Informationen zum Autor ERVING GOFFMAN is the author of, among other works, Interaction Ritual, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Asylums, and Stigma. He is Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Klappentext In a brilliant series of books about social behavior, including The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Asylums, and Stigma, Erving Goffman has exposed all that is at stake when people meet face to face. Goffman's work, once of the great intellectual achievements of our time, is an endlessly fascinating commentary on how we enact ourselves by our responses to and our readings of other people. From the exemplary opening essay of Interaction Ritual , On Face-Work, a full account of the extraordinary repertoire of maneuvers we employ in social encounters in order to save faceto the final, and classic, essay Where the Action Is,an examination of people in risky occupations and situations: gamblers, criminals, coal miners, stock speculatorsGoffman astounds us with the unexpected richness and complexity of brief encounters between people. For Goffman, as for Freud, the extreme cases are of interest because of the light they shed on the normal: The study of the trapeze artist is worthwhile because each of us is on the wire from time to time.INTRODUCTION The study of face-to-face interaction in natural settings doesn't yet have an adequate name. Moreover, the analytical boundaries of the field remain unclear. Somehow, but only somehow, a brief time span is involved, a limited extension in space, and a restriction to those events that must go on to completion once they have begun. There is a close meshing with the ritual properties of persons and with the egocentric forms of territoriality. The subject matter, however, can be identified. It is that class of events which occurs during co-presence and by virtue of co-presence. The ultimate behavioral materials are the glances, gestures, positionings, and verbal statements that people continuously feed into the situation, whether intended or not. These are the external signs of orientation and involvementstates of mind and body not ordinarily examined with respect to their social organization. The close, systematic examination of these small behaviors has begun to develop, stimulated by impressive current studies of animals and of language, and supported by the resources available for the study of interaction in small group and the psychotherapies. One objective in dealing with these data is to describe the natural units of interaction built up from them, beginning with the littlestfor example, the fleeting facial move an individual can make in the game of expressing his alignment to what is happeningand ending with affairs such as week-long conferences, these being the interactional mastodons that push to the limit what can be called a social occasion. A second objective is to uncover the normative order prevailing within and between these units, that is, the behavioral order found in all peopled places, whether public, semi-public, or private, and whether under the auspices of an organized social occasion or the flatter constraints of merely a routinized social setting. Both of these objectives can be advanced through serious ethnography: we need to identify the countless patterns and natural sequences of behavior occurring whenever persons come into one another's immediate presence. And we need to see these events as a subject matter in their own right, analytically distinguished from neighboring areas, for example, social relationships, little social groups, communication systems, and strategic interaction. A sociology of occasions is here advocated. Social organization is the central theme, but that is organized is the co-mingling of persons and the temporary inte...

Autorentext

ERVING GOFFMAN is the author of, among other works, Interaction Ritual, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Asylums, and Stigma. He is Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Klappentext

In a brilliant series of books about social behavior, including The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Asylums, and Stigma, Erving Goffman has exposed all that is at stake when people meet face to face. Goffman’s work, once of the great intellectual achievements of our time, is an endlessly fascinating commentary on how we enact ourselves by our responses to and our readings of other people.
 
From the exemplary opening essay of Interaction Ritual, “On Face-Work,” —a full account of the extraordinary repertoire of maneuvers we employ in social encounters in order to “save face”—to the final, and classic, essay “Where the Action Is,”—an examination of people in risky occupations and situations: gamblers, criminals, coal miners, stock speculators—Goffman astounds us with the unexpected richness and complexity of brief encounters between people. For Goffman, as for Freud, the extreme cases are of interest because of the light they shed on the normal: The study of the trapeze artist is worthwhile because each of us is on the wire from time to time.

Leseprobe
INTRODUCTION
 
The study of face-to-face interaction in natural settings doesn’t yet have an adequate name. Moreover, the analytical boundaries of the field remain unclear. Somehow, but only somehow, a brief time span is involved, a limited extension in space, and a restriction to those events that must go on to completion once they have begun. There is a close meshing with the ritual properties of persons and with the egocentric forms of territoriality.
 
The subject matter, however, can be identified. It is that class of events which occurs during co-presence and by virtue of co-presence. The ultimate behavioral materials are the glances, gestures, positionings, and verbal statements that people continuously feed into the situation, whether intended or not. These are the external signs of orientation and involvement—states of mind and body not ordinarily examined with respect to their social organization.
 
The close, systematic examination of these “small behaviors” has begun to develop, stimulated by impressive current studies of animals and of language, and supported by the resources available for the study of interaction in “small group” and the psychotherapies.
 
One objective in dealing with these data is to describe the natural units of interaction built up from them, beginning with the littlest—for example, the fleeting facial move an individual can make in the game of expressing his alignment to what is happening—and ending with affairs such as week-long conferences, these being the interactional mastodons that push to the limit what can be called a social occasion. A second objective is to uncover the normative order prevailing within and between these units, that is, the behavioral order found in all peopled places, whether public, semi-public, or private, and whether under the auspices of an organized social occasion or the flatter constraints of merely a routinized social setting. Both of these objectives can be advanced through serious ethnography: we need to identify the countless patterns and natural sequences of behavior occurring whenever persons come into one another’s immediate presence. And we need to see these events as a subject matter in their own right, analytically distinguished from neighboring areas, for example, social relationships, little social groups, communication systems, and strategic interaction.
 
A sociology of occasions is here advocated. Social organization is the central theme, but that is organized is the co-mingling of persons and the temporary interactional enterprises that can arise t…