Brown on Sociality and the Social^*

Theorists and theory have lost their way, and Brown offers some guidelines for reviewing and finding new ways of writing. Brown seeks the social that which is left out and is implicit. My concern here is with the role of the tantalizing “actor” in theorizing: perhaps a puppet on a structural string, a bundle of emotions, a strategic actor employing tactics of assertion or a rational chooser. Brown correctly argues in my view that the actor is a momentary social creation. Thus, what is said about the actor implies what is not said and the dubious value of “words.” Although the body, first captured by Mauss (1968), remains a shadow figure in current thinking and not cited by Brown, I argue it acts without words. I cite studies of Manning and Fabrega summarized in Psathas (1973) to display the crosscultural relevance of the self-body connection as evidence of the situated nature of the actor and the meaning of the body in time and space.