I am Tannistha
Sarkar, a sociology scholar exploring social issues both in India and the
United States. I am currently pursuing a PhD in sociology at the University of
California San Diego. I have a masters and bachelors in sociology from University
of Calcutta, in West Bengal, India and also worked as a Junior Research Fellow.
I also have a masters in social science from University of Chicago. My
sociological interests align with the subfield of medical sociology, where I am
interested in looking at doctor-patient communication, power dynamics within
medical encounters, decline of medical authority, rise of patient advocacy, and
illness narratives. I have previously conducted research work in West Bengal
exploring the deterioration of doctor- patient communication and its social
consequences.Introduction
This paper considers three seminal works of
social theory by Erving Goffman, Michel Foucault, and Pierre Bourdieu. Born between
1922 – 1930, these theorists have laid some of the foundations for modern social
theory. They took extant approaches in social theory and molded them to explain
contemporary social situations, social institutions, and social relations, and
in the process developed new approaches to social analysis. The Presentation of
Self in Everyday Life (Goffman 1959) is a
landmark work in micro sociology. In the introduction to the book, Goffman
contends how individuals enter into any interaction
with an intention to acquire knowledge about the other actors in a similar
situation or deploy knowledge about other actors if it was already in their
possession. The key elements of the presentation of self are – dramatic
realization, impression management, front and back stages, and audience
awareness. In order to provide an understanding of these elements of the
presentation of self, Goffman uses quotidian examples of social interaction. This
paper attempts to reinterpret some of these
examples using concepts developed primarily in Discipline and Punish (Foucault 1995) and Distinction (Bourdieu 1986a). The reference
to twenty years comes from the approximately two decades between the release of
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and the French editions of Discipline
and Punish, and Distinction.
I argue that this
is a useful comparison as these books all provide a resolution to the Hobbesian
problem of order, namely understanding how order in society is maintained
without a central authority (Granovetter 1985:488). Goffman in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959) posits
that social order is a result of the establishment of laws, rules, standards,
and norms which may be written or unwritten but are reinforced within
performances in social interactions. Foucault in Discipline and Punish (1995) attributes
social order to the presence of surveillance and disciplinary power – an internalized compulsion that makes
social actors control their own behavior even if they are not being explicitly
observed by people in authority positions. Bourdieu in Distinction (1986a) indicates
that social order is the result of internalized systems of judgement (habitus)
interacting to create fields of practice and internal rules and norms. This crude explanation glosses over
the nuances of each of these theorist’s approaches – which would be beyond the
scope of this paper. However, it is worth considering the forms of
evidence and data utilized by each of these theorists in the formulation of
their respective lenses. We can visualize observations as being either
macrosocial or microsocial on one axis, and either historical in nature or
empirically collected on the other. Table 1 shows how these theorists’ data in
these three works aligns on such a grid.
Table 1: Nature and scale of observations in Presentation of Self,
Discipline and Punish, and Distinction
|
|
Nature of Data |
||
|
Historical |
Empirically Collected |
||
|
Scale of observation |
Macrosocial |
Foucault |
Bourdieu |
|
Microsocial |
|
Goffman |
|
Goffman uses
everyday interactions which are then generalized to form a theoretical
perspective. Foucault analyzes the evolution of social institutions erected to
control and regulate populations which are then utilized to develop an
analytical viewpoint. Bourdieu analyzed data from multiple surveys of people’s
quotidian consumption behavior and social background to develop an
understanding of social stratification. In this essay I try to interpret
Goffman’s empirical examples using perspectives developed by Foucault and
Bourdieu to understand how a perspective developed through macrosocial
observation can be utilized to interpret microsocial interactions.
Understanding Impression Management through Surveillance and Habitus
Impression
management is a key element in the presentation of self whose function is to
mitigate the disruptions or unmeant gestures in a staged performance. The
unmeant gestures mostly contained secret facts of the performer’s life that was
not necessary to bring up during a specific performance, and which when
broached leads to a disruption of the performance causing embarrassment to the
team. These inopportune intrusions or faux pas are not created purposely and is
generally created by a lack of information held by the individual about other
members about the definition of a situation and are much regretted later. Goffman
in the Introduction to the Presentation of Self provides a vignette about a
waitress stating that “She acts with some skill to control their (customer’s)
behavior” (1959:11).
In this example
he introduces a confident customer who seats themselves before the table has
been prepared for them thus introducing a disruption in the regular performance
involving customers and restaurant staff. In the waitress’s ideal for the
performance, the customer would have been seated after the table had been
prepared. To still ensure that she gains control over the situation she greets
the customer requesting to change the cover, takes back the menu and prepares
the table. This notion of using “first impressions” (1959:11) or
impression management to establish the person in charge is also observed by
Goffman in schools and mental institutions. He remarks that “the initial
definition of the situation projected by an individual tends to provide a plan
for the co-operative activity that follows” (1959:12). Another reframing of these instances is to think of them in terms
of knowledge generation and flows of power.
In the
waitress’s case, the customer occupies a table before it is ready and starts
scanning the menu. Even if their actions were not intended to communicate an
impression about them, the waitress is already generating knowledge or to use
Goffman’s terminology, gleaning information about them. She is ascribing power
to the customer by acknowledging that without her intervention, the customer
would now be in charge or exert power. This generated knowledge and implied
power relationship modifies her approach to the customer. In professionally but
curtly changing the table cover and withdrawing the menu temporarily, she
attempts to induce a knowledge generation process within the customer –
managing the customer’s impression. The customer, through this performance is
expected to realize that the waitress is in charge. The power relationship
between them has now changed. Initially, in occupying a table before it was
ready the customer appeared to exert power over the waitress, however, after
she changed the table cover, there was a flow of power from the customer
towards her enabling her to take control of the situation. A similar dynamic is
expected of teachers and mental institution attendants – a performance that
generates knowledge within their subjects and establishes a power dynamic. This
power dynamic leads to the following of a plan for co-operative activity. In
all three examples provided, the observation of the customers/students/patients
is more than casual disinterested observation and is akin to surveillance –
observation to pick up on behavioral cues. Writing sixteen years later,
Foucault in Discipline and Punish establishes the macrosocial connection
between surveillance, knowledge generation, and power relations. He also posits
a circular relation between knowledge and power, stating:
“There is no power relation without the correlative constitution of
a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute
at the same time power relations” (1995:27)
While Foucault
uses historical cases such as the punishment of regicide and the evolution and
mass adoption of imprisonment as the research cases to demonstrate the
relationship between knowledge and power, this relationship can also be
observed in Goffman’s examples.
Goffman’s
choices of empirical cases are also similar to those used by Foucault.
Goffman’s example about the Shetland Isle involves detailed accounts of
surveillance. For example, in order to understand whether the food being served
was liked, the Shetland Islander would “take note of the rapidity with which
the visitor lifted his fork or spoon” (Goffman 1959:7) or
would study facial expressions in a tripartite exchange in which they were an
explicit bystander. Similarly, Goffman brings up restaurants, schools, and
medical institutions. Foucault establishes social surveillance using the
research case of behavior during a plague – establishing how members of society
can exert power on each other through the means of a disciplinary gaze.
Foucault also mentions the similarities between prisons, schools, and hospitals
– and how the need for surveillance in these institutions generates similar
architectural and command structures. Therefore, in both Presentation of the
Self and Discipline and Punish we see similar empirical examples to establish
the connection between surveillance, knowledge, and power even though the
examples used are dramatically different. Goffman focuses his lens intensely on
the microsocial and the minutiae of quotidian interaction, while Foucault uses
a wide-angle approach and uses multi-decade trends and the evolution of key
social institutions to demonstrate this connection.
The vignette
about the waitress and the customer can be thought of as two performances. The
customer in occupying an unprepared table and then reacting to the waitress’s
curt changing of the cloth, and the waitress modifying her greeting and
preparing the table. These performances, however, are not solely associated
with interaction but also expose the “self”, in this case the two selves – the
waitress and the customer. Social actors may have multiple selves which become
apparent through performance. Through their performance they show regard to
their selves since the dramaturgical self is a resource that each social actor
possesses. An alternative method to analyze and interpret this reaction is
through the lens of habitus.
Habitus is a
system of classification that consists of both a structured structure through
which an actor makes classifications, and a structuring structure through which
the actor incorporates new information and situations to further build the
habitus. It enables the social actor to make certain choices and guides their
interaction. The waitress, like the later mentioned high-school teacher or
mental institution attendant likes having control over her situation. Their
habitus, specifically, their professional habitus is built around the notion of
successful completion of her work duties. Sequentially for the waitress, these
duties are preparing a table for a customer, greeting the customer, seating
them at the appropriate table, providing them the menu and the specials of the
day, bringing them their order correctly, checking on the customer regarding
their experience, and finally serving them the check. Thus, every situation
they encounter at their work will be interpreted through the lens of trying to
comprehend whether the situation is enabling or disabling successful and
sequential completion of work duties. When the waitress sees that a table has
been occupied preemptively, her habitus classifies the situation as one in
which events are occurring out of the proper sequence. Her decision then is to
reestablish the task sequence through subsequent interactions. Even though
Goffman and Bourdieu come to their respective social theories through vastly
different empirical starting points – microsocial quotidian interactions
vis-à-vis decadal surveys and ethnographic observation, their social theories
can both be applied to understand the specifics of a social interaction.
Deconstructing
some of Goffman’s empirical examples may enable the utilization of concepts
from Discipline and Punish and Distinction, and perhaps Foucault and Bourdieu
more broadly to understand these situations in a different light.
Understanding Teamwork through Power Relations and
Symbolic Capital
Through several
examples of teams providing performances, Goffman elucidates this concept of
dramatic dominance and directive dominance. An examination of a team
performance usually leads to the identification of an individual performer who
is “given the right to direct and control the progress of dramatic action” (Goffman 1959:97). This
is considered to be a position of directive dominance, and is associated with
two key responsibilities, one, sanctioning and correcting any member of the
team whose performance disrupts the definition of the situation, and two, allocation
of parts in the performance. Within the performance as well, there is a player
who forms the center of the attention – a position of dramatic dominance. The
positions of dramatic and directive dominance may not have other forms of power
and authority. Dissecting two of the empirical examples utilized may enable
identifying positions of directive and dramatic dominance, as well as positions
of power, and indicators of capital within each example. The first is the
example of the structure of British aristocratic households (Goffman 1959:100) in
which directive and dramatic dominance are held by the same person who is also the
seat of power in the traditional sense although the audience come from many
different social classes. The second is the example of conspicuous consumption (Goffman 1959:103) in
which the dramatic and directive dominance is held by different people, the
seat of power in the traditional sense is with a different person, and the audience
for this performance is primarily drawn from the same social class.
Goffman first
uses the example of traditional court life to demonstrate the notion of
dramatic dominance. All of the attention is directed towards the royal star of
the court who is marked by their attire and perhaps a higher seating position.
Similarly, in musical dance numbers, there are many background dancers whose
role is to direct attention towards the heroine. Such examples of the center of
attention are not only part of set pieces but are also present in other more
real forms of life. Evelyn Waugh in a discussion of 1920s – 1930s British
aristocracy describes a dynamic in which British aristocracy generally avoided one
another. Instead, within their own castles, they were accompanied by a cast of
characters but no members of their own social hierarchy. This served to
preserve the attention on the aristocrat. A group of aristocrats coming
together would be a disruptive performance as the definition of the performance
would lack a clearly articulated center of attention. Therefore, in effect
Waugh is suggesting that social lives are being planned and adjusted to
accommodate the center of attention. However, what is the power relation
between this center of attention and the other members of the team directing
attention towards this center? What is the relationship of social class, and
economic and cultural capital between the center of attention and the
peripheral team?
The power
relation between the center and the periphery is straightforward in the case of
the royals and the aristocrats. All the team members in the periphery are in a
subordinate position of power to the center of attention. Should the periphery
not appropriately direct attention, the center may punish the peripheral team
member. Through the performance, and using cues, the center of attention is
generating knowledge that reifies their own centrality. In the case of the
royal, their dress, higher seating positions, and accoutrements of rule – crown
or staff signify to all those that are present of their central status. The
ability of the center to punish exerts a disciplinary gaze on all of the team
members ensuring that they perform to appropriately direct attention.
Additionally, internal rivalries and competition for the position of the center
ensures that the peripheral members are constantly surveilling each other,
ensuring that neither is able to gain an advantage and move closer to the
center. In some ways, the royals and aristocrats have Panopticon-like setups
with themselves at the center allowing for observing those at the periphery
while re-emphasizing their position at the center. There are few meetings
outside of family. Within family meetings the center is presumably redefined around
a patriarch or matriarch, and within meetings for formal events, where the
center of attention is the event itself – e.g. the race and associated odds
form the center of attention at a racecourse. The panopticism implied in the
coalescence around a center perhaps helps theorize why there are few meetings
outside of family and formal events – Panopticons do not work with multiple
centers.
There are also
implications about social class that are heavily prevalent in these center of
attention performances. Due to the possession of primarily higher amounts of
economic capital, the center is differentiated from the periphery. Although the
position of being the center is both a result of the possession of capital, as
well as a form of symbolic capital itself. In a court, even if the royal is not
necessarily the richest, or most cultured or educated member, their position
implies possession of symbolic capital. Bourdieu notes:
“the accumulation of symbolic capital, that is, with the acquisition
of a reputation for competence and an image of respectability and honourability
that are easily converted into political positions as a local or national notable.”
(1986a:291)
The center of
attention in both these performances has established themselves as a local or
national notable. Therefore, regardless of economic or cultural terms, it is
clear that in symbolic terms the center stands out from the periphery. To
return to Waugh’s description, characters found in a ducal castle may include
“advisory experts” (Goffman 1959:100),
indicating that these performers may have higher cultural capital, yet lower
symbolic capital. Therefore, in the examples about royalty and aristocracy, it
is clear that there is a hierarchical power relation and a gap in symbolic
capital between the center and the periphery. However, sandwiched between these
two examples, Goffman mentions dance numbers in musical comedies wherein the
relations are slightly different.
The symbolic
relationship between the heroine and the background dancers remains roughly
similar in this case. The heroine may not possess higher cultural capital – potentially
conceived of as additional dance training or higher quality phenotype than the
background dancers, yet her position at the center of the performance is
associated with higher economic capital and symbolic capital. While Goffman
does not prognosticate as to why a person comes to occupy a position of
dramatic dominance, Bourdieu’s notion of the forms of capital can shine light
on what paves the way for a person to occupy the position of dramatic dominance
within a team performance (Bourdieu 1986b). In
case of the heroine, she may have comparable cultural capital vis-à-vis dance
skills and abilities, but in terms of the other forms of capital she might
possess more of those. She may have greater musical talent (an additional form
of cultural capital), or high popularity (implying a larger social network or
social capital), or may be a producer (implying higher levels of economic
capital). It is perhaps not inaccurate to hypothesize that the symbolic effects
of capital possessed by the team member with dramatic dominance in a
performance propelled them to the position of dramatic dominance. However, the
power relations in the case of the heroine in a musical number are not as
straightforward. The heroine is uninterested in surveillance of the background
dancers, and presumably, while the background dancers want to follow her lead
for the maintenance of the aesthetic quality of the dance, they do not receive
punishment from her. It is assumed that the choreographer of the piece is the
person with the power to punish. It is the choreographer’s surveillance that is
exacting a disciplinary gaze on the background dancers reinforcing the quality
of the performance. Therefore, in some ways, unlike the royal or the
aristocrat, the heroine is perhaps better conceptualized as the actor with
dramatic dominance only in this situation. She does not have the power to
direct the performance, assign roles, or sanction team members for falling
short of their responsibilities. Extrapolating from these and other examples
provided by Goffman, it would imply that the team member with dramatic
dominance is associated with the possession of higher amounts of symbolic
capital than the other members some of whom may possess directive dominance,
e.g. royal in a Court, aristocrat in a castle, heroine in a dance number,
minister in a wedding, or umpire in a game. However, in terms of power
relations, it is not always clear that there is a top-down flow of power from
the center to the periphery. In case of the royals and aristocrats there is a
power relation that is sustained through the performance of being in court or in
the residence. For the minister or the umpire, it is top-down only during the
time-limited performance itself, and for the heroine, there is not a definite
durable power relation between the center and the periphery. The heroine may or
may not have power over the background dancers. If she is eminent and
experienced, she probably has this power, if she is debuting, she probably does
not have this power. In either case, she still has higher symbolic capital than
the background dancers. The conceptual separation of directive dominance and
dramatic dominance provides a method to analyze power relations separately from
symbolic capital in these situations.
“It should be made clear that dramatic and directive dominance are
dramaturgical terms and that performers who enjoy such dominance may not have
other types of power and authority.” (Goffman 1959:102)
The
deconstruction of the empirical examples is to provide context towards
understanding the other types of power and authority in these situations.
Goffman uses the quote above to segue into a discussion of figureheads. Intuitively,
a figurehead can be thought of as a position of visible leadership that acts to
conceal the members with true directive dominance and authority. A macabre
World War I example provided by Goffman is the practice of experienced higher ranked
working-class sergeants instructing new lieutenants to take a highly visible
position at the head of the platoon, even though this position was associated
with higher casualties. Their forward position made the new lieutenants
figureheads that concealed the sergeants at the back of the platoon who were
the true leaders.
The other
example provided by Goffman is the notion of conspicuous consumption personified
in the unique role of the footman within the hierarchy of domestic help. The
presence of domestic staff itself was a sign of wealth, but the nature of the
work of many servants implied that they were not meant to be visible and could
not serve as the centers of attention in a performance designed to signify
wealth. The high visibility of footmen and coachmen places them in a unique
position vis-à-vis other domestic help. Footman and coachmen with their ornate
livery served to signify the wealth of the master of the household. Their visible roles allowed them to be the team
members with dramatic dominance even though they had no directive dominance
within this performance. There was no power relation being established between
them and other members of the team, the other domestic workers. The
disciplinary gaze they experienced was from competitors of their employer and not
from the team members, and due to their visibility, they probably possessed
marginally more symbolic capital than the other members of the domestic staff.
However, this example induces consideration of the “self” and the “other” with
respect to the performance and the power relations formed.
“a power relationship can only be articulated on the basis of two
elements which are each indispensable if it is really to be a power
relationship: that “the other” … be thoroughly recognized and maintained” (Foucault 1983:220)
In conspicuous
consumption, the “self” is the conspicuous consumer, the social actor who is putting
on a display of wealth as a performance. The performance itself has its own
actors who are playing dramaturgical roles with the aim of displaying the
economic capital of the consumer. The “other” are the peers of the consumer who
are using this display to infer wealth. In this particular case, the “self” and
the “other” are not necessarily in an interaction with each other. This
consideration also extends when trying to understand the power relations
inherent in conspicuous consumption. The conspicuous consumer is utilizing the
performance to generate knowledge regarding their own wealth. This knowledge in
turn creates a power relationship between them and the audience viewing the
coachmen and their livery.
Through the
analysis of the empirical examples of teamwork, it is possible to establish the
relationships between the directive dominance, dramatic dominance, the
constituent power relationships, and the forms of capital possessed by the team
members. This allows for a nuanced analysis of exchange inherent within human
interaction. The microsocial examples are intuitive and can be dissected to
generate broader generalizable insights. These examples make it clear that directive
and dramatic dominance, power relations and symbolic capital are situationally
contingent. While these examples focused on team and team dynamics,
deconstructing individual performances can also lead to additional insights
into social interactions.
Understanding Performance through Game and Pastoral Power
When Goffman begins his chapter Performances
(1959:17–76), he is concerned with the belief the performer holds about their
performance they are fostering to their audience. They are not only generating
a reality or an impression that they implicitly yearn for their audience to
believe in, but they themselves need to believe in the narrative that they are
generating. Moreover, a performer who believes in their performance is said to
be sincere, whereas a performer who does not believe in their performance is
said to be cynical or selfish. It is assumed that a performer will choose not
to believe in their performance in order to dupe the audience for personal
gain. However, in some cases, the audience for the performance may not want
sincerity and therefore, despite no intention of wanting to be cynical, the
performer chooses not to believe in their performance. The examples that
Goffman provides for this set of cynical, but unselfish performances are shoe
clerks selling a shoe that fits but stating a different size to the customer,
doctors prescribing placebos, and mental ward patients who feign bizarre
symptoms for student nurses. In each of these cases, there is potential for
loss for the performer providing a duplicitous performance – should the shoe
clerk’s lie about the stated shoe size be exposed, they are revealed to be a
dishonest salesperson, an undesirable label. Similarly, should the therapeutic
inefficacy of a prescribed placebo become common knowledge, the doctor becomes
labelled as ineffective which is bad for business and his professional
reputation. Should the mental ward patient’s feigning of bizarre symptoms be
taken to imply disease progression, their stay in the mental ward would get
extended and their integrity would be compromised henceforth. Therefore,
despite the potential for personal loss, the performers provide these
intentional yet not cynical duplicitous performances. Goffman segues on to
talking about a belief-disbelief cycle that follows from these performances.
However, re-analyzing these performances through a lens informed by Bourdieu’s
notion of game might elucidate what is at stake and the nature of the game
being played out through these performances.
“The structure
of class relations is what one obtains by using a synchronic cross-section to
fix a (more or less steady) state of the field of struggles among the classes …
The definition of the legitimate means and stakes of struggle is in fact one of
the stakes of the struggle, and the relative efficacy of the means of
controlling the game (the different sorts of capital) is itself at stake, and
therefore subject to variations in the course of the game.” (Bourdieu 1986b:246)
Using this framework to dissect the
empirical examples provided by Goffmann requires understanding the field of
practice within which the performers are situated, the rules of that field, the
sorts of capital that come to bear within that field, and the game that is
being played through the duration of the performance. Fields are settings or
constructs characterized by competition and implicit and explicit rules.
The shoe clerk is within the field of
consumer sales. The competition within this field is defined as the need to have
the most sales within a given period. The rules are not explicitly laid out but
include some understanding of integrity – implying that outright lying about
the product being sold is not tolerated, even if some misrepresentation is
tolerated. The goal of the shoe clerk is to get people to buy shoes without
incurring losses. The shoe clerks need to be skilled in the game of selling
shoes to solidify their position in this particular field. People need to buy
shoes both for their utility of covering feet and their utility of signifying
aesthetic style which includes a preference for daintiness (as per Goffman’s
example). Thus the clerk has to play a game in which these utilities are
balanced – the shoes have to fit the feet but also, the buyer should be
convinced that the shoes fit their aesthetic notions of daintiness. In order to
control this game, the clerk engages in a duplicitous performance, drawing on their
training and expertise (cultural capital) to find a shoe that fits and their
persuasion skills to convince the shopper that the shoes are of a smaller size.
If we consider the habitus of the clerk, their choices are oriented towards forming
social connections with the consumers. Thus, in this game, the salesperson is
drawing on their cultural capital and their habitus to deliver a performance
which controls the game at the expense of their performance falling apart
should the deception regarding the shoe size become known.
In the case of the mental ward patient
enacting bizarre symptoms, a priori, it is challenging to apply the concept of
field. The concept of field is typically applied to professionals, but patients
within mental wards are not professionals within that setting. Goffman in
Asylum describes these institutions as total institutions in which the
patient’s all past identities, statuses and roles including professional
identities are stripped from them when they enter these institutions (1961).
However, a field implies a struggle within one’s class and between classes, and
mental wards contain an element of struggle – patients as a class are both
cooperating with and resisting the medical class. They require the assent and
skills of the medical class to be released and reacquire their identities. Therefore,
I argue that there is a field within mental wards in which patients are
struggling to gain treatment, autonomy, and release.
The game being played by patients is to
ensure that the mental ward nurses and doctors believe that they are ready for
release. This requires both acting “disappointingly sane” as well as being
“sympathetic” (Goffman 1959:18) to
demonstrate mental normality to their medical gatekeepers – the mental ward staff.
In order to build social networks with the regular nurses, they play up bizarre
symptoms to engage the student nurses. Thus, the duplicitous performance here
serves to control the game in favor of the performer – the patient of the
mental ward.
Within this case, we also see a case study
of the proliferation of pastoral power beyond the Church into being exercised
by the State and medical institutions. Foucault ascribes several attributes to
pastoral power including a focus on salvation, now interpreted as wellbeing, a
proliferation beyond religious institutions, and a multiplication of aims
focused on generating knowledge about subjects (1983). In
the mental ward, all these aspects of pastoral power can be found.
In the case of the doctor prescribing a
placebo, their cultural capital makes them realize that the patient perhaps
does not need further medication, but in order to retain patients and restore
patient satisfaction, and thus carefully applying both explicit and implicit
rules of the game of their profession, they prescribe a placebo, and provide a
simile of pharmaceutical intervention. It is also possible that the placebo,
even if duplicitous from the perspective of the physician, is safer than
medications that the patient may demand, especially if they are not
physiologically called for. Through both Goffman and Bourdieu, additional
insights can be drawn about the performance and game inherent in medical
practice.
The dramatic realization of a performance
rests on the performer’s use and deployment of signs for the audience to
observe and thereby believe in the performance. Without believable or
observable signs or the optics of a performance, the audience cannot fully put
their trust in the hands of the performer. The performer builds trust through a
process termed idealization. The performer tries to send a message to the
audience that they are a socialized product whose personality is steeped in the
ideal values, norms, and customs of a given society at a given time. They are
driven to prove through their performance a reaffirmation of the of the moral
values of a community. The assemblage of signs utilized by the performer
includes settings and the formation of a front – the “expressive equipment” (Goffman 1959:22)
utilized intentionally or unintentionally by the performer in the course of
their performance.
One of the empirical examples provided by
Goffman is the doctor’s need to be surrounded by the paraphernalia of advanced
medical science in order to practice, leading to the closure of smaller medical
practices. The signs utilized by a doctor practicing in a large hospital show
integration with modern medical science, and the capacity to handle any sized
medical contingency discovered through practice. For this example Goffman cites
an unpublished dissertation titled – “Career Contingencies of Chicago Physicians” (1959:23).
Considering the necessity of the optics of medical technological excess in
practice allows for contemplating other aspects of medical practice revealed by
this vignette.
In considering the differences between new
entrants to a profession and established professionals, Bourdieu remarks that
the changes in the education and industrial systems over time lead to a myriad
of different pathways for entering into and competing within a field. However,
some professions, especially doctors have resisted this trend using “Malthusian
conditions of access” (Bourdieu 1986a:297). The term Malthusian implies that while
population grows exponentially, resources such as food grow linearly causing a
situation in which there are too many people and a scarcity of resources.
Doctors have ensured that there are only fixed paths and a stable traditional
definition of the profession of a doctor to limit the number of doctors. In
effect doctors are acting as gatekeepers to the profession and ensuring the
success of those within their field by limiting the numbers of participants in
that field. Goffman’s use of the need for medical bounty to successfully
perform as a doctor, signals another form of gatekeeping by preventing smaller
entrants and bringing all performers within the field into the fold of
practicing within larger institutions. However, fields may also expand to
introduce new entrants and new forms of performance.
For a new entrant into an established role
and performance, the front is usually selected and is not wholly constructed
from scratch. Ergo, in effect, there are many fronts available to actors
requiring to stage a performance in society. For unestablished tasks or new
performances, it is unlikely that a front has to be recreated entirely, and
more likely that there are a set of fronts available to choose from. The
establishment of a new social role, and associated standards of performance
therefore, more often than not requires selection rather than creation of an
appropriate front. Goffman uses the establishment of the medical field of
anesthesia as an empirical example to demonstrate this idea (Goffman 1959:27–28). When
doctors were trying to establish anesthesia as a graduate medical specialty,
they needed a front to establish that the administration of anesthesia was
sufficiently complex to warrant a doctor’s attention even though at the time it
was administered by nurses. Some believed that the task was over-ranked for
nurses and yet under-ranked for doctors. Therefore, there was not immediately a
front available for a doctor to perform the administration of anesthesia
befitting the “ ceremonial and financial rewards” accrued to doctors rather
than nurses (Goffman 1959:28). This
situation is one in which the field of medical practice is expanding to include
anesthesia. The doctors are using their cultural capital to sufficiently
redefine anesthesia as a field of practice deserving of expert attention due to
intricacies and complexities. The creation of this subfield allows for
additional pathways to gain economic and cultural capital for doctors.
Therefore, incumbents in a field can also cooperate to ensure continued high
status of the field and to ensure continued flow of capital to the field. In
some ways, the expansion of the medical field to include anesthesia can also be
viewed as the expansion of the pastoral power of doctors and the medical
system. Bringing in a new area of practice into a familiar fold allows for new
forms of generation of knowledge, surveillance, and governmentality over a
population.
Conclusion
Goffman’s quotidian examples allow for an
intuitive understanding of the deconstruction of social interaction and
detailed examples of the minutiae of performance. Bourdieu’s focus on
synchronicity in some aspects of social analysis allow for understanding the
fundamental structures underpinning society and how different social groupings
are in conflict and cooperation with members of their own groups and other
groups. Foucault’s broad historical method enables one to be able to detach
from the subject at hand and understand the evolution of a social interaction
vis-à-vis broader currents in society. Utilizing the theories of Bourdieu and
Foucault to understand some of Goffman’s empirical examples provides an avenue
for a deeper understanding of society by integrating microsocial and
macrosocial viewpoints as well as diachronic and synchronic analysis. Through
this essay, I have attempted to read into and re-interpret the accessible
empirical examples provided by Goffman to understand aspects of the social interactions
that he was describing that he did not necessarily elucidate. It is hoped that
through this exercise, I will be able to bring a multidimensional perspective
to my own empirical data and analyze it through multiple lenses to generate
different kinds of insight.
References:
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986a. Distinction.
1st edition. London: Routledge.
Bourdieu,
Pierre. 1986b. “The Forms of Capital.” Pp. 241–58 in Handbook of Theory and
Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by J. Richardson. Westport,
CT: Greenwood.
Foucault,
Michael. 1983. “The Subject and Power.” Pp. 208–26 in Michel Foucault:
Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Foucault,
Michel. 1995. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New
York: Vintage Books.
Goffman,
Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York:
Anchor.
Goffman,
Erving. 1961. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and
Other Inmates. First Edition. New York, NY: Anchor Books / Doubleday.
Granovetter,
Mark. 1985. “Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of
Embeddedness.” American Journal of Sociology 91(3):481–510.