Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Erving Goffman

– Exploring the Interaction Order Through Everyday Observations and Imaginative Metaphors

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Interactionist Imagination

Abstract

Erving Goffman was indeed one of the main pioneers and exponents of interactionist sociology during the latter part of the twentieth century. Goffman simultaneously build on as well as expanded the interactionist ideas of his own teachers and predecessors by way of developing a unique perspective to the study of social interaction. Although Goffman was reluctant to joining any academic camps or schools of thought, his work is deeply embedded within an interactionist perspective. In this chapter the authors show how Goffman approached the study of social interaction through two closely interconnected paths, the first being his keen eye for empirical details practiced in some famous and groundbreaking studies of the normality and deviance in everyday life as well as of institutional practices, and second his imaginative invention of four metaphors – drama, ritual, strategy and frame – intended to capture and highlight different dimensions of social interaction. In this chapter, the authors thus illustrate the intimate connections between Goffman’s qualitative methodology and his theoretical training in interactionist sociology and by way of Goffman’s own studies illustrate his indebtedness as well as original contribution to interactionist sociology.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Attewell, Paul (1974): ‘Ethnomethodology since Garfinkel’. Theory and Society, 1:179–210.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Branaman, Ann (1997): ‘Goffman’s Social Theory’, in Charles Lemert & Ann Branaman (eds.): The Goffman Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. xlv–lxxxii.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, Pierre (1983): ‘Erving Goffman: Discoverer of the Infinitely Small’. Theory, Culture & Society, 2 (1):112–113.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, Richard H. (1976): ‘Social Theory as Metaphor: On the Logic of Discovery for Sciences of Conduct’. Theory and Society, 3 (2):169–197.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cavan, Sherri (2013): ‘When Erving Goffman Was a Boy: The Formative Years of a Sociological Giant’. Symbolic Interaction, 37 (1):41–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Collins, Randall (1981): ‘Three Stages of Erving Goffman’, in Sociology Since Midcentury: Essays in Theory Cumulation. New York: Academic Press, pp. 219–253.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Collins, Randall (1986): ‘The Passing of Intellectual Generations: Reflections on the Death of Erving Goffman’. Sociological Theory, 4 (1):106–113.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Collins, Randall (2016): ‘What Has Micro-Sociology Accomplished?’ Available online at: http://sociological-eye-blogspot.dk.

  • Corradi, Consuelo (1990): ‘The Metaphoric Structure of Scientific Explanation’. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 16 (3):161–178.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drew, Paul & Anthony Wooton (1988): ‘Introduction’, in Paul Drew & Anthony Wooton (eds.): Erving Goffman – Exploring the Interaction Order. Boston: Northeastern University Press, pp. 1–13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Edgley, Charles (ed.) (2013): The Drama of Social Life: A Dramaturgical Handbook. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elkind, David (1975): ‘Encountering Erving Goffman’. Human Behavior, 4 (3):25–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Erwin, Robert (1992): ‘The Nature of Goffman’. The Centennial Review, 36:327–342.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fine, Gary Alan (1995): A Second Chicago School? The Development of a Postwar American Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fine, Gary Alan & Philip Manning (2003): ‘Erving Goffman’, in George Ritzer (ed.): The Blackwell Companion to Major Contemporary Social Theorists. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 34–62.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fontana, Andrea (1980): ‘The Mask and Beyond: The Enigmatic Sociology of Erving Goffman’, in Jack D. Douglas (ed.): Introduction to the Sociologies of Everyday Life. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, pp. 62–81.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garfinkel, Harold (1967): Studies in Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, Anthony (1988): ‘Goffman as a Systematic Social Theorist’, in Paul Drew & Anthony Wootton (eds.): Erving Goffman – Exploring the Interaction Order. Boston: Northeastern University Press, pp. 260–279.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving (1949): Some Characteristics of Response to Depicted Experience. Unpublished master thesis, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving (1953): Communication Conduct in an Island Community. Unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving (1959): The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving (1961a): Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving (1961b): Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving (1963a): Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving (1963b): Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Chicago: Aldine.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving (1964): ‘The Neglected Situation’. American Anthropologist, 66 (2):133–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving (1967): Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. New York: Pantheon Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving (1969): Strategic Interaction. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving (1971): Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving (1974): Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. New York: Harper & Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving (1979): Gender Advertisements. New York: Harper & Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving (1981a): Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving (1981b): ‘A Reply to Denzin and Keller’. Contemporary Sociology, 10 (3):60–68.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving (1983a): ‘The Interaction Order’. American Sociological Review, 48:1–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving (1983b): ‘Microsociologie et historie’, in Philippe Fritsch (ed.): Le Sens de L’ordinaire. Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, pp. 197–202.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gonos, George (1977): ‘“Situation” versus “Frame”: The “Interactionist” and “Structuralist” Analyses of Everyday Life’. American Sociological Review, 42:854–867.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gouldner, Alvin W. (1970): The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. London: Heinemann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hacking, Ian (2004): ‘Between Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman: Between Discourse in the Abstract and Face-to-Face Interaction’. Economy and Society, 33 (3):277–302.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Helle, Horst J. (1998): ‘Erving Goffman: A Symbolic Interactionist?’ in Luigi Tomasi (ed.): The Tradition of the Chicago School of Sociology. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 179–190.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hochschild, Arlie R. (1983): The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (ed.) (2010): The Contemporary Goffman. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2017a): ‘Norbert Elias og Erving Goffman: Civilisationsprocesser og følelsernes mikrosociologi’ [‘Norbert Elias and Erving Goffman: Civilisation Processes and The Microsociology of Emotions’], in Inger Glavind Bo & Michael Hviid Jacobsen (eds.): Følelsessociologi [The Sociology of Emotions]. Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels Forlag, pp. 113–139.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2017b): ‘Goffman’s Footnotes’. Forthcoming paper.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobsen, Michael Hviid & Søren Kristiansen (2006): ‘Goffmans metaforer – om den genbeskrivende og rekontekstualiserende metode hos Erving Goffman’ [‘Goffman’s Metaphors – On Erving Goffman’s Redescriptive and Reconceptualizing Method’]. Sosiologi i dag, 36 (1):5–33.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobsen, Michael Hviid & Søren Kristiansen (2010): ‘Labelling Erving Goffman – The Presentation and Appropriation of Erving Goffman in Sociology’, in Michael Hviid Jacobsen (ed.): The Contemporary Goffman. London: Routledge, pp. 64–97.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobsen, Michael Hviid & Søren Kristiansen (2014): The Social Thought of Erving Goffman. Newbury Park, CA: Pine Forge Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jaworski, Gary D. (2000): ‘Erving Goffman: The Reluctant Apprentice’. Symbolic Interaction, 23 (3):299–308.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Littlejohn, Stephen W. (1977): ‘Review Essay: Frame Analysis and Communication’. Communication Research, 4:485–492.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lofland, John (1984): ‘Erving Goffman’s Sociological Legacies’. Urban Life, 13 (1):7–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manning, Philip (1992): Erving Goffman and Modern Sociology. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manning, Philip (2016): ‘Goffman and Empirical Research’. Symbolic Interaction, 39 (1):143–152.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marx, Gary T. (1984): ‘Role Models and Role Distance: A Remembrance of Erving Goffman’. Theory and Society, 13:649–662.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morris, Monica B. (1977): An Excursion into Creative Sociology. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oatley, Keith & Jennifer M. Jenkins (1996): Understanding Emotions. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ostrow, James M. (1996): ‘Spontaneous Involvement and Social Life’. Sociological Perspectives, 39 (3):341–351.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pettit, Michael (2011): ‘The Con Man as Model Organism: The Methodological Roots of Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgical Self’. History of the Human Sciences, 24 (2):138–154.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rock, Paul (1979): The Making of Symbolic Interactionism. London: Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Scheff, Thomas J. (2005): ‘Looking-Glass Self: Goffman as Symbolic Interactionist’. Symbolic Interaction, 28 (2):147–166.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scheff, Thomas J. (2006): Goffman Unbound! – A New Paradigm for Social Science. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwalbe, Michael L. (1993): ‘Goffman Against Postmodernism: Emotion and the Reality of the Self’. Symbolic Interaction, 16 (4):333–350.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, David G. (2016): ‘Erving Goffman’s Las Vegas: From Jungle to Boardroom’. UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal, 20 (1):39–53.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, Howard & Jerry Jacobs (1979): Qualitative Methods: A Method to the Madness. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Greg (1988): ‘The Sociology of Erving Goffman’. Social Studies Review, 3:118–122.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Greg (2006): Erving Goffman. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Greg & Michael Hviid Jacobsen (2010): ‘Goffman’s Textuality – Literary Sensibilities and Sociological Rhetorics’, in Michael Hviid Jacobsen (ed.): The Contemporary Goffman. London: Routledge, pp. 119–146.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stein, Michael (1991): ‘Sociology and the Prosaic’. Sociological Inquiry, 61 (4):421–433.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Time Magazine (1969): ‘Exploring a Shadow World’. Time Magazine, 10 January, pp. 50–51.

    Google Scholar 

  • Verhoeven, Jef C. (1993): ‘An Interview with Erving Goffman, 1980’. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 26 (3):317–348.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Waskul, Dennis & Philip Vannini (2006): Body/Embodiment: Symbolic Interactionism and the Sociology of the Body. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watier, Patrick (2009): ‘Psychosocial Feelings Within Simmel’s Sociology’, in Cécilie Rol & Christian Papilloud (eds.): Soziologie als Möglichkeit – 100 Jahre Georg Simmels Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung. Berlin: Springer Verlag, pp. 199–216.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wexler, Mark N. (1984): ‘The Enigma of Goffman’s Sociology’. Quarterly Journal of Ideology, 8:40–50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, Robin (1988): ‘Understanding Goffman’s Methods’, in Paul Drew & Anthony Wootton (eds.): Erving Goffman – Exploring the Interaction Order. Boston: Northeastern University Press, pp. 64–88.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, Robin (1998): ‘Erving Goffman’, in Rob Stones (ed.): Key Sociological Thinkers. New York: New York University Press, pp. 151–162.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winkin, Yves (1999): ‘Erving Goffman: What Is a Life? – The Uneasy Making of an Intellectual Biography’, in Greg Smith (ed.): Goffman and Social Organization: Studies in a Sociological Legacy. London: Routledge, pp. 19–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winkin, Yves (2010): ‘Goffman’s Greenings’, in Michael Hviid Jacobsen (ed.): The Contemporary Goffman. London: Routledge, pp. 51–63.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Social Work, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Michael Hviid Jacobsen

Authors
  1. Michael Hviid Jacobsen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Aalborg at Esbjerg, Aalborg Oest, Denmark

    Michael Hviid Jacobsen

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Jacobsen, M.H. (2017). Erving Goffman. In: Jacobsen, M. (eds) The Interactionist Imagination. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58184-6_8

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58184-6_8

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-58183-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-58184-6

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation