Goffman Misha&Emma

• Cultuurwetenschappen
• WO
• Studiejaar 3

By Emma & Misha

When do you feel most uncertain about which social role you should be playing?

1. With your family
2. In the metro
3. In the library
4. When two of your friend groups mix at a birthday

Today

Who is Erving Goffman?

Which main concepts are there?

Why is it interesting?

life & main works

 1922 (Canada) - 1982 (US)

Family of Ukrainian Jews

Symbolic interactionism (but..)

Dramaturgical Analysis

 "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" (1956)

Erving Goffman 

Life may not be much of a gamble, but interaction is -Goffman, 1956, p.156

Dramaturgical approach

Sees social establishments as a place of performance. They have "fixed barriers to perception which are constructed by the individuals’ interpretation of the audience, place and time.

Which are surrounded by "fixed barriers

to perception in which a particular kind of activity regularly takes place" (p.152).

The audience...

....Gives information about the social setting

....Is critical and judgmental

....Has expectations & assumptions of what behaviour "fits" the time and place

Impression management

Idealisation - To maintain a positive image of the self in social groups

---

Front - Setting, appearance, manners

"a single note off key can disrupt the tone of an entire

performance” (p.33).

What was the last time you made a "false note"?

"tactics" of impression management

• Maintenance of expressive control
• Dramatic realisation
• Idealisation
  
• Misrepresentation 
• Mystification
• Audience segregation

"While in the presence of others, the individual typically infuses his activity with signs which dramatically highlight and portray confirmatory facts which might otherwise remain hidden.“

1. Maintenance of expressive control
2. Idealisation
3. Misrepresentation
4. Dramatic realisation

"A certain bureaucratisation of the spirit expected so that we can be relied upon to give a perfectly homogeneous performance at any given time”.

1. Maintenance of expressive control
2. Idealisation
3. Misrepresentation
4. Dramatic realisation

"upward mobility involves the presentation of proper performance and that efforts to move upward and effoers to keep from moving downward are expressed in terms of sacrifices made for the maintenance of front"

1. Maintenance of expressive control
2. Idealisation
3. Misrepresentation
4. Dramatic realisation

"Communication techniques such a s innuendo, strategic ambiguity, and crucial omissions (...) to profit from lies without, technically, telling any"

1. Maintenance of expressive control
2. Idealisation
3. Misrepresentation
4. Dramatic realisation

“When the individual presents himself before others his performance will tend to incorporate and exemplify officially accredited values of the society, more so, in fact, than does his behaviour as a whole.“

1. Maintenance of expressive control
2. Idealisation
3. Misrepresentation
4. Dramatic realisation

• What is a Neoliberal Subject?
• 1956 vs. the 1970s
• Internalization of responsibility by the individual within a system of neoliberalism that they do not necessarily agree with or recognize. 

The Neoliberal Subject

Watts, G. (2022). Are you a neoliberal subject? On the uses and abuses of a concept. European Journal of Social Theory, 25(3), 458–476. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310211037205

What terms does Goffman use
that we can relate to
an intersectional approach?

Intersectional Approach to Everyday Life ?

Is Goffman's theory on everyday life useful when understanding social inequalities ?

Yes

Depends

No

BONUS: Where do Bourdieu and Goffman find common ground, and where do they differ in their theories?