On Recognition and Relationships

This manuscript elaborates on my earlier publication in JTSB, in which I first proposed Composition Theory. It is a draft chapter on the social relationship formations discussed in that article, with particular emphasis on recognition as the mechanism through which actors accomplish relationships with one another. The chapter builds on Crossley’s definition of relationships, outlining the processes by which they are composed through recognitional transactions that involve the enactment of identification narratives. The dynamic of narrative identification draws on Paul Ricoeur and Hannah Arendt.