Everyday Interaction as Collective Performance: Towards a Theory of Implicit Synchronization

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to propose the concept of synchronization as a minimal temporal quantum of social interactions. For this, the author turns to the sociological concepts of synchronization and places them on the "macro/micro" continuum. The author systematically moves from macrotheories to theories of everyday life, discovering a feature common 98 to macrosociological theories of synchronization along the way: the object under study is not an independent phenomenon, but acts as nothing more than a manifestation, a sign of something else (requiring study from the point of view of a macrosociologist). However, when moving to theories that study everyday interactions here-and-now - a similar substitution is found: synchronization turns out to be subordinate to the logic of practices, frames, ethnomethods, and acts only as their predicate. The key question for the author is whether it is possible to keep “microsynchronization” in focus at all, avoiding its reduction to other phenomena? In an attempt to answer this question, the author makes a distinction between explicit and implicit synchronization using examples of interaction between a conductor and a musical orchestra (explicit) and interactions between drivers and pedestrians at unregulated intersections (implicit). And if in the case of the first, its key characteristics are easily detected (collectivity, transcendence, centralization), then the second one turns out to be “invisible” and appears only as a mechanism for ordering interactions in time. In other words, the author shows that synchronization is found at the very foundation of interactions, that is, it serves to maintain the process of mutual tuning and the temporal coordination here-and-now.