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This paper revisits Erving Goffman's Frame Analysis fifty years after its publication. The paper first situates this book within the context of its intellectual precursors, namely Georg Simmel's 1917 essay “Sociability,” Alfred Schutz's 1945 article “On Multiple Realities,” and Gregory Bateson's 1955 paper “A Theory of Play and Fantasy.” It then examines the book's three main themes, namely framing, keying, and disattention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excerpted from my book Generally Speaking, this paper introduces "concept‐driven sociology," a special way of theorizing designed to reveal abstract social patterns. As such, it examines the methodological process by which we can "distill" generic patterns from the culturally, historically, and situationally specific contexts in which we encounter them. It thus champions a "generic sociology" that is pronouncedly transcontextual (transcultural, transhistorical, transsituational, and translevel) in its scope. In order to uncover generic, transcontextual social patterns, we need to collect our data in a wide range of social contexts. Such contextual diversity is manifested multi‐culturally, multihistorically, multisituationally, as well as at multiple levels of social aggregation. True to its message, the book illustrates generic social patterns by drawing on numerous examples from diverse cultural contexts and historical periods and a wide range of diverse social domains, as well as by disregarding scale. Emphasizing cross‐contextual commonality, concept‐driven sociology tries to reveal formal "parallels" across seemingly disparate contexts. The paper features the four main types of cross‐contextual analogies concept‐driven sociologists tend to use—cross‐cultural, cross‐historical, cross‐domain, as well as cross‐level—disregarding conventionally noted substantive differences in order to note conventionally disregarded formal equivalences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper represents a sociological approach to autism spectrum disorder that critiques the terms neurodiverse and it obverse, neurotypical, because they promote a cognitive approach that mystifies what is actual and real about human activity in everyday life. It is in dynamic interactional practices rather than putative cognitive states that human diversity is manifest or observable. The empirical part of the paper, following Bleuler, defines and examines “autistic talk” as a turning away from the ordinary social world or commonsense “reality,” and engaging self‐oriented practices and orientations. However, the range of participants who produce such talk is not confined to those on the putative autism spectrum. Rather, that range encompasses the entire human span. If so, then a question is raised about what autism is as a “condition,” which term individualizes social difficulties rather than appreciating that they are always about diverse social actions‐in‐interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online interactions constitute an ever‐larger part of our everyday lives. However, due to its roots in the study of face‐to‐face encounters, micro‐sociology tends to consider online interaction as a weak substitute for its physical counterpart. The aim of this paper is to critically assess and further develop one of the most influential micro‐sociological theories: Randall Collins' interaction ritual (IR) theory. To this end, we conducted a qualitative, two‐month, longitudinal study of six World of Warcraft players. The players were both interviewed and video‐observed while playing, in order to grasp the emotional and behavioral dimensions of their online IRs. Contrary to the prediction of IR theory, results showed that successful IRs with a high level of collective effervescence do take place in World of Warcraft. As such, the online IRs produced the ritual outcomes of group solidarity, emotional energy, symbols of membership, and standards of morality, which persisted for weeks. Our results add to the emerging evidence that IR dynamics may involve similar social processes in online and offline encounters. This suggests that IR theory, and micro‐sociology more broadly, should place less emphasis on bodily co‐presence when theorizing the realm of online interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on an ethnographic study of how domesticity is enacted and adapted at homeless shelters for determining which clients are “service worthy .” The study draws on nineteen placement meetings with homeless men and focuses on institutional mechanisms for encouraging homemaking skills or domesticity among clients. Adapting Robert K. Merton's typology of adaptations to social norms, as well as Jaber Gubrium's “task‐designated identity,” we showcase male clients' self‐presentation strategies for adapting to the institutional mandates of domesticity. Specifically, our qualitative analysis reveals four modes of task adaption: (1) task conformity by professing the desired norms in their service encounters, (2) task evasion to avoid conversations and related tasks, (3) task transformation by linking the task at hand with something other than originally intended, particularly by reframing biographies to meet the local goals of domesticity, and (4) task protestation, which involves questioning the rationale and necessity of assigned tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper further develops the interactionist notion of passing from a disability studies perspective. Drawing on central disability studies journals' archives in the course of a theoretical PhD project that explores disability studies' theorizing of emotions, passing emerged as one of several issues of emotional relevance in the context of disability—more specifically, as one among several strategic negotiations of feelings in a dis/ableist society. When rethinking passing through the lens of disability, a more nuanced typology emerges; three different ways to negotiate the visibility of one's disability status in order to manage the public impression. I discuss my terminological choices to acknowledge how disabled people strategically negotiate visibility to avoid being made to feel unpleasant in a dis/ableist society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Erving Goffman's concept of framing is one of his most enduring contributions to social science. Despite the canonical status of Frame Analysis (1974) in multiple fields, few acknowledge its intellectual engagement with animal studies. It was Gregory Bateson, in an analysis of animal play, who first posited the idea of frames as metacommunicative propositions that signal the meaning of behavior. In this paper, we show that Goffman did not just opportunistically borrow the idea of framing from Bateson, but also advanced Bateson's thesis that nonhuman animals are capable of (re)framing the meaning of behavior. He emphasized that animals and humans could meta‐communicate with each other as well. Goffman polemicized against human exceptionalist theories of cognition and communication—not only in Frame Analysis, but also in unpublished remarks he delivered at a controversial conference on animal communication, and he suggested that the ability to meta‐communicate is a more appropriate index of mind than language. Although new research indicates that many species use “significant symbols” and have a “theory of mind,” most interactionists have not reckoned with the sociological implications of animals as “minded” social actors capable of metacommunication with each other—and with people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moral aspects are closely related to psychiatric assessment. Personality disorders, especially, form a morally loaded category, as the diagnostic process involves questioning behaviors that go against social norms. Consequently, being interviewed about these matters may be face‐threatening for the patients. However, the study of the role of morality in psychiatric face‐to‐face interactions has been scarce. This paper explores how the patients and nurses orient themselves to moral matters during personality disorder interviews in two Finnish psychiatric outpatient clinics. This article uses Erving Goffman's frame theory to differentiate how different orientations come into play during the interviews. Conversation analysis forms the methodological basis for the work. In personality disorder interviews, it is possible to observe information‐gathering, moral, and everyday interaction frames. The nurses have different approaches in receiving the patients' moral considerations. They may maintain a rather neutral approach, but there are also cases of both challenging tones and more supportive and affiliating responses. Making visible how moral themes are discussed in real life enables a nuanced evaluation of psychiatric practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]