Holding the line: The Social Conditions For Making Oneself Coherent

Social science researchers often encounter individuals who can articulate a highly developed discourse about their lifestyle, which they frame as being centered around a “line” of political or religious conduct. This volume revisits the process through which these respondents work to achieve coherence in their lives, drawing on the tools of dispositional sociology. The focus is specifically on the socialization processes that shape this work of self-coherence, considering both the institutions that facilitate this process and the dispositions that enable self-reformation – what these dispositions entail and how they are developed. This introduction first highlights the social exceptionalism of these intense commitments to “being coherent”, and examines how the studies in this volume address both the reorganization of individual practices and the rationalizations behind them. Four key dimensions are explored in greater depth: the various forms of institutional “envelopment” experienced by those striving for coherence; the personal work they undertake to achieve it; the social and professional contexts in which they are situated; and the crises and adjustments that punctuate their commitment.