Doing Equality: The Interactional Accomplishment of Non-Hierarchical Social Organization
Doing Equality: The Interactional Accomplishment of Non-Hierarchical Social Organization Wayne Martin Mellinger, Ph.D. · Oct 4, 2026 I. How Do We “Do Equality”? Nearly two decades ago, while teaching group dynamics at Antioch University Santa Barbara, I began asking a deceptively simple question: How do we “do equality”? The question emerged partly from dissatisfaction with the way social psychology and organizational studies conventionally approached leadership, decision-making, and group behavior. Much of the literature I was teaching treated hierarchy as an ordinary feature of organizations. There were leaders and followers, managers and workers, experts and clients, teachers and students. The interesting questions concerned which leadership styles worked best, how authority could be exercised effectively, or how groups could make better decisions. Less attention was given to a more radical possibility: What happens when people deliberately attempt to organize themselves without hie...