CHAPTER XIV
INTERACTION BETh1EEN SOCIAL STRUCTURES AND THE
WORLD OF MEANING - STRELLEY
14.1 Introduction
It was proposed to organize the study of the social construction
of reality and the location of identity into three areas.
• ∙ ,
Area I examined the models of worlds of meaning, ’’society’s
general knowledge about the world raised to the level of theoretical
thought”.
In this chapter it is proposed to examine Model I, Strelley,
within the parameters delineated for Area II, namely the interaction
between typifications as social structures, and worlds of meaning.
Berger and Luckmann point out that ’’the reality of everyday
life contains typificatory schemes in terms of which others are
apprehended and ’dealt with' ” (Berger and Luckmann, 1966:45).
The social reality of everyday life is thus apprehended
in a continuum of typifications which are progressively
anonymous, as they are removed from the ’here and
now’ of the face-to-face situation .... Social
structure is the sum total of these typifications
and of the recurrent patterns of interaction established
by means of them (Berger and Luckmann,
1966:48).
The issue now to be addressed is that of establishing the
typifications constructed by the Strelley Mob, and the ways in which
members interact with these typifications to construct a social
world.
The ’world’ of Strelley will be examined to ascertain whether
the social structure results from interaction within this world,
(and thus the conceptualisation of Strelley as an Aboriginal world
contiguous to white society is supported), or whether the ’world’