Erving Goffman - Stigma

Gauffmans book, STIGMA- Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, deals with the effects of varying degrees of social and self-identity awareness on the possible adaptive patterns of behavior and accommodation that may arise when stigmatized individuals interact with normals in immediate physical proximity of each other in various social settings. Goffman deals with various definitional aspects of Stigma and contrasts ego identity (what an individual feels about stigma and its management) versus the more external pragmatic challenges of social identity management (its effect) and personal identity. This analysis leads to various specific strategies for dealing with the situations that arise. Goffman makes an effort to extend the specific issues at the root of stigmatization and the management of identity to society at large. He observes that general identity values of a society may be fully entrenched nowhere, and yet they can cast a shadow on encounters everywhere. He stresses that identity norms breed deviations as well as conformance, and that, therefore, stigma management is a general feature of society, a process occurring wherever there are identity norms. He encourages people to raise their awareness of these issues so that they are able to play both parts in the normal- deviant drama. He goes further to say that normal and stigmatized are not persons but rather perspectives. Goffman describes a win/win adaptation involving a form of tacit cooperation between normals and the stigmatized: the deviator can afford to remain attached to the norm because others are careful to respect his secret, pass lightly over its disclosure, or disattend evidence witch prevents a secret from being made of it. These others, in turn, can afford to extend this

tactfulness because the stigmatized will voluntarily refain from pushing claims for acceptance much pas the point normals find comfortable. Goffman concludes the book with a suggestion that the studies of deviations and deviance on various social scales- from small, family- like groups to face-to-face encounters with morality deviations at the local level, to metropolitan-scale social deviants expressing a collective denial of social order. All sociological areas of concern that may benefit from specific study of Stigma and that the awareness gained and lessons learned may be useful to all such studies of deviation. Goffman fells that these root concerns are a common issue shared by many traditional fields of social problem study and management. In the first chapter Goffman focuses on useful definitions of Stigma and the role of Social Identity on the stigmatization of individuals. Interaction between normals and the stigmatized can include a huge range of contact situations, so Goffman narrows the field of study to the issues surrounding identity management in mixed contact social situations involving immediate physical presence of both stigmatized and normals. In these situations, the cause and effects of stigma must be directly confronted by both sides and are considered to be more revealing of the dynamics at work. It is these patterns of response and adaptation both on the part of normals and stigmatized individuals that Goffman explores in later chapters. In chapter two Goffman distinguishes Personal Identity from Social Identity and Ego Identity. The focus of this chapter is Personal Identity and information control as part of stigma management. Goffman elucidates information control trough his considerations of social information (signs and symbols) and personal information (Personal Identity and Biography). Goffman deals with the concepts of The Discredited, The discreditable, Social Information and Strategies & Techniques( including

covering) available for the Management of a Spoiled Identity where gaps exist between social aspects of identity and personal identity, and also between virtual and actual identity constructs. In chapter three Goffman comments on an individuals sense of self, two contexts witch impact the sense of self, and the nature of those two contexts. Goffman divides an individuals world of affiliations and sources of influence into an us and them binary world with the stigmatized individual caught stricing to find a place in both and sometimes belonging to neither. He labels these two contexts In-Grup and Out-Group. He labels the like-stigmatized persons as The Own and acknowledges a gray zone of The Wise who are from the them/Out-Group side but have gained some comfort with and acceptance into the Own/In-Group side. In this chapter Goffman also provides insights into the professional spokespersons for the In-Group and political overtones that we need to be aware of. The key point in this chapter is the ambivalence of self, the stigmatized feel. The stigmatied may be reaching foar a self and often it feels as if that self were merely a construct of the alien voice of the group speaking for and trough the stigmatized person. At the very same time, the individual is told he is a human beng like everyone else and also that he isnt, by both the In-Group and out-Group, but from different perspectives. The stigmatized feel people do not only expect you to play your part; they also expect you to know your place. Another poignant view is that the stigmatied individual can be caught talking the cactful acceptance to himself too seriously; in other words, actually believing it to be a genuine and unconditional when in reality the acceptance of himself by the normals is conditiona. Furthermore, this conditional acceptance depends upon normals not being pressed past the point at witch they can easily extend acceptance - or, at worst, uneasily extend it. As goffman points out, this contradiction and joke is his fate and his destiny. The

stigmatied individual thus finds himself in an arena of detailed argument and discussion concerning what he ought to think of himself. This ambivalence of self is an acute reality for the stigmatized. Chapter four- The self and its other- seems to invite us to make the link between what on the surface appears to be two discrete entities- The Stigmatied and The Normal. The author leads us to consider the other half of ourselves and that we are at once both stigmatized and normal from any number of perspectives. Goffman seems to want us to see that all participants in Society can be seen as both characters in the social stigmatization drama. He invites us to see that thee concepts can be profitably used if understood as two perspectives, two points of view, and two vantage points of experience, whose critical lessons and awareness are mandatory if full adaptation is to occur in a society with norms and deviances from those norms. Goffman argues that stigma management is a general feature of society, a process occurring wherever there are identity norms. He considers these patterns of response and adaptation as necessary in every individuals toolkit of adaptation to encounters within a mixed society. Goffman wants to propose that the concept of deviation can be a bridge between the study of stigma and the study of the rest of the social world. Chapter five discusses contemplations about the relationship between specific study of stigma versus general social studies on sociological issues whose core dynamic relates to deviations and deviance. The point is made that the lessons from the specific study of stigma can be applied to the understanding of other social issues related to deviations and deviance in a context of addressing normative dilemmas. In so doing, students can focus on what distinguishes these other social challenges while seeing that one of the aspects they have in common is addressed by considerations of stigma and its management.

In modern sociology, the word stigma is used to refer to the concept of people being "marked" as different, usually in a negative way, based upon some characteristic which separates them from the rest of society. Some stigmas are based upon inherent characteristics which people cannot change, such as mental illness, race, etc. These are called "existential" stigma. Other stigma are acquired by people based upon their conduct somehow - either they are wholly responsible for it or just largely responsible for it. These are called "achieved" stigma and include things like prostitution, criminal activity, etc. The stigmatization of others is often used in societies in order to achieve better definition of unity among members of the "in group" of society. It is through the designation of some behaviors or qualities as "deviant" that any sort of collective moral vision is established. As mile Durkheim wrote: Imagine a society of saints, a perfect cloister of exemplary individuals. Crimes or deviance, properly so called, will there be unknown; but faults which appear venial to the layman will there create the same scandal that the ordinary offense does in ordinary consciousness. If, then, this society has the power to judge and punish, it will define these acts as criminal (or deviant) and treat them as such. (Durkheim, 1895) My opinion is that we permanent put labels on people. We have a bad habit to pay attention to certain behaviors or attitudes of people around us and we immediately put labels as "unable", "stupid", "crazy" or "mentally ill" and so on. We don't even make an effort to discover whether if what we thought (influenced by the information they have assimilated from the experience of others) corresponds with the person or not, to know what lies behind the behavior. Theoretically, any attribute can become a stigma, and history is full of examples where the law or morals can suddenly put an incompatibility between attributes and stereotype.

Goffman says that the fact of possessing a stigma is not a sufficient condition for the individual to be designated as deviant. Type of social relationship in witch he set stigma can be seen. In summary, Goffman separates two distinct moments of the same process: the fat of having a stigma that predisposes you to being discredited or discreditable, and appreciation of this attribute possibly as an individual to be defined as deviant. In conclusion, Goffman suggests quitting the mechanical application of the notion of deviance of social groups who are in a position to suffer the torments of stigmatization, exclusion or marginality. He said that it would be more correct to say that there is deviance, and that certain types of individuals are put in a position to have stigma more or less visible, to have more or fewer opportunities to control an information discredit to find contexts more or less favorable to an identity management.

Vintila Dimitrie-Marius