Herbert Blumer

Herbert Blumer

Herbert George Blumer (March 7, 1900 – April 13, 1987) was an American sociologist whose main scholarly interests were symbolic interactionism and methods of social research. Believing that individuals create their own social reality through collective and individual action, he was an avid interpreter and proponent of George Herbert Mead’s work on symbolic interactionism. An ongoing theme throughout his work, he argued that the creation of social reality is a continuous process. Most scrutinized for his negative critiques of positivistic social research, Blumer insisted that valid sociological research methods are based in naturalistic observation and in-depth participant observation.