Formalism and generalization in the sociological forms of Simmel and Schutz’s strangers

Abstract

This work critically analyzes the sociological forms of Georg Simmel and Alfred Schutz’s strangers. Both authors, each in their own way, and true to their style, wrote about immigrants and immigration in a manner which was influenced by their own biographies. This influence reveals itself in their sociological understanding of the stranger as a social type, however both works feature excessively formalist definitions that do not touch upon the wealth of the communication involved in the relationship between the cultural native and the stranger. The potential for cognitive innovation and epistemological advances facilitated by the phenomenon of immigration therefore remain unexplored. The work departs from a comparative analysis between these key works by both authors in their treatment of this relationship.