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The labeling perspective has been one of the most influential in the field of deviance over the past two decades. Firmly rooted in the thought of George Herbert Mead and Herbert Blumer, it is also referred to as the interactionist approach. The purpose of this paper is to move the interactionist perspective on deviance beyond political debate and piecemeal research to a slight measure of theoretical consensus. First, the development of the perspective will be reviewed (examining the separate strands of symbolic interactionism, interactional conflict, and phenomenological sociology). Second, an interactionist model of the components of social deviance will be presented (a total of eight components will be developed). Finally, important conceptual distinctions will be noted on the basis of the proposed model. Included here are moral entrepreneurs, primary and secondary deviance, role engulfment, and master status. The interactionist tradition is the heart of deviance theorizing. Clear conceptualization is needed to draw its various strands together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies an emergent form of behavior in disaster events which is defined as deviant by the victims of a disaster. The form of behavior described here is referred to as recreational convergence. It is emergent in the sense that it results from the propensity of individuals to converge on a disaster situation in interaction with the mass availability of a new technological product, the recreational vehicle. Such behavior is viewed in light of the labeling perspective relative to deviancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]