notes from may 28th lecture on Goffman

Erving Goffman (June 11, 1922 – November 19, 1982)
- Born in Manville Alberta
- Grew up in Dauphin Manitoba with his sister, actress Frances Bay
- B Sc in chemistry from University of Manitoba
- Worked at National Film Board in Winnipeg and became interested in sociology.
- BA in sociology from U of Toronto in 1945
- MA (1949) and Ph D (1953) in sociology from University of Chicago
- 1959 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life introduced dramaturgical analysis - one way of studying “symbolic interaction”

- "So I ask that these papers be taken for what they merely are: exercises, trials, tryouts, a means of displaying possibilities, not establishing fact."

Dramaturgical analysis

Front region behavior
- occurs when there is an audience.
- Some activities accentuated; others suppressed
Back stage behavior
- Privacy is important. There is no audience
- Can contradict front region behavior
- Illusions and impressions are openly constructed while performers are “out of character”
- “ceremonial equipment” might be hidden
- Costumes are adjusted and inspected for flaws
- Actors adjudicate their performance and improve it
- can differ among genders, races and social classes

Front region behavior or “Standards of decorum”
in a workplace involve:
- Maintaining an appearance: “make- work projects”
- Engaging in acceptable amount and style of talk
- Appropriate pace of work
- The display of personal interest in work
- Economy of movement and energy
- Accuracy of work
- How the work is done (instrumental aspects of work)
- Morality
- Style of dress
- Sound level
- What a worker shouldn’t do (“proscribed diversions”)
- Affective (emotional) expressions
- Indulgences (giving oneself treats)
- Other?
Goffman elaborated concepts of symbolic interactionism (human life is lived in the symbolic domain)
o people act toward other people and things based on the meaning those things have for them; and these meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation.

Symbolic interactionism
Symbols
- are social objects having shared meanings
- are created and maintained in social interaction
- provide the means by which reality is constructed through language and communication

Reality
- is primarily a social product,
- self, mind, society, culture—emerge from and are dependent on symbolic interactions.
- physical environment is also interpreted through symbolic systems.




Questions arising from Goffman
What are the “rules of decorum” for this classroom?
What is a “make-work project”? When does it happen? Have you engaged in any “make work projects”?
Have you ever pretended to “make-no-work”?
Where does your backstage behavior take place?
What are the benefits of backstage behavior? The drawbacks?
1. Consider a time when you were a service worker (e.g a retail sales clerk or a waiter). What was your front region presentation? What was your backstage presentation? Present these two scenarios to the class. (You may work in pairs on this)

2. Consider a time when you got your car fixed. What was your front region presentation? What was your backstage presentation? Present these two scenarios to the class. (You may work in pairs on this)

3. Consider your relations with family members. What is your front region presentation? What is your backstage presentation? Present these two scenarios to the class. (You may work in pairs on this)