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Erving Goffman's interest in spies and espionage is widely recognized in commentary on his work. Where did this interest come from? While the context of Cold War America provided the broad cultural horizon of this work, deeper roots may be found. Goffman's contact with two University of Chicago professors, Edward A. Shils and Douglas Waples, both of whom served in U.S. intelligence organizations during World War II, also shaped Goffman's interest in the subject. This paper explores these relationships and their connection to Goffman's writings on spies, secrecy, and information control in postwar America. Goffman's view of spies and espionage as analogues to American postwar lives is explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The broadly defined field of stigma research has made enormous advances since the watershed moment created by the publication of Goffman's (1963) influential essay. Advances have been made in the conceptualization of what stigma is, how stigmatizing circumstances differ one from another and what the origins of stigma are thought to be. Beyond this useful expansion of concepts has been a robust development of methods aimed at operationalizing important stigma dimensions. In this commentary I point out how several of the papers in this special issue further elaborate and deepen the concepts and measures that have developed since Goffman. But this special issue goes further by bringing an intergroup relations orientation to bear in a focused way. Like other major advances such as concepts and theories associated with 'minority stress' and 'structural stigma' the current project portends a new set of lenses for further understanding the origins and consequences of stigma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Often known as cynical, contentious, and exhibiting a complicated approach to objectivity, Erving Goffman could also be generous, civil, insightful, open to feminist ideas, and surprisingly political. A 1977 collective feminist writing project led to my conversation with Goffman in 1980 about his ideas on gender, sexism, and feminism. A summary of that conversation is presented, together with my formal reflections then (1980) and now (2013). While documenting the sociological practice of an earlier era, this paper concludes that feminist sociological theory must move beyond its locations in the past and the present into the liberating knowledge of the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Erving Goffman's sociology has enjoyed great popularity and is cited often, the career of his work has been largely confined to other scholars reaping, adapting, and utilizing his concepts. Goffman was opposed to science that just reproduces and orders concepts, and opposed to his students using his concepts as easy tools. Instead, he recommended they train their own horses: While there is much to use in Goffman's work, there is little scholarship that continues the genius of his practical approach. As valuable as Goffman's categories are, his collection practice and his analytical scheme may be even more valuable. On the one hand, they offer an intricate framework for research that is as open as it is directed; on the other hand, they allow researchers to argue freedom from the ever more imposing bad imitations of natural scientific method that threaten to overgrow the social sciences. Together, they allow Goffmanesque work without merely parroting his concepts. This article attempts to outline Goffman's eclectic way of collecting material and his technique for fashioning this material into analyses, reordering this material around different metaphors that make Goffman's contribution distinct. I call Goffman's practical research a flaneur approach, and outline it. The paper then makes an argument for its continuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory paper addresses the intersection of character and social structure by looking at the childhood and youth of Erving Goffman. Drawing from historical and contemporary documents, I reconstruct the social world of Canada between WWI and WWII and Goffman's place in it, identify Goffman's social position as an outsider, and document his early familiarity with dramaturgy. The argument is made that Goffman's formative years illuminate his interest in stigma, showing how stigmatizing circumstances can discredit claims to identity, and suggesting how impression management helps mitigate the discrepancy between a person's real life circumstances and prevailing cultural ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Erving Goffman endorses the veracity of a perduring self. Culling the corpus of his work, recent findings in neurophysiology and cognitive science surrounding the autonomy and mutual determination of emotion, cognition, and social structure are drawn upon when unpacking his highly composite theory. Isolating Goffman's claims about the psychobiological underpinning of the emotionally sentient body and those pertaining to macro and micro-structural determinants, the former, it is argued, champion the coherence of the self insofar as they link cathected feelings to individual desires and inclinations. The latter, conversely, complicate the picture by accentuating the social construction of emotions and the relationship between episodic cognitive operations and multifarious interpretive frames. In the end, however, it is shown that Goffman's macro-structural account, far from being residual, discloses the consistency, and unity of the self occasioned by social proximity and general social norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that a better articulated conception of stigma can enhance the analysis of popular culture. Beginning with the work on stigma by Erving Goffman and other scholars, the article contends that the stigma sometimes attached to the production and consumption of popular culture is distinct from the low status associated with certain forms of popular culture. Unlike low status, stigma discredits cultural forms and practitioners often rendering them problematic. This reassessment of stigma is applied and developed further through a study of comic books, showing the various ways stigma can operate in popular culture. The analysis suggests that stigma significantly impeded the evolution of the comic book as an art form, illustrating the potential negative effects of stigma in popular culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of trust and the concept of access as they affect the relational context in which community research, and research with refugee communities in particular, is conducted. Sociologist Irving Goffman's metaphor of frontstage and backstage behavior is used to illustrate the complexity and importance of developing of relations of trust, and thereby gaining "backstage" access, in communities that are generally closed to outsiders. It is argued that gaining authentic ("backstage") access to refugee communities, as well as other communities that have developed a self-protective insularity, is essential if we are to gather data that accurately reflect the actual beliefs, feelings, and experiences of community members. The paper then examines the puzzling lack of discussion regarding issues of trust, access, and the relational context in the literature on refugee mental health. Explanations for this apparent inattention are sought in the influence of the prevailing scientific paradigm that guides most research with refugees, and that shapes the values of the field's "gatekeepers," the editors and reviewers of scholarly journals. Throughout the paper, key points are illustrated with examples drawn from the author's research with refugees from Guatemala, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intellectual relationship between Erving Goffman and Everett C. Hughes is explored in the context of an apprenticeship model derived from correspondence between the two sociologists. Goffman is identified as a "reluctant apprentice " because his work and his letters to Hughes display a tension between a striking originality and a fidelity to his "master." Three phases of their ambivalent relationship are described and an explanation for Goffman's reluctant acknowledgment of Hughes's influence is briefly explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article concerns UK commercial fruit and vegetable growers' narratives regarding the sustainability of water use for food production. In it we explore their perspectives on efforts by regulators to limit agricultural withdrawals of water from the natural environment in line with EU Water Framework Directive objectives, alongside their views on retailer sustainability commitments. Discourse analysis is used to investigate how the growers contested restrictive regulation, constructed their identities, portrayed other supply chain stakeholders, and conveyed their social relations with them. Using Erving Goffman's theory of frontstage and backstage performances, the implications for the growers' water management decisions and their internalisation of sustainability agendas for water are examined. Whilst the growers gave accounts of purposely misrepresenting their water withdrawal practices and their discourse illustrated significant polarisation between environmental and agricultural interests, their underlying commitment to environmental sustainability was ambivalent, with both anti and pro‐environmental attitudes expressed. The growers also frequently gave critiques of superficial sustainability in fresh produce supply chains. We argue that, given contemporary shifting definitions of agricultural identities, settings in which their construction is negotiated can provide windows of opportunity for conventional growers to engage in genuine pro‐environmental performances that may deepen their assimilation of environmental goals and commitment to sustainable water use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the book "Stigma," by Erving Goffman emphasizes the relative nature of stigma in the society. The term stigma denotes a special kind of relationship between attribute and stereotype. His book tends to focus on absolute and/or major stigmas rather than dealing with more subtle forms of spoiled identity, and more particularly the truly contextual nature of the stigmatizing process to which he alludes. Being superior to others is as problematic and pathological as being inferior. Both sorts of persons are marginal to the social system. Goffman's framework suggests that the reason notions of stigma or deviance even come into play at all is because the goal of most social interaction is presumed to be its smooth running. There are numerous psychological and sociological studies on drinking which concur with the view that excessive drinking and alcoholism in particular pose a serious social problem.

Erving Goffman's work on interaction in everyday life focuses on joint spatio‐temporal and face‐to‐face situations and denies the constitution of social situations via mediatized interaction. In contrast, we argue that shared immersive media such as Social Virtual Reality enable intense, delocalized forms of co‐present interactions that constitute closeness and intimacy. By discussing Goffman in the context of current works that open up his perspective for mediatization, we present an understanding of social situations that focuses on intensity and synchronized embodiment—physical, digital, and corporeal. On the Social VR platform VRChat, synchronized bodies allow for intimate corporeal practices, such as cuddling, dancing, or cybersex. Virtual Reality technology facilitates delocalized forms of affective‐bodily interaction, thereby contributing to the social negotiation of mediatized closeness and intimacy—despite physical distance. Our findings are based on a digital ethnographic analysis of lifeworlds and practices of enthusiast VRChat‐users, combined with qualitative semi‐structured interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: New Orleans has long provided visitors with scenes for the pursuit of what Erving Goffman called "action"—out‐of‐the‐ordinary experiences through which authenticity can be achieved. The founders of the Loose Marbles band came to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to make music at the scene where jazz was born. Their activities created a new scene on Royal Street in New Orleans. With growing success, the Marbles became absorbed into the local musical establishment, but their very success required them to quit the street scene, which subsequently subsided. The essay charts the tension between the apparently spontaneous creation of a "scene" defined by what participants consider authentic action and the inevitable routinization of such scenes in tourist economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces a series of papers on sociologist and author Erving Goffman from the online Erving Goffman Archives published within the issue.

This case study is designed to demonstrate that sociological imagination can feed on personal experience, that research practice interpolates our biographical circumstances, and that a systematic inquiry into the interplay between our professional and everyday life offers a fruitful avenue for sociological analysis. The discussion focuses on Erving Goffman's treatment of mental illness. The argument is made that the evolution of Goffman's constructionist views on mental disorder had been influenced by his family situation and personal experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to show that much of Erving Goffman's writing is crypto-biographical and that key turns in his intellectual career reflected his life's trajectory and attempts at self-renewal. The case is made that Goffman's theoretical corpus reflects his personal experience as a son of Russian-Jewish immigrants who struggled to raise himself from the obscurity of Canadian Manitoba to international stardom. The concluding section describes the Erving Goffman Archives and the contribution that the large database of documents and biographical materials assembled therein can make to biocritical hermeneutics, a research program focused on the relationship between biography, theory, and history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this paper, we explore Goffman's social order in an emergent organisational form featuring global dispersion, technology mediation, and the lack of established structure and routines. In a 14-month case study, we documented practices of ordering, disordering and individual ordering. We propose a processual approach of social order and highlight the importance of identification in social order practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I draw on Erving Goffman's Frame Analysis and Eviatar Zerubavel's sociology of attention to examine social movement communication as attempts to change hearts and minds by changing definitions of social problems. Specifically, I ask: When and how do bystanders entertain affective and cognitive disruptions? By what processes do movement bystanders listen to movements? I conceptualize social movement listening as a set of processes by which bystanders might entertain the affective and cognitive disruptions necessary for considering broader claims and symbols of movement activism. I demonstrate three types of attempts by movement actors to successfully create these listening possibilities: anchoring selves into social movements, accommodating anti‐criticalness, and reversing attentional socialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I consider a particularly puzzling conversational phenomenon: the repetition acknowledgment preface, or RAP, which consists of a brief reference to an earlier telling of a story, or topic of conversation, prior to its repetition (e.g., I was just telling John...). Drawing on the work of Erving Goffman, in particular, and a collection of carefully documented empirical episodes, I identify eleven functions RAPs may serve (intentionally or unintentionally), the circumstantial preconditions for each, and the extent to which RAPs are well‐suited for it, conjecturing that well‐suitedness is a clue to RAPs' original purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hospitalized individuals who are unable to communicate have the right to an empowered surrogate who participates in shared decision‐making. Based on 300 hours of participant observation in an intensive care unit (ICU) and 35 interviews with staff, this article examines shared decision‐making as a negotiated social process of aligning frames of understanding. Drawing from Erving Goffman's concepts of frames (1974) and performance teams (1959), this article shows the interactional strategies ICU clinicians as a team used to bring family surrogates' frame of understanding into alignment with their own assessment that the patient was unlikely to survive. Findings show clinicians maintained authority over end‐of‐life care while also maintaining a process recognized as shared decision‐making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on ethnographic research in a homeless shelter, this article examines how caseworkers navigate an occupation that is often physically and morally trying, and at times, objectionable. Given this context, we examine the ways in which caseworkers identify and define "dirty work," often seen as a source of occupational degradation, according to two main typifications: the physical and the moral. Building on Erving Goffman's frame analysis, we examine the definitional and interactional strategies actors use to transform unpleasant first‐order realities to more valued, meaningful, or workable second order realities, by keying particular frames of meaning. These involve framing dirty work through (1) a professional lens, (2) humanism and egalitarianism, (3) a negotiated interpretation of institutional rules, and (4) the use of humor. We conclude by reflecting on the constructed nature of dirty work, and the importance of framing strategies in the sociology of occupations, suggesting that a more generic application of these ideas may be useful across a number of other social contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a paper which examines Erving Goffman's contributions to the field of sociology, and his work on etiquette and front, and his theory of ceremony. Goffman's disinclination to situate himself within a theoretical heritage or tradition frustrates current efforts to establish his intellectual genealogy. He rebuked those who would attempt to lie him down to one tradition or approach, and he rejected the term symbolic interactionism, the intellectual movement with which he is often associated. Some researchers have sought to compensate for these difficulties by examining Goffman's citations, believing that this practice would yield answers to questions of influential figures. Others who were able to ask Goffman himself, have published their revealing interviews. Still others have offered creative reconstructions of the stages of Goffman's intellectual development. Yet, however rich and varied the influences on Goffman may have been, the literature continues to point to the intellectual centrality of Goffman's Chicago years. Etiquette provides one clue to understanding the social adjustments in personal relations reached in any one historical era. In a world of social and personal differences, of mutual and antipathies, etiquette operates as both a principle of social order and an index of the stability of the society in which it exists.

This article is an attempt to evaluate the contribution of the late Erving Goffman to the field of Sociology. In doing so I have attempted to document some of the main commentaries upon Coffman's work — especially those of A. Dawe and A.W. Gouldner — and to evaluate their validity. This paper is presented within the framework of a general overview of Goffman's work and an elaboration of some of the salient themes within it. The intention of the author is to free Goffman from some of the crude overgeneralizations that his colleagues have used in evaluating his writings. In particular, I have attempted to show, in general terms, how Goffman's work is sensitive to ‘structural’ as well as ‘situational’ concerns and also to class, hierarchy and power. It is argued that Goffman's importance has been underestimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approaching the topic of American leader-image from the perspective of politics as-theater (political communication as exchange of symbols), this paper examines a taken forgranted visual symbol which a national political leader is invariably expected to present: a wife. Her contributions to her husband's "impression management" techniques (Goffman, 1959) are studied in Goffman's "defensive" categories of dramaturgical loyalty, dramaturgical discipline, and dramaturgical circumspection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Harold Garfinkel and Erving Goffman have demonstrated the utility of the interactionist approach for the study of sex and gender. This paper proposes some hypotheses and research strategies for complementary interactionist studies of the gender development process. A review of previous research and clinical data concerning feminized boys that patterns of caregiver-infant interaction and caregivers' use of sex-designating verbal labels provide the basis for gender identity formation. The child then actively seeks to confirm this identity through social interaction and, thereby, learns to express gender. Some prominent theories of gender development and some important aspects of the child's learning of gender expression are briefly reviewed. A hypothesized sequence of gender development and suggestions for its empirical investigation are offered in conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: agency; audiences reading stigma; emotions; Goffman; marginalizing stigma But Goffman does not give us the answer, and because most stigma studies focus on marginalizing stigma, we do not know much about groups and persons that are able to fight stigma or about situations of Teflon stigma.[5] In addition to providing an overview of critical readings of Goffman, Tyler's work is also relevant because of her radical analysis of I Stigma i and Goffman. (2) This explanation sometimes overlaps with the first one: the meaning of stigma is taken for granted and does not need to be defined with the help of a reference to Goffman's I Stigma i or any other publication (Stafford and Scott [34]). Looking at cases beyond marginalizing stigma and using Goffman's broad definition of stigma might help us to understand the workings of stigma from a different angle. [Extracted from the article]

It is now possible for individuals and businesses to hire a service to inscribe, by hand, the greeting cards they send. Based on a content analysis of Web sites that provide this service, and drawing from the ideas of Erving Goffman, I argue that beyond simply writing cards for their clients, what these providers ultimately offer them is the ability to be presented as someone who performed a particular presentation ritual (i.e., the sending of a card with a personal inscription) for another when, in fact, they did not. This can be seen in terms of how outsourced inscriptions are presented as ones that have not been outsourced and/or how many providers employ defensive practices seemingly designed to prevent recipients from discovering that an inscription was outsourced. As such, a kind of misrepresentation seems necessary if outsourced inscriptions are to have all the instrumental and symbolic benefits the providers of this service claim they offer. Some key implications and consequences of this kind of misrepresentation are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on nerdiness in popular culture and social performances. Topics discussed include citing of author Erving Goffman's works; clash between singers Kanye West and Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2009; role-playing by nerds in the popular culture; and Swift called as a nerd and socially awkward. Other topics include nerd music of singers like Buddy Holly and Elvis Costello; and TV program "Pitch Perfect" and sociology of pop culture.

The authors explore how framing theory and the method of frame-reflective discourse analysis provide foundations for the emerging discipline of serious games ( SGs) research. Starting with Wittgenstein's language game and Berger and Luckmann's social constructivist view on science, the authors demonstrate why a definitional or taxonomic approach to SGs is problematic and unfruitful. Using Goffman's frame analysis as an alternative, they construct four frames, with sample illustrations, demonstrating the different ways in which the utility of games for society, business and politics is considered. These are SGs as: (1) tool (therapy, drug), (2) innovation (economic utility), (3) persuasion (idea, belief) and (4) self-organization (complexity). The frames are based upon different values and perceive different impacts of games in society, business and politics. The authors discuss the implications of their approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on ethnography and discusses observations of ethnographers on ethnography. Topics discussed include conceptual understanding of sociological theory at the Harvard University, Massachusetts, in the 1930s, ethnographer Erving Goffman that raises issue of thinking Asylums as an ethnography of Saint Elizabeth's hospital in Massachusetts and history of ethnographic research in sociology.

This article examines the importance of setting as a factor shaping college students' dating and sexual behavior using a Goffmanian framework to explore how U.S. students interpret a vignette describing a casual heterosexual encounter at a party followed by a sexless dinner date. Rather than simply follow generalized cultural scripts, students indicate that college heterosexual encounters are guided by standardized patterns of behaviors based on the distinct settings and roles associated with each situation. Students view sexual behavior as appropriate to being a partygoer but unsuitable to being on a date. As such, hooking up with a stranger at a party can be more appropriate than having sex with the same person on a first date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article revisits Erving Goffman's important yet neglected metaphor of 'cooling the mark out.' Drawing on a study of mothers whose child has Down's syndrome, I explore the value of Goffman's work for capturing how mothers interpret their child's diagnosis as a loss and rectify this breach by constructing an acceptance of their new situation. The mothers' accounts highlight how Goffman's contentions can be enriched by acknowledging the gendered, temporal, and public character of a loss. This article, thus, can be read both as a celebration and critical revision of his theoretical contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A reprint of the article "The Importance of Being Erving--Erving Goffman 1922 to 1982" which appeared in Volume 5, Issue 3 of "Sociology of Health & Illness" is presented. It discusses the career and contributions of sociologist and author Erving Goffman to the field of sociology. It describes the peculiarities of Goffman, his view of the social sciences and attitude towards data.

This essay is based on my encounters with Erving Goffman as his student at Penn in the 1970s. It concerns Goffman's largely self-orchestrated 'place' at Penn in various respects: his uneasy relationship with the Penn sociology department despite his academic fame; his disenchantment with 'mainstream' sociology; his calibrated interactional style as a 'profane jester,' offset by his thoughtful seriousness as a mentor; his classroom deportment and no-nonsense teaching style. Goffman's casual classroom use of unseemly epithets is discussed as a pedagogical device for demonstrating the stigmatizing power of language. Goffman's suggestions for possible field-site studies contrast with his commentary on the current state of sociology and, by implication, his place in it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of ten months of fieldwork studying a role-playing guild in the game World of Warcraft, this article shows that contrary to the idea that virtual worlds are seductive illusions, technology does not necessarily support players' feelings of being immersed in fictional worlds. Applying Goffman's frame theory, the author explains how role-players in the game actively upkey elements from primary frameworks in order to create and uphold the frame of being in a fictional world. This kind of narrative immersion is rather hindered than facilitated by technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Erving Goffman was a master of the long essay, a genre comparatively rare in contemporary sociological and anthropological writing. While there is a steadily expanding secondary literature on Goffman, few of his commentators have provided close readings of individual essays. This article offers close readings of 'Where the action is' and 'Normal appearances' to demonstrate the potential of this approach to the analysis of Goffman's oeuvre. Résumé Erving Goffman était un maître de l'essai long, genre relativement peu répandu dans l'écriture sociologique et anthropologique contemporaine. Bien que de nouvelles publications lui soient régulièrement consacrées, rares sont, parmi ses commentateurs, ceux qui ont donné une lecture détaillée de ses différents essais. L'auteur propose ici une lecture attentive de Where the action is et Normal appearances, dans le but de démontrer l'intérêt potentiel de cette approche dans l'analyse de l'œuvre de Goffman. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the identities that may be constructed by upper primary aged pupils during silent reading sessions. The findings presented are taken from a 2-year ethnographic case study, which investigated how four dyslexic pupils, aged 10–11 (Y5–6), coped with the classroom reading they encountered at a large primary school in northern England. The theoretical aim was to integrate the psychological concept of dyslexia with a socio-cultural view of literacy development and an analytic framework was developed using symbolic interactionist theory. Here ideas on presentation of self, formulated by Erving Goffman, are introduced and his notion of impression management is used as a lens through which to discuss what happened when the pupils were put in the position of having no choice but to engage with texts that were too difficult for them to read independently. I focus on the silent reading sessions that were a regular feature of their Literacy lessons and introduce a typology of reader identities. Evidence from systematic observations, supplemented with that from narrative observations and interview transcripts, is used to illustrate the four types - interested reader, uninterested reader, interested dissembler and uninterested dissembler– and the implications for literacy development are drawn out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors reflect on sociologist author Viviana Zelizer's book "The Purchase of Intimacy". They suggest that the author should have improved on Erving Goffman's analysis in the book and that her critique of hostile worlds arguments does not go far enough. They argue that the author does not show how hostile worlds ideas serve the settings of boundaries.

Erving Goffman was certainly one of the most influential sociologists of the post-World War II era. As citation data from Social Science Citation Index and other sources indicate, interest in Goffman remains high both within sociology proper and in an ever-expanding number of disciplines across the social sciences and humanities as each "discovers" Goffman and begins to assimilate his writings into their respective disciplinary canons. In the article, an evaluation of Phillip Manning work on Goffman has been presented. The major contribution of Manning's book is that it argues convincingly for and illustrates explicitly the centrality of Goffman's microsociology for contemporary sociology. Manning has contributed a sense of stability to Goffman's concepts and nascent general theory of copresence by distilling from his writings four broad assumptions consisting of situational propriety, involvement, accessibility, and civil inattention. Manning's SIAC schema is an important step forward in the ongoing effort to order Goffman's somewhat episodic insights into a coherent whole.

This article identifies the cognitive bases for exasperated, enthusiastic and ambivalent reactions are identified, by way of an examination of one of his most influential ideas, the concept of the total institution. In the Weberian definition the modern state is identified as a compulsory association with a territorial basis in which the system of order is binding to a very large extent over all action taking place in the area of its jurisdiction. For K.R. Popper, the criterion for a totalitarian state is that its might must permeate and control the whole life of the people in all its functions. Yet S.I. Benn and R.S. Peters, in referring to the democratic state as an umpire deciding between conflicting claims, describe it as the only association exercising an all-embracing jurisdiction within a given territory. What is thus implied is that same place, same authority and all aspects of life are ambiguous phrases. In practice, E. Goffman so defines same place as to accommodate prolonged solitary confinement on the one hand, and enjoying the sunshine in the extensive grounds of a T.B. sanitorium on the other.

The article discusses the contribution of writer Erving Goffman in the field of medical sociology. Medical sociology like almost every other branch of the discipline, has still. to assimilate his study of the microstructure of interaction, the relationship of both individuals and society to that structure, and of the methods he used in the study. There is a discrepancy between his reputation in various sub-disciplines and his overall status as a sociologist. Within fields such as medicine and deviance he has a clear and solid fame. Here even his radical critics have acknowledged the importance of his work. The same can hardly be said for the rest of his output. If his moral stance produces one set of problems, his principal topic creates another. "Asylums" and "Stigma" concentrate on institutions and persons and, though they do this in a novel fashion, the subjects are familiar enough. But the matter on which he has mainly focussed has been, very broadly speaking, that of manners and this is an unusual topic for a sociologist, and one with a slightly decadent feel to it, at least in contemporary society. The notion that "manners maketh man" may have been commonplace in Medieval, Renaissance and even Victorian times, but it seems odd to think so now when "mannered" is a term of abuse.