Gary Alan Fine is the James E. Johnson Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University. He has written many books, including, most recently Talking Art: The Culture of Practice and the Practice of Culture and Players and Pawns: How Chess Builds Community and Culture, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

"Fine’s new book… offers a theoretically informed research agenda for thinking about the local in a social media saturated global world. It is compelling [and] well written, and [it] opens up a range of new possibilities for research."

• Introduction: A Mesoworld1. Coordination: The Dynamics of Collaboration and Commitment2. Relations: Friendship and the Politics of Sociability3. Association: Bonding, Banding, and Bridging4. Place: Performance and Solidarity5. Conflict: Scratching Consensus’s Veneer6. Control: Patrolling Civil Society7. Extensions: Tiny Publics and Distant WorldsConclusion: Circuits of ActionAfterword: The COVID HingeNotesBibliographyIndex

Gary Alan Fine is the James E. Johnson Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University. He has written many books, including, most recently Talking Art: The Culture of Practice and the Practice of Culture and Players and Pawns: How Chess Builds Community and Culture, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

"Fine’s new book… offers a theoretically informed research agenda for thinking about the local in a social media saturated global world. It is compelling [and] well written, and [it] opens up a range of new possibilities for research."

• Introduction: A Mesoworld1. Coordination: The Dynamics of Collaboration and Commitment2. Relations: Friendship and the Politics of Sociability3. Association: Bonding, Banding, and Bridging4. Place: Performance and Solidarity5. Conflict: Scratching Consensus’s Veneer6. Control: Patrolling Civil Society7. Extensions: Tiny Publics and Distant WorldsConclusion: Circuits of ActionAfterword: The COVID HingeNotesBibliographyIndex