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Do Goffman Studies Exist?

2023; Wiley; Volume: 46; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/symb.658

1533-8665

Karl Lenz,

Philippine History and Culture

The Routledge International Handbook of Goffman Studies Edited by Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Greg Smith (Routledge, 2022) The year 2022 commemorates two special events in Erving Goffman's life trajectory: his 100th birthday and the 40th anniversary of his death. Such momentous occasions usually are cause for increased publications in the academic book market, especially for books that are expected to find high resonance. Thus, Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Greg Smith have published a Handbook on Goffman Studies in the renowned Routledge International Handbook series, which currently comprises almost 500 volumes that extend far beyond sociology. Both editors have an international reputation as excellent Goffman scholars for many years. Greg—his full first name is Gregory W.H.—Smith, has taught at the University of Salford (UK) until his recent retirement. Already in his 1989 dissertation Smith considered a Simmelian Reading of Goffman. Out of his numerous books and essays on Goffman, I will only mention here the four-volume collection of essays on Goffman's work, co-edited with Gary Alan Fine in the series Sage Masters of Modern Social Thought in 2000. Although two decades have passed since then, this compilation of 91 essays, dating primarily from the 1980s and 1990s, continues to provide a foundation for understanding of Goffman's work. Michael Hviid Jacobsen, who teaches at Aalborg University (Denmark), has also been studying Goffman since the beginnings of his academic career. As representative of his numerous publications on Goffman, I would like to mention the introduction The Social Thought of Erving Goffman, published together with Søren Kristiansen in 2015, which impressively provides a comprehensive approach to Goffman's work. The editors acknowledge that the term “Goffman Studies” in the Handbook title may sound “presumptuous” to some. In doing so, they also take into account Goffman's own reaction to such a designation. For the editors, Goffman studies are simply a descriptive term to cover the range of careful analysis and critical commentary that has amassed around his extraordinary sociological studies. It is the special standing of Goffman's writings that have occasioned a field we are naming “Goffman Studies,” no more and no less. (…) Goffman studies, as we envisage it, is not a cosy or closed-off scholarly enclave but a locale for critical engagement, principally with the concepts and ideas Goffman introduced and their development through application to new spheres of social life (p. 8). In addition to the preface and introduction, the Handbook contains 35 chapters. Five articles were written by the editors themselves. For the other articles, they have enlisted the cooperation of authors who are verified and well-known Goffman experts. It is probably inevitable that some, albeit few, contributions will be dominated by the author's own publications rather than providing a systematic overview of the subject. In addition to information on the structure of the Handbook, the introduction includes some basic facts about the life and work of Goffman. Because of the extensive research on Goffman's biography by Yves Winkin, who also contributes to the Handbook, and also through the collection of personal memoirs by Dmitri Shalin, made available online by the Erving Goffman Archives (EGA), which is no longer maintained, there considerably more information about Goffman available. Goffman, as a theorist of self-presentation, was notoriously reticent about sharing documents about his own life. Thus, his estate is still not accessible; to date only the recording of one lecture (On Fieldwork 1989) has been published posthumously. Parallel to the publication of the Handbook, Winkin (2022) has summarized his extensive research with a particular focus on Goffman's lectures in a book published in French entitled D'Erving à Goffman. Also worth mentioning is that Goffman's (2022) much-cited dissertation Communication Conduct in an Island Community (1953), for a long time available only in a hectographed version through EGA, has now been published by mediastudies.press, a non-profit publisher of open access books. This book begins with an introduction by Winkin entitled The Cradle, which introduces the structure of the dissertation and contextualizes it biographically and academically. This title fits perfectly, the widespread consensus being that the outlines of his theory and research program are already present in his dissertation. The contributions are arranged into three sections. The first section is entitled “Concepts and Themes” and comprises 12 chapters. Most of these contributions focus on selected key concepts of Goffman's, but some relate to single publications by Goffman. The second group of contributions includes Strategic Interaction by Gary D. Jaworski and The Interaction Order by M. Michael Rosenberg. Using reviews as a starting point, Jaworski describes central ideas of the two essays from this book, published in 1969, the critical reception of game theory, especially by Thomas Schelling, and emphasizes the high continuity in Goffman's work. Rosenberg takes up his essay, published 2020 in the Journal of Classical Sociology and criticizes Goffman for failing to adequately deliver the main features of his sociology in his presidential address. The author suggests that Goffman surrendered to the social pressures of mainstream sociology. Neither of these arguments convinced me. They disregard that Goffman wrote this text knowing that he had a life-threatening illness. Also missing from this text is the clearly recognizable controversy with Randall Collins and his proposal of a radical micro-sociology. This group also includes Charles Edgley's contribution, with a strong reference to The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. His basic thesis is that “dramaturgy”—which is also the title of his contribution—is appropriate to characterize the distinctiveness of Goffman's sociology, even though dramaturgical thinking precedes Goffman and is not limited to his work. The other chapters in this section are concerned with one or more key concepts. Given Goffman's enormous productivity with respect to creating concepts, the selection of the most relevant key concepts is challenging. Because I, together with Robert Hettlage, was also confronted with this task in a similarly designed German publication, I can attest to this difficulty first-hand.1 Central to the contributions by Greg Smith on “ritual” and by Anders Persson on “frame” is the focus on reconstructing Goffman's usage of these concepts. In addition to this reconstruction, Jim O′Driscoll's contribution on “face” and “face-work” is primarily concerned with a clarification and further development of these concepts. The other contributions of this section devote considerably less space to this reconstruction work. Mikaela Sundberg is primarily interested in how the concept of “total institution” has been applied, criticized, and advanced. She attests that the concept has a clear potential for organizational research. Two composition principles can be distinguished in these articles. Some show how Goffman's concepts are or could be used in new work. David Shulman shows how his conceptualization of self-presentation is being applied in studies that address digitalization in everyday life. Susie Scott and James Hardie-Bick revisit the concept of moral career to show that it can be applied not only to total institutions but also to everyday social situations. This is demonstrated through the stages of acquiring membership in the skydiving community. The second principle involves a critical examination of the concepts, in which deficits are pointed out and named. From an ethnomethodological perspective, Robin James Smith criticizes Goffman's analyses of “interaction in public places” for neglecting classification practices that are continuously applied in this world of strangers. Jack Sidnell's view of “footing” is also critical; in addition to fundamental weaknesses, the disregard of cultural differences is also pointed out. In her contribution to “stigma,” Stacey Hannem points to a neglect of structure in Goffman's work as a result of his focus on the interaction order. She argues that with current concepts like “structural stigma” or “stigma-powe” the dynamics of power could be integrated and thus, the conceptual weaknesses could be overcome. “Fields and Studies,” the second section of the Handbook, includes 14 chapters. The articles outline how Goffman's sociological ideas have been taken up and advanced in different research fields and sub-disciplines. Knowing Goffman's large influence, the contributions reflect a number of research fields and sub-disciplines that are expected. However, there are also surprises, which I would like to introduce at the beginning. The two largest surprises were mobilities studies and the sociology of death and dying. Ole B. Jensen, who holds a professorship in Urban Theory and Urban Design at Aalborg University (Denmark) reports on Goffman and mobilities studies. According to Jensen (p. 287), the new mobility turn with questions about “how mobilities change the way we see ourselves, our social others, and the physical world” has created an openness for his research agenda. The topic of dying and death is not associated with Goffman in micro-sociology. Much more obvious are the studies of Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss from the 1960s (Awareness of Dying and Time for Dying). Jacobsen, the author of this article, also confirms that Goffman addressed the topic only in a very peripheral way. Nevertheless, his conceptualization has great potential for death studies, especially as related to the performative perspective or to the frame concept. Expected research fields and sub-disciplines are sociology of emotion (by Jacobsen), medical sociology (Lee F. Monaghan), sociology of the body (Nick Crossley), visual studies (Michael L. Schwalbe), sociolinguistics (Csilla Weninger and J. Patrick Williams), gender studies (Chris Brickell), disability studies (Devon Healey and Tanya Titchkosky), media studies (Peter Lunt), and gambling studies (Søren Kristiansen). The inclusion of gambling studies may seem surprising at first glance, but if one considers how important gambling was for Goffman personally and how central gambling is as a topic in his work—not to mention his publication plans, which could no longer be realized due to his early death—then gambling studies are an indispensable part of this listing. The approach of the individual contributions varies. Some are primarily concerned with showing what contribution Goffman made to the particular field of research. This is pronounced in the contributions of Jacobsen, Crossley, Healey and Titchkosky, and Schwalbe and Kristiansen. Healey and Titchkosky complete this reconstruction work by describing their own experiences with their disabilities in everyday life. The other contributions, by contrast, focus on Goffman's reception in this field of research and the inspiration he provided. Three articles remain in this section. With police work, Peter K. Manning has chosen a narrowly defined field of research. Drawing primarily on his own work, the author addresses trust, commitment, engagement, and engrossment as part of police work. A broader overview of the field would have been desirable for the Handbook; an obvious choice would have been to expand on Goffman and organization studies, a topic on which the author has also previously published. The contribution Goffman and Communication by Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz and Yves Winkin pursues a twofold task: on the one hand, Goffman's use of communication as a concept is described, and on the other hand, Goffman's impact on communication studies is shown. As such, the article pursues a concern that links the first and second sections. As the title of Goffman's dissertation already shows, the early Goffman had conceived of communication as a basic concept, but later refrained from applying it. However, even without using this concept, themes related to communication continued to be strongly present in his work. Goffman has had a strong influence on communication research. It is stated that his concepts are much more widespread than the mention of his name. By taking up communication studies and media studies as topics in this section, there is a danger of overlap, but this is avoided by the approach of the two contributions. In the case of the chapter “About ‘Face,’” by Michael James Walsh, the placement in this second section is surprising, because this article—quite similar to Shulman—traces how this basic concept is used in studies dealing with online interaction and media interaction. Possibly decisive was the fact that in the first section there was already a contribution on face-work. Face and face-work are therefore given a very high—for me too high—attention in this Handbook. The third and final section (“Comparisons, Interpretations and Asides”) begins with four contributions that relate to other major authors. Norbert Elias, Michel Foucault, Harold Garfinkel, and Anthony Giddens were chosen. With such comparisons, a choice must always be made. The editors also point out that they would have liked to include more authors, but the planned contributions could not be realized. With this selection, four authors were included who have very different connections to Goffman. With Garfinkel he had a close intellectual exchange, as is already evident from their planned joint publication, which was to include Stigma and the study of Agnes (Garfinkel 1967). Even beyond that, the two also had close contact and had—as Andrew P. Carlin points out—a common thematic focus. Carlin identifies this in “information;” both considered information as a topic in its own right, which the author labels—in reference to interaction order—as “information order.” The differences in how the two authors deal with this common theme are pointed out. According to all that is known, there was no personal exchange with Elias and Foucault. Goffman did mention Elias, who had been banished from Nazi Germany and was living in Great Britain at the time, at one point in his dissertation (p. 156), citing his main German-language work Über den Prozess der Zivilisation (On the Process of Civilization). However, there are thematic similarities to both authors. In his contribution about Elias, Helmut Kuzmics sees these primarily in the themes of deception and embarrassment. Robert S. Leib recognizes their interface in what Foucault has called the “micro-physics of power.” Both articles also discuss the differences in detail. Leib makes a strong effort to make connections between the terminology used by the two authors. The article about Anthony Giddens focuses on his reception of Goffman. John Scott demonstrates in detail how his view of Goffman has changed; from a minor figure in the tradition of symbolic interactionism to recognition as a systematic social theorist. In general, Giddens has been quite influential in ensuring that Goffman is now widely recognized as a sociological classic. The remaining five chapters cannot be grouped together, except, as the title of this section, as “asides.” This, in turn, does not do justice to their richness. They are very unique pieces with a thematic independence worth reading. Smith sets out in search of Goffman's classification system. In addition to some suggestions for ordering, including his own from his dissertation, he uses the Google Ngram Viewer and a letter written by Goffman to Allen D. Grimshaw, who had long offered a regular undergraduate course on Goffman's sociology. Google Ngram is an online search engine and Smith uses it to determine how frequently “Goffman” and “interaction order” occur in the printed sources included. In the aforementioned letter, Goffman recommended readings of his works in the mid-1970s, arranged by five subject complexes. Clearly discernible in this contribution is a great skepticism as to whether such a search can do justice to Goffman's actual concerns and particular strengths. Goffman's fieldwork is the topic of Sam Hillyard's article. To characterize her approach to fieldwork, she uses the subtitle “Mottke, the thief,” which is an old nickname of Goffman's that Saul Mendlovitz, a friend in early years, remembered in an interview. “Mottke, the thief” is the main character and also the title of the novel by the Jewish writer Sholem Asch (1880–1957), which was originally published in 1916 and describes the life stages of an outsider in the tradition of the European picaresque novel. The moniker had no relation to fieldwork yet and is used freely here. “The moniker captures Goffman's rampant opportunism towards fieldwork data: anything was fair game” (p. 388). Hillyard also points out that this use of fieldwork “was vital to his enterprise because it underpinned his theory-method dialectic. Hence, to separate Goffman's fieldwork from his sociological enterprise is unwise” (p. 388). That one can agree with this wholeheartedly. However, I have doubts whether theft is the appropriate metaphor for this. It expresses an orthodox understanding that there is only one right way to use research results. However, if ethnography, like all research, is not an end in itself, but should serve exclusively to gain new insights, then different forms of processing and use should be permissible. That Goffman's path generates knowledge has been impressively proven by his work. Nor should Goffman's empiricism be limited to his field research. Like hardly anyone else, Goffman has contributed to broadening the research horizon. Not as a methodological reflection, but through his practice, he has expanded the materials that can be used in sociological research. Ryan Mack and Gary Alan Fine examine humor in interactions as a theme in Goffman's work, and also as a stylistic device in his texts. In view of the high potential for failure and an omnipresent risk of embarrassment, comical situations often arise - as Goffman shows in detail. As vividly shown in the preface to Frame Analysis, humor was at the same time an important stylistic device for him. The question is what function humor has as a stylistic device in his work. Born in Israel, Eviatar Zerubavel is—as Jörg R. Bergmann and Anssi Peräkylä (2022) show elsewhere—one of many Goffman students. He is the author of the second to last contribution of the Handbook, which, if there is such a device, should be a must-read. In 1972 he moved to the University of Pennsylvania, where Goffman was teaching at the time, after he had already become acquainted with his work in Tel Aviv. According to the author, Goffman exerted a “tremendous influence” (p. 410) and inspired him to develop a sociology of attention as his life's work. Even more important than the topics was his “theoretico-methodological impact” (p. 415; Zerubavel 2021). In addition to the two traditional approaches to conducting social research—the data-driven and theory-driven approaches, respectively—Goffman advocated a concept-driven approach, which he also considered to be the foundation of his sociology. As is generally known, Goffman did not create a school, but this contribution by Zerubavel suggests what such a school might have looked like, based on Goffman's high creative potential. The Handbook concludes with a contribution by co-editor Jacobsen that explores Goffman's footnotes. Although footnotes may appear to be of marginal importance, this is definitely not the case for this article. Rather, it is a witty and stimulating work that covers all footnotes in Goffman's books. In addition to presenting a quantitative analysis, the author develops a typology of footnotes in Goffman's work. As Jacobson raises the question of further analyses, a brief note is appropriate, which seems necessary due to the language barriers between the English and German languages. For our anthology on Erving Goffman as a second-generation classicist (Hettlage and Lenz, published in 1991), we examined the footnotes and enumerated the occurring author name. However, Jacobson's analysis of footnotes clearly is much more sophisticated. The abundance of the selected topics and the richness of the contributions, the claim of a handbook is fully realized. Moreover, a handbook is always expected to be (largely) complete. In this respect, Goffman Studies—to use the category suggested by the editors—prove to be a difficult subject area. There is no Goffman school and thus, no widely agreed on understanding of his work, nor are there any authorized guardians for a “correct” interpretation of the work. Instead, there are different approaches to the work, which vary according to basic theoretical positions and preferences for Goffman's individual writings. Scholars, including those in this Handbook, even disagree on basic questions, such as whether Goffman's micro-sociological orientation is a strength or a weakness. Inevitably, therefore, there are also different positions in the selection of the most important basic concepts or in the assessment of his impact on research fields and sub-disciplines. This diversity cannot possibly be comprehensively represented and treated in one handbook. This is precisely the reason for my reluctance to use the category of “Goffman Studies,” because it gives the false impression of uniformity in the face of unmistakable heterogeneity in approaches. Goffman's own statements against a theory talk pale in comparison. They should be regarded merely as techniques of academic self-presentation, which should not prevent anyone from using Goffman as an inspiration for their own theoretical and research work or to engage with the theoretical content of his work. Such consideration clearly honors an author more than taking individual statements as divine commandments. While this high level of heterogeneity in the secondary literature may pose an intractable problem for the editors, it can also be an intellectual challenge for anyone who engages with it, with more to offer than a hymn praising to collective understanding of the work. Jacobsen and Smith's International Handbook of Goffman Studies undoubtedly constitutes a new milestone in the recognition of Goffman's work. Anyone who studies this work in depth needs to know and work with this book. Its thorough reading promises a wealth of impulses for the further exploration of Goffman's work, which will hopefully continue to be an arena where different theoretical positions and controversial views of his publications can meet. Even if one can learn a lot from Goffman in the process, the critical engagement with his work is—as also emphasized by the editors—indispensable. Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Karl Lenz is Emeritus Professor of Micro-Sociology at Institute of Sociology, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Science, TU Dresden, Germany. He is co-editor of the two German-language books: Erving Goffman. Ein soziologischer Klassiker der 2. Generation (1991; Erving Goffman. A 2nd Generation Sociological Classic) and Goffman Handbuch: Leben—Werk—Wirkung (2022: Goffman Handbook: Life—Work—Impact), both together with Robert Hettlage.