Abstract
On the occasion of the re-publication of Erving Goffman’s Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order, including the remarkable appendix, “Insanity of Place,” the authors propose new ways of reading Goffman’s work in order to highlight his attention to havoc and containment. Goffman’s “Insanity of Place,” explores the phenomenon of mental illness by asserting that it is an instance of havoc, a symbolic and practical condition that disrupts the social order of life, and one that must be contained. By situating this essay at the center of Goffman’s oeuvre they examine Goffman’s “philosophy of containment,” and trace its trajectory from Asylums, Stigma and “The Insanity of Place” to its full crystallization in Frame Analysis. The authors offer a generative reading of havoc and containment in order to understand the incoherence, irrationality, unreason, incomprehensibility and unbearableness of social life and the imperative to preserve social order from collapsing, dissolving or imploding. This reading enables us to see the cracks in the social order and understand containment as the constant effort exerted to recuperate transgressions and deviations back into that order. Goffman’s analysis becomes an opening into engagements with the work of Judith Butler and Michel Foucault around the notion of the normative order and the issues of containment and transgression. Thinking through Goffman’s philosophy of containment as the framework for an analysis of socialization, normalization, and social ordering affords an approach to thinking macro-micro linkages of order and instability that confront both our contemporary society and the discipline of sociology.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
A publishing trail of Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Social Order shows that it was originally published in 1971, with a paperback edition in 1972. Penguin continued to reprint it in England, and then Harper Collins continued to reprint the book in the U.S. until at least 1980. As a result, Relations in Public has not been readily available since the 1980s. For further publishing details see Books in Print.
The original article ‘Insanity of Place’ appeared in Psychiatry. 1969 Nov, 32(4):357–88. In Relations in Public, in the Author’s Note, Goffman writes, “The first six chapters deal with a single domain of activity and were written to be published together…The paper placed in the appendix was published separately and is meant to stand on its own. It considerably repeats some of the arguments developed in the text and can be read as an application of them.” While the reason behind why Goffman wanted to include a paper that was previously published is beyond the scope of this paper, it is interesting both to note that this journal was probably not familiar reading to his sociological audience, and that the paper was published years before the essays in Relations in Public.
In recent years, a spate of books and articles has been published that draw attention to new forms of risk and uncertainty associated with markets—especially financial markets—terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, failed states, accidents in complex technological systems, mismanaged responses to natural disasters, and the general structure of individualistic modernity. This body of writing includes books by Anthony Giddens (1999) and Ulrich Beck (1992) as well as the popular work of Nassim Taleb (2007). Globalization, accelerated high-volume information flows, individualism, new technologies, neo-liberalism, and larger population sizes are among the causes that authors use to account for greater levels of risk and uncertainty. Not all situations of risk are necessarily situations of extreme uncertainty and havoc, as Taleb and Davidson (2010) point out. They both make a distinction between risk (with known probabilities of outcomes and generally a Gaussian or normal distribution of possibilities) and uncertainty (marked by much “wilder” and less predictable randomness). Higher levels of risk in societies, markets, and technologies may increase the likelihood of sudden and unpredictable swings into havoc. While a detailed discussion of the notion of the risk society and extreme uncertainty (i.e., the transition into havoc or chaos) is beyond the scope of this paper, we emphasize that a sociological understanding of these situations and insight into micro–macro linkages in societal breakdowns is enhanced by the use of Goffman’s concept of havoc.
For an excellent exegesis of Goffman’s epistemological premises, see Javier Trevino’s introduction to his edited volume Goffman’s Legacy.
References
Althusser, L. (2001). Lenin and philosophy and other essays. Monthly Review Press.
Battershill, C. D. (1990). Erving Goffman as a precursor to the post-modern sociology. In S. H. Riggins (Ed.), Beyond Goffman: Studies on communication, institution, and social interaction. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Baudrillard, J. (1995). Simulacra and simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity. Sage.
Bourdieu, P. (1983). Erving Goffman, discoverer on the infinitely small. Theory, Culture & Society, 2(1), 112–113.
Bourdieu, P. (1991). In J. B. Thompson (Ed.), Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Harvard University.
Brown, R. H. (1977). A poetic for sociology: Toward a logic of discovery for the human sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, D. (2003). Goffman’s dramaturgical sociology: developing a meaningful theoretical context and exercise involving embarassment and social organization. Teaching Sociology, 31(3), 288–299.
Burns, T. (1992). Erving Goffman. New York: Routledge.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York and London: Routledge.
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter. New York and London: Routledge.
Butler, J. (2004). Undoing gender. New York and London: Routledge.
Cahill, S. A. (1994). Following Goffman, following Durkheim into the public realm. Research in Community Sociology. Supplement (1):3–17.
Carrothers, R. M., & Benson, D. E. (2003). Symbolic interactionism in introductory textbooks: coverage and pedagogical implications. Teaching Sociology., 31(2), 162–181.
Cheal, D. J. (1988). Relationships in time: ritual, social structure, and the life course. Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 9, 83–109.
Chriss, J. J. (1993). Looking back on Goffman: the excavation continues. Human Studies, 16(4), 469–483.
Chriss, J. J. (1995). Some thoughts on recent efforts to further systematize Goffman. Sociological Forum, 10(1), 177–186.
Clough, P. T. (1990). Reading Goffman: Toward the deconstruction of sociology. In Riggens (Ed.), Beyond Goffman.
Collins, R. (1975). Conflict sociology: Towards an explanatory science. New York: Acadeic.
Collins, R. (1981a). Three stages of Erving Goffman. In Sociology since midcentury (pp. 219–253). New York: Academic.
Collins, R. (1981b). On the microfoundations of macrosociology. The American Journal of Sociology, 86, 984–1014.
Collins, R. (1988). Theoretical continuities in Goffman’s work. In Drew & Wooten (Eds.), Erving Goffman.
Davidson, P. (2010). Risk and uncertainty. In R. Skidelsky & C. W. Wigstrom (Eds.), The economic crisis and the state of economics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dawe, A. (1973). The underworld-view of Erving Goffman. The British Journal of Sociology, 24(2), 246–253.
Deleuze, & Guattari. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Deleuze, & Guattari. (2009). Anti-oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. New York: Penguin.
Dennis, A., & Martin, P. J. (2005). Symbolic interactionism and the concept of power. The British Journal of Sociology, 56, 191–213.
Dillon, M. (1980). Conversation with Michel Foucault. The Threepenny Review, 4–5. Winter/Spring.
Ditton, J. (Ed.). (1980). The view from Goffman. New York: St Martin’s.
Drew, P., & Wooton, A. (Eds.). (1988). Erving Goffman: Exploring the interaction order. Cambridge: Polity.
Fine, G. A., & Smith, G. W. H. (Eds.). (2000). Erving Goffman (Vol. 4). London: Sage.
Foucault, M. (1966). The order of things: An archaeology of the human sciences. New York: Vintage.
Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York: Vintage.
Foucault, M. (1980a). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972–1977.
Foucault, M. (1980b). The history of sexuality. An introduction (Vol. 1). New York: Vintage.
Giddens, A. (1999). Runaway world: How globalization is reshaping our lives. London: Profile.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City: Anchor Books.
Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums: Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. Garden City: Anchor Books.
Goffman, E. (1963a). Behavior in public places: Notes on the social organization of gatherings. New York: Free Press.
Goffman, E. (1963b). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual: Essays on face-to-face behavior. Garden City: Anchor Books.
Goffman, E. (1971). Relations in public: Microstudies of the public order. New York: Basic Books.
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. New York: Harper & Row.
Goffman, E. (1979). Gender advertisements. New York: Harper Collins.
Goffman, E. (1981). A reply to Denzin and Keller. Contemporary Sociology, 10(1), 60–68.
Gonos, G. (1977). “Situation” vs. “frame”: the “interactionist” and the “structuralist” analyses of everyday life. American Sociological Review, 42, 854–867.
Hacking, I. (2004). Between Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman: between discourse in the abstract and face-to-face interaction. Economy and Society, 33(3), 277–302.
Hall, P. M. (2004). Meta-power, social organization, and the shaping of social action. Symbolic Interaction, 20(4), 397–418.
Jacobsen, M. H. (2010). The contemporary Goffman. New York: Routledge.
Jameson, F. (1976). Review: on Goffman’s frame analysis. Theory and Society, 3(1), 119–133.
Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism or the cultural logic of late capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press.
Jenkins, R. (2008a). Social identity (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.
Jenkins, R. (2008b). The ways and means of power: Efficacy and resources. In S. Clegg & M. Haugaard (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of power. London: Sage.
Jenkins, R. (2008c). Erving Goffman: a major theorist of power? Journal of Power, 1(2), 157–168.
Langman, L. (1991). Alienation and everyday life: Goffman meets Marx at the shopping mall. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 11(6–8), 107–124.
Lanigan, R. (1990). Is Erving Goffman a phenomenologist? In Riggins (Ed.), Beyond Goffman.
Lemert, C., & Brananman, A. (1997). The Goffman reader. New York: Wiley Blackwell.
Lyotard, J.-F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
MacCannell, D. (1990). The descent of the Ego. In S. H. Riggins (Ed.), Beyond Goffman: Studies on communication, institution, and social interaction. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Manning, P. (1993). Erving Goffman and modern sociology. Stanford University Press.
Marx, G. (1984). Role models and role distance: a remembrance of Erving Goffman. Theory and Society, 13(5), 649–662.
Miller, D. L. (1982). Ritual in the work of Durkheim and Goffman: the link between the macro and the micro. Humanity and Society, 6, 122–134.
Misztal, B. A. (2001). Normality and trust in Goffman’s theory of interaction order. Sociological Theory, 19(3), p312–p324.
Rawls, A. W. (1987). The interaction order sui generis: Goffman’s contribution to social theory. Sociological Theory, 5(2), 136–149.
Riggins, S. H. (Ed.). (1990). Beyond Goffman: Studies on communication, institution, and social interaction. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Rogers, M. (1977). Goffman and power. American Sociologist, 12, 88–95.
Rogers, M. (1979). Goffman on power, hierarchy and status. In J. Ditton (Ed.), The view from Goffman (pp. 100–133). London: Macmillan.
Scheff, T. J. (2005). The structure of context: deciphering ‘frame analysis’. Sociological Theory, 23(4), 368–385.
Scheff, T. (2006). Goffman unbound!: A new paradigm for social science. New York: Paradigm.
Smith, G. (1999). Goffman and social organisation: Studies in a sociological legacy. New York: Routledge.
Taleb, N. N. (2007). The black swan: The impact of the highly improbable. New York: Random House.
Vester, H.-G. (1989). Erving Goffman’s sociology as a semiotics of postmodern culture. Semiotica, 76(3–4), 191–203.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hancock, B.H., Garner, R. Towards a Philosophy of Containment: Reading Goffman in the 21st Century. Am Soc 42, 316–340 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-011-9132-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-011-9132-3