between the pure and
the impure in defining the appropriate citizen.
These three lines of work on communities are complemented by more philosophical debates emerging from political theory circles concerning community
boundaries. Over the past fifteen years, communitarians and liberals have time and
again engaged one another over the importance of individual and group rights, pluralism, self-determination, and nationalism (Taylor 1992, Spinner 1994, Kymlicka
1995). A normative discourse about the possibility of liberal nationalism and progressive cosmopolitanism attracted much attention in the context of the heightened
visibility of identity politics (Ignatieff 1993, Tamir 1993, Held 1996). Although
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these debates rarely engage empirical social science research, they are very important to the issue at hand because they address social boundary problems in terms of
political inclusion and exclusion, and they focus on the responsibilities that human
beings have in relation to groups of various others.
A more cumulative research agenda should involve comparing symbolic and
social boundaries within symbolic communities and network-driven communities. It would be particularly important to determine whether these two types of
communities operate similarly; to what extent widely available schemas shape
the drawing of boundaries within face-to-face communities (e.g., Ikegami 2000,
p. 1007); and how boundary-work generated by the media (e.g., Gilens 1999) feeds
into the social boundaries that structure the environment in which individuals live
and work.
National Identity, Spatial Boundaries, Nation Building,

and Deterritorialization
The main object of a growing historical and anthropological literature on national
identity and borders is to break down the long-held assumption about the isomorphism of places, nation, and culture (Rosaldo 1989, Gupta & Ferguson 1992).
Scholars in this vein focus on the place and space of visible and literal borders
between states, and the symbolic boundaries of identity and culture which make
nations and states two very different entities (Wilson & Donnan 1998, p. 2). They
move forward the research agenda launched by Benedict Anderson (1983), which
did not at first explore the specific ways in which individuals and communities
symbolically construct links to the nation.
Borders provide most individuals with a concrete, local, and powerful experience of the state, for this is the site where citizenship is strongly enforced (through
passport checks, for instance). The social experience of borders encompasses formal and informal ties between local communities and larger polities, and hence
constitutes a privileged site for analyzing micro and macro dimensions of national
identity (Lightfoot & Martinez 1995, Wilson & Donnan 1998). This is exemplified by Sahlins (1989) who, in his account of how ethnic Catalans were made
into Frenchmen and Spaniards in the Pyrenees, demonstrates that the formation of
the territorial boundary line and national identities did not merely emanate from
the center but unfolded as a two-way process: States did not simply impose the
boundary and the nation on the local community. Village communities and their
inhabitants also made use of the nation and its boundaries in pursuit of local interests. Along the same lines, anthropologist Michael Herzfeld (1996) compares
formal, state-sponsored discourse and local, intimate discourse about Greek national identity in order to show that the relatively fixed territorial boundaries of
states and shifting symbolic boundaries of nations as moral communities are likely
to be incongruous.
The relational construction of national similarities and differences is particularly
apparent in border regions between nation states. For Borneman, borders convey
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a sense of inherent duality and promote a process of mirror imaging (1992a,

p. 17) where the construction of otherness constantly takes place on both sides
of the border (also Berdahl 1999). Through a sketch of the historical evolution
of the Swedish-Danish border, Lofgren (1999) shows how borders grew increasingly nationalized by the introduction of passports, for instance. The relational
approach used in these studies helps to highlight that national identity overlaps
with other forms of politicized difference such as race, gender or sexuality. It links
the study of national identity to the creation of modern subjects and systems of
social classification (Rosaldo 1989, Verdery 1994, Ong 1996).
Researchers who concentrate on borders (i.e., territorial boundaries) as instrumental in the construction of difference usually examine processes of nation building. For instance, Borneman reconstructs the master narratives of nation building in
East and West Germany after 1945, underscoring that the production of different
nations was a precondition for their claim to legitimate statehood (1992b, p. 45).
While the West German state has successfully constructed a narrative of prosperity
as a basis for a positive national identity, the East German state largely failed to
provide its citizens with a similarly coherent competing narrative. The process of
unification exacerbated problems of national identification as it called into question
a notion that personal identity, home, culture, and nation were discrete, territorially
distinct wholes (p. 58). Glaeser (2000) similarly documents the unification of the
Berlin police to show how the disappearance of the territorial boundary left almost intact the deep divide between former East and West Germans as differences
continue to be reproduced through a myriad of symbolic boundaries (temporal,
sensual, moral, public/private). Drawing on the field of rhetoric, he also points to
basic mechanisms of symbolic boundary-work by which East and West Germans
differentiate themselves from one another, focusing on projects of identifications
of selves based on metaphors, metonymies, and synecdoches (p. 49).
Other studies treat borders as interstitial zones and are largely concerned with
how processes of decolonization, globalization, and transnationalization have increasingly deterritorialized, hybridized, and creolized national identities (for
reviews, see Gupta & Ferguson 1992, Alvarez 1995, Kearney 1995). Anthropologists, joined lately by historians, have mostly concentrated their attention on
the border area between the United States and Mexico as a paradigmatic research
site. They treat the border as a cultural interface between these societies that has
produced a range of multiplex and transnational identities such as Chicano,
Latino, and Hispanic, moving beyond the more monolithic categories of
Mexicans and Americans (Anzaldua 1987, Kearney 1991, Alvarez 1995,
Gutierrez 1999). According to historian David Thelen (1999, p. 441), In this
new perspective borders became not sites for the division of people into separate
spheres and opposing identities and groups, but sites for interaction between individuals from many backgrounds, hybridization, creolization, and negotiation (also
Rosaldo 1989).
Challenges to clearly defined and neatly bounded national identities come in
the form of flows of capital, technologies, goods, and people across national
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borders. The majority of the literature that probes these processes focuses on
flows of people, i.e., immigration and more sporadically on refugees (e.g., Malkki
1995). Baubock (1998) is concerned with the ways in which immigrants introduce
new forms of cultural diversity and a new source of anxiety in several societies.
He examines changes in the language of integration and multiculturalism across a
range of settings and argues that international migrants blur three kinds of boundaries: territorial borders of states, political boundaries of citizenship, and cultural
(symbolic) boundaries of national communities (p. 8). Brubaker (1992) focuses on
how citizenship is defined differently in French and German immigration policy.
He looks at citizenship as a conceptual place where relationship to the other
(i.e., Poles, Jews, Slavs in Germany, North Africans in France) is articulated by
the state. Similarly Zolberg & Long (1999) turn to the incorporation of immigrants in the United States and France. They analyze how in Europe, religion and,
in the United States, language are used extensively to construct symbolic boundaries between us and them. They suggest that boundary crossing, blurring,
and shifting are central to negotiations between newcomers and hosts. Also concerned with classification, Soysal (1994) and Kastoryano (1996) study world- and
state-level classifications to examine how minority/migrant groups are incorporated, often against institutionalized schemes about personhood that are promoted
by international organizations. Finally, research on transnational communities
and diasporas also problematizes the relationship between nation, state, and territory. As immigrants, migrants (including members of transnational and professional elites), refugees, displaced and stateless persons continue to make up
an increasing portion of the world population (Kearney 1995, p. 559, Hannerz
1992). The stranger, the man who comes today and stays tomorrow (Simmel
1971, p. 143) becomes instrumental in redrawing the boundaries of national
identities.
In a somewhat different direction, another line of research analyzes crossnational boundary-making strategies, i.e., how countries define themselves in opposition to one another. For instance, contrasting France and the United States,
Lamont & Thevenot (2000) analyze the criteria of evaluation mobilized across
a range of comparative cases (environmentalism, critiques of contemporary art,
racism, etc.) in France and the United States. They show that various criteria, such
as market principles, human solidarity, and aesthetics, are present within cultural
repertoires of each nation and region, but in varying proportions. These differences
often come to constitute the basis of diverging national identities [e.g., in the case
of the simultaneous anti-materialism and anti-Americanism expressed by French
professionals and managers (Lamont 1992)]. This relational logic also affects policy. For instance, Frances sexual harassment policy is explicitly defined against
what is viewed as American excesses in the realm of political correctness (Saguy
2001). In contrast to anthropologists who stress the decline of the national via hybridization for instance, these sociological studies suggest the persisting salience
of national boundaries at least in the structuration of available cultural repertoires
(also Lamont 2000).
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CONCLUSION: STRENGHTENING OUR

UNDERSTANDING OF THE CULTURAL
DIMENSIONS OF BOUNDARIES
The reviewed literature suggests various typical configurations of symbolic and
social boundaries. An integrative effort is needed in order to find similarities, or
typical configurations, across cases. From this, we will be able to move toward more
general statements about the relationship between symbolic and social boundaries,
including those about the conditions under which certain types of incongruities
between symbolic and social boundaries emerge.
Some of the emerging configurations can be summarily described as follows:
(a) Symbolic boundaries are often used to enforce, maintain, normalize, or rationalize social boundaries as exemplified by the use of cultural markers in class
distinctions (Bourdieu & Passeron 1972, transl. 1977, Bourdieu 1984, Vallas 2001),
or cognitive stereotyping in gender inequalities (Epstein 2000, 1988). (b) Symbolic boundaries, however, are also employed to contest and reframe the meaning
of social boundaries. Fast food workers in Harlem or working class people in
Chicago use symbolic boundaries to combat downward social mobility (Newman
1999, Kefalas 2002). (c) There are also cross-cultural differences in how symbolic
boundaries are linked to social boundaries. The same social boundary can be coupled with different symbolic boundaries as class distinctions in Europe are tied to
the symbolic boundary between high culture and popular culture (Bourdieu 1984),
whereas in the United States they are linked to the symbolic boundary between
omnivores and univores (Bryson 1996, Erickson 1996, Lamont 1992, Peterson &
Kern 1996). Immigrants are also likely to transport symbolic boundaries from one
cultural context to another (Waters 1999, Ong 1996, Morawska 2001). (d ) In some
cases symbolic boundaries may become so salient that they take the place of social
boundaries. This is exemplified by the case of Germany where the disappearance
of social boundaries between East and West Germans was not followed by the
disappearance of symbolic boundaries but rather by intensification of the latter
(Berdahl 1999, Glaeser 2000, Borneman 1992b). Imagined symbolic communities, maintained by new information technologies, are also organized exclusively
by symbolic boundaries as opposed to social network based communities (Cerulo
1997, Swidler 2001).
The study of the interplay of symbolic and social boundaries is just one possible strategy that can be used to highlight the similar analytical concerns of a vast
body of research. Here we briefly sketch three alternative strategies, which can
also be followed in order to systematize and integrate the existing literature. The
first approach could center on the study of the properties of boundaries such as
permeability, salience, durability, and visibility and could investigate the conditions
under which boundaries assume certain characteristics. In the literature on professions and science, as well as in the work of Bourdieu (1984), it is often posited that
identification generally proceeds through exclusion and that boundaries are salient
and mostly have to do with demarcation. Instead Lamont (1992), Bryson (1996),
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Erickson (1996), and Peterson & Kern (1996) have framed this as an empirical
issue by exploring levels of tolerance, exclusion, and cultural omnivorousness.
Along the same lines, the recent anthropological literature has stressed the permeability of social boundaries and hybridization processes. Territorial borders have
come to be conceived as interstitial zones that produce liminality and creolization. Much more needs to be done in terms of exploring the conditions under
which boundaries generate differentiation or dissolve to produce hybridity or new
forms of categorization. Moreover, the porousness of boundaries should be studied
systematically across class, race/ethnic and gender/sexual lines.
The second approach could undertake the systematic cataloguing of the key
mechanisms associated with the activation, maintenance, transposition or the dispute, bridging, crossing and dissolution of boundaries. The reviewed literature
suggests several mechanisms central to the production of boundaries. On the cognitive/social psychological side, for instance, Ridgeway (1997) and Jenkins (1996)
describe processes of stereotyping, self-identification, and categorization. At the
level of discourse, Glaeser (2000) draws on rhetoric to point to mechanisms of identification of the self such as metonymy, metaphor, and synecdoche, and Gieryn
describes the credibility contests in science that take the form of expulsion, expansion and protection of autonomy. Bowker & Star (1999) and Thevenot (1984),
for their part, focus not only on the exclusive aspects of boundaries, but also on
their role in connecting social groups and making coordination possible.1 Just as
Tilly (1998) systematized the mechanisms involved in the production of social
boundaries, there is a need for a more exhaustive grasp of its cultural mechanisms,
as well as of their articulation with social mechanisms and cognitive mechanisms
(on this last point, see also McAdams et al. 2001). Focusing on such abstract mechanisms will help us move beyond an accumulation of disconnected case studies all
too frequent in the research on class, race, and gender. Developing a better grasp
of the difference made by the content of symbolic boundaries in the construction
of cognitive and social boundaries could also be a real contribution from cultural
sociology to other, more strictly social structural, areas of sociological analysis. It
could also add a new dimension to recent attempts to rethink class analysis (Grusky
& Sorensen 1998, Portes 2001).
A third approach could integrate the existing literature by focusing on the
theme of cultural membership. The notion of boundaries is crucial for analyzing how social actors construct groups as similar and different and how it shapes
their understanding of their responsibilities toward such groups (Lamont 2000). In
line with recent studies of commensuration processes that analyze how different
entities compare based on various metrics (Espeland & Stevens 1998), we advocate
1
Symbolic boundaries in the social sciences and humanities disciplines (particularly concerning the content of shared notion of top-notch and less stellar work) is an area of
coordination that has been neglected to date, and that may deeply enrich our understanding
of differences and similarities between the more interpretive and empirically based (as well
as disciplinary and interdisciplinary) academic fields (Lamont & Guetzkow 2001).
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a more elaborate phenomenology of group classification, i.e., of how individuals

think of themselves as equivalent and similar to, or compatible with, others (Lamont
2001b, Lamont et al. 2001); and of how they perform their differences and similarities (Jackson 2001). We need to focus especially on hidden assumptions concerning the measuring sticks used by higher and lower status groups, a topic largely
neglected to date. For instance, we may examine closely how blacks consider themselves as similar to or different from other racial groups, how they go about rebutting racist stereotypes, and when they do so (Lamont & Molnar 2001). We should
also consider the extent to which groups believe that it is necessary for them to take
care of their own kind or adopt a more universalistic stancebased on various
metrics of compatibility and commonness. This would move the study of symbolic
boundaries toward a simultaneous concern for inclusion and exclusion, toward a
sociology of everyday cosmopolitanismto borrow from the vocabulary of political theorists, and toward a sociological understanding of the distribution of
various conceptions and practices of universalisms and particularisms (along the
lines developed by Heimer 1992). It would also provide useful complement to the
voluminous literature on the egalitarian rhetoric produced by anti-classist, antiracist, and anti-sexist social movements in the United States and elsewhere.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank our generous colleagues for their useful comments and suggestions:
Rainer Baubock, Paul Di Maggio, Frank Dobbin, Cynthia Fuch Epstein, Marion
Fourcade-Gourinchas, Tom Gieryn, Paul Lichterman, Dale Miller, Mario Small,
Levent Soysal, Mitchell Stevens, and Art Stinchcombe. We also express our appreciation to Rosa Pizzi for her technical assistance.
The Annual Review of Sociology is online at http://soc.annualreviews.org
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10 Jun 2002

Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2002. 28:16795

THE STUDY OF BOUNDARIES IN THE

Key Words culture, identity, inequality, community, borders

SOCIAL AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

positively through in-group/out-group comparison lead social groups to attempt

discrimination to nonconscious cognitive processes that bias evaluation based on

CLASS, ETHNIC/RACIAL, AND GENDER/SEXUAL

research on class boundaries, we center our attention on cultural consumption,

Classification struggles to impose the superiority of ones worldview are equally

Gender and Sexual Inequality

PROFESSIONS, SCIENCE, AND KNOWLEDGE

Professions and Work

Science, Disciplines, and Knowledge

scientists attempt to attribute selected qualities to scientists, scientific methods,

COMMUNITIES, NATIONAL IDENTITIES,

explains changes in the salience of class in collective mobilization in the 1848

National Identity, Spatial Boundaries, Nation Building,

a sense of inherent duality and promote a process of mirror imaging (1992a,

CONCLUSION: STRENGHTENING OUR

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discrimination. See Gilbert et al. 1998, pp.

ing your friends: universalistic norms about

Kefalas M. 2002. The Last Garden: Culture

Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative

collective conflict in urban America: an assessment of two moments of mass migration,

WG Austin, pp. 724. Chicago: NelsonHall

ormation, the Enlightenment, and European

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