1000 and 1200 words paper

Goffman, Part 2: Stigma Contemporary Sociological Theory Lecture,

Thursday April 25, 2019

Bits of business

§ I’ll get midterm grades in soon

§ If you need to take the final at a different time, be sure to e-mail me.

§ If you need to make up the first midterm, come to office hours or also e-mail me.

§ Your first paper is due at the end of the next week. All you have to do is apply one of the theories we’ve read so far to a newspaper story, fictional account, or your own life. For example, how might Goffman’s theory of stigma explain the treatment of Rep. Ilhan Omar?

What is stigma?

“Society establishes the means of categorizing persons”:This allow us to make expectations of people based on their identities.

But sometimes we come to realize the person doesn’t live up to our expectations of someone in that category: “it constitutes a special discrepancy between virtual and actual social identity”

Not about all undesirable attributes, but ”only those which are incongruous with our stereotype of what a given type of individual should be”

Stigma is situational

“a language of relationships, not

attributes, is really needed” (example of a professional criminal

hiding going to the library)

“a special kind of relationship between

attribute and stereotype”

Difference between discredited and

discreditable

Three different kinds of stigma

“abominations of the body”

“blemishes of individual character”

”tribal stigma of race, nation, and religion”

These are all different from “normals”

What do normals do?

Normals discriminate, consider the stigmatized not quite human, and develop an ideology to explain the difference.

We use stigmatized categories as curse words and derogatory terms.

Goffman gives the example of “blind”

What do the stigmatized do?

§ They might not agree.

§ They often internalize society’s judgements, both with others and by themselves.

§ Multiple meanings of “acceptance” (Goffman does not quite get to this) (page 8)

§ Efforts to “correct” the stigmatized element of the self.

§ Other things too: “secondary gains”, “blessing in disguise” challenging that normal actually have it better

Anticipated Interactions

§ The stigmatized can seek to avoid interactions with “normal”

§ “in the stigmatized arises the sense of not knowing what the others present are ‘really’ thinking about him” (14)

§ Stigmatized feel like they have to be “on” in ways others do not.

§ Minor failings are interpreted as character traits.

Get outta my space, man.

§ “The implication of these overtures is that the stigmatized individual is a person who can be approached by strangers at will, providing only that they are sympathetic to the plight of persons of his kind” (16)

Problems for normals too

§ “We will feel that the stigmatized individual is either too aggressive or too shamefaced, and in either case too ready to read unintended meanings into our actions.”

§ Are we being patronizing? Are we demanding too much?

Allies The “own” and the “wise”

The Own

People might distinguish themselves from their “own” however.

A category might make people more likely to form a group, but it doesn’t make them a group.

What do representatives do?: urge usage of different language, formulate an ideology, give public presentations, become professional, and make the stigma, by writing and speaking about it, salient.

The Wise

Term Goffman borrows from “homosexuals”:

persons who are normal but who are

sympathetic and accepting.

Note this is not an anti- prejudice but rather a

function of interpersonal action.

The problem with (not all!)

woke white people (and

Goffman)

§ Acceptance is an interesting and important thing.

§ People have experiences that make they sympathetic, but this does not necessarily mean they use their power and “normal” status to make changes.

§ It also doesn’t mean they have certain rights or privileges in these communities (problem of appropriation and reserved spaces)

Stigma is contagious

The wise are divided into those with some kind of experience and those who are related through social structure to a stigmatized individual

The problems with a “courtesy stigma”: the stigmatized are suspicious and the Normals are annoyed and don’t know what to do with it.

Moral Career

§ Learning you have a stigma and what others think of it.

§ Family protecting you until it cannot.

§ Also the case of learning later in life or becoming stigmatized later in life.

§ Coming from a place where X is not not stigmatized and then it is.

§ “A life event can thus have a double bearing on moral career, first as immediate objective ground for an actual turning point and late…as a means of account for a position currently taken” (38-39)

§ Retrospective renarrations

Howdoes Goffman theorize?

Where’s the data and how much does it matter?

What’s the method?

Goffman Summary

§ Presentation of Self: Front Stage and Back Strage

§ Saving Face

§ Total Institutions and Moral Careers

§ Stigma: Virtual vs Actual Identity

§ Stigma is situational

§ Interactions between Normals and Stigmatized

§ Category vs. Group

§ Wise and Own

For next Tuesday

Good luck with Bourdieu!

Think about how we distinguish ourselves from each other.

Think about forms of capital.