Transcript Powerpoint slides for lecture 4

Introduction to Social Analysis
Week 4, Symbolic Interactions:
What do people do when they
interact?
http://www.last.fm/music/Bessie+Smith/_/Kitchen+Man
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What do people do when they
interact?
• What do we do when we
interact with one another?
• How do we know how to
behave?
• How do we know how to
make sense of other
peoples behaviour
towards us?
•
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What do people do when they
interact?
• Symbolic interaction is a
theory which enables us
to look at the rituals of
daily life. A way of
looking at the world which
enables us to examine
the minutia interpersonal
behaviour required for
meaningful
communication.
•
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• Studies:
• Goffman, Erving. 1971 The presentation of
self in everyday life Harmondsworth :
Penguin. 301.11 GOF
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Social life as drama
• Likening social life to
acting, to `performances'
and to drama has been a
common strategy among
sociologists.
• “The issues dealt with by
stage-craft and stage
management are
sometimes trivial but they
are quite general; they
seem to occur
everywhere in social life,
providing a clear-cut
dimension for formal
sociological analysis.”
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Impression management
•
•
•
Feature of reflexivity that people
can distance themselves from
their behaviour and modify it play a role. Some argue that this
is the key characteristic of humans
which distinguishes them from
social animals and proto-humans
Each individual can be seen as
putting on a performance in an
ongoing process of managing the
impressions that other have of him
or her.
Such impression management is
an important part of social life and
of the successful realisation of
one's projects and with avoiding
the worst consequences of other
people's projects. i.e. successful
interaction
•
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defining the situation
•
“Information about the
individual helps to define
the situation, enabling
others to know in
advance what he will
expect of them and what
they may expect of him.
Informed in these ways,
the other's will know how
best to act in order to call
forth a desired response
from him,”
•
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Tacit knowledge
“If unacquainted with the individual, observers can glean
clues from his conduct and appearance which allow
them to apply their previous experience with:
• individuals roughly similar to the one before them or,
• more important, to apply untested stereotypes to him.
They can also assume from past experience that only
individuals of a particular kind are likely to be found in a
given social setting.
They can rely on what the individual says about himself or
on documentary evidence he provides as to who and
what he is.
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Reading the signs
• The expressiveness of the individual
(and therefore his capacity to give
impressions) appears to involve two
radically different kinds of sign
activity: the expression that he gives,
and the expression that he gives off.
• The first … is communication in the
traditional and narrow sense.
• The second involves a wide range of
action that others can treat as
symptomatic of the actor, the
expectation being that the action
was performed for reasons other
than the information conveyed in this
way
•
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strategies for interaction - impression management
• control is achieved largely by
influencing the definition of the
situation which the others
come to formulate,
• he can influence this definition
by expressing himself in such
a way as to give them the kind
of impression that will lead
them to act voluntarily in
accordance with his own plan
• Sign – one thing which stands
for another
• Symbol – conveys complex
meanings
•
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Goffman did his Ph.D fieldwork in
the Shetland Isles
•
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Present don’t show
• A specific illustration may be cited from Shetland Isle.
When a neighbour dropped in to have a cup of tea, he
would ordinarily wear at least a hint of an expectant
warm smile as he passed through the door into the
cottage. Since lack of physical obstructions outside the
cottage and lack of light within it usually made it possible
to observe the visitor unobserved as he approached the
house, islanders sometimes took pleasure in watching
the visitor drop whatever expression he was manifesting
and replace it with a sociable one just before reaching
the door. However, some visitors, in appreciating that
this examination was occurring, would blindly adopt a
social face a long distance from the house, thus ensuring
the projection of a constant image.
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Interaction requires collusion
between the parties engaged
•
•
•
•
•
Initial impression are important: they
are the basis of this initial information
for the individual to start to define the
situation and start to build up lines of
responsive action.
When the individual employs these
strategies and tactics to protect his
own projections, we may refer to them
as 'defensive practices';
when a participant employs them to
save the definition of the situation
projected by another, we speak of
'protective practices' or 'tact'.
Together, defensive and protective
practices comprise the techniques
employed to safeguard the impression
fostered by an individual during his
presence before others.
Few impressions could survive if those
who received the impression did not
exert tact in their reception of it.
•
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Tools for successful impression
management: front and back regions.
• Much of social life,
Goffman suggested, can
be divided up into front
regions and back regions.
• Front regions are social
occasions or encounters
in which individuals act
out formal or stylised
roles - the are ‘on stage
performances’. The back
regions are where they
assemble the props and
prepare themselves for
interaction in the more
formal settings.
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• Back regions resemble
the ‘backstage’ of a
theatre, or the ‘offcamera’ activities of
filming. When they are
safely behind the scenes’,
people can relax, and
give vent to feelings and
styles of behaviour they
keep in check when on
‘front stage’.
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• Team-work is often involved in
creating and preserving frontregion performances.
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what are the key theoretical
concepts in this approach?
• Goffman’s research method is participant
observation. Theory is developed by trying
systematise results of observation.
• Depends on theories of communication as
exchange, and on the rational actor developing
a strategy for interaction in context.
• Roles are not simply scripts they have to be
mutually negotiated between the characters.
• The idea of ‘everyday life’ – the bits in between.
Not a study of institutions per se but in principle
any interaction.
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• Reading:
• Giddens, A. Sociology. 5ed. Chapter 5 Social
Interaction and Everyday Life. This gives an
introduction to the symbolic interactionist
perspective.
• Pip Jones 2003 Introducing Social Theory. Polity
Press, Chap. 6 “Interpretive Sociology; Action
theories”. This gives a basic introduction to the
place of symbolic interaction approaches within
sociology.
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.
• Pei-Chia Lan 2006 Global Cinderellas:
Migrant Domestics and Newly Rich
Employers in Taiwan Duke University
Press.
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Work context: globalised domestic
labour
• The book is based on
interviews with and
ethnographic observation
of Taiwanese middle class
employers and their live-in
maids hired from the
Philippines and Indonesia.
• Study of work but work
carried out in the ‘home’.
• Study of class but where
status difference is
confounded by gender,
race and nationality.
•
•
Phillipina maids in Hong Kong
•
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Global Cinderellas:
• The maids are caring for
the children of one family
while having their own
children cared for ‘back
home’.
• They are frequently better
educated and speak
better English [the
language of
communication] that their
masters and mistresses.
• Front and back stage
areas have to be
managed by both parties
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Front and back regions
• “The metaphors of front and
back stage illustrate the
distinct social perceptions
regard various spatial realms;
such conceptualisation of
space mirrors and materializes
the social order that excludes
or marginalizes migrant
workers. In employer’s
households, the living room is
at the front, reserved for the
family and guests, while the
kitchen and balcony are
categorised as “maid space” or
backstage area.”
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Front and back regions
• “The concept of front and back
stage also describe how
migrant workers negotiate
multiple identity performances
across spatial settings. In front
of the employers migrant
women “act like a maid”. Only
on Sunday are they able to
take off the deferential apron
and put on the self-proclaimed
image.
• Interaction, both parties have
interactional ‘strategy’.
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Front and back regions
• In front of their families and relatives,
migrant workers perform the role of
“national heroes” by showcasing their
material gains and overseas adventures.
Their suffering and alienation are well kept
secrets to be circulated only among
migrant friends in the host country.” (Lan
2006: 197)
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Nations have front and back regions
• The hierarchically organized
urban landscape also has front
and back
• Taiwanese object to the
congregation of migrant
workers at Taipei Railway
Station for fear of tainting the
fontal image of the global city.
• And yet less public complaints
are directed at the distribution
of migrant businesses behind
Taoyuan Railway Station, the
backstage part of a backstage
region of Taiwan. (Lan 2006:
197)
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Co-operation necessary to sustain
interaction
• “Luisa obscures her previous
social positions from her
employers. And, to perfect the
“maid” performance, she has to
carefully manage the transition
from the front to the backstage.
Every Sunday, Luisa brings her
jewellery, miniskirt and make up
kit to the church and changes in
the bathroom before attending
mass.” (Lan 2006: 228)
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The global is personal
• Pei-Chia Lan is herself from
Tawain but did her education
and the Ph.D on which the
book is written in USA –
University of Chicago.
• Having returned to Chicago to
write up her fieldwork, she took
a break to do the laundry. “My
neighborhood was a racially
mixed area where Mexican
vendors sold snacks on the
street but newly renovated
condominiums near the lake
shore were attracting growing
numbers of yuppie residents.
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The global is personal
http://www.iias.nl/index.php?q=node/81
• While I was walking to the
laundromat at the street
corner, a middle-aged
white man passing by
tossed me a question:
“Do you know anybody
who can take care of my
mom?” Hit by this out-ofthe-blue inquiry, I stood
there, confused,
speechless, and then
humiliated and angry.”
(Lan 2006:xi)
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The global is personal
• Towards the end of her time
as a doctoral student she sublets a posh apartment from
two of her professors. Prior to
the end of their sabbatical the
landlords arrange for a firm to
send a cleaning lady to clean
the flat. She puts out some
food and waits for the cleaner
(although she doesn’t have
to).
•
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The global is personal
“The bell rang and at the door was a woman in
her early forties who was possibly Polish. I
nervously introduced myself and asked her
name. She looked confused and shook her
head, saying only “No speak English”.
Throwing me a brief smile, smile she quickly
went into the kitchen and started her work.
Obviously she had cleaned this apartment many
times before – she knew where everything
was much better than I did. I felt like a
defeated soldier in a battle for class equality,
albeit without the presence of an enemy.
I retreated to my room, closed the door, and tried
to do some writing. But my stage-managed
air of calm could not endure after I heard her
cleaning the toilet that I had sat on only ten
minutes before. I immediately folded up my
laptop and ran to a coffee shop nearby. I
dared not return until hours later, when I was
sure she had left my “home”.” (Lan 2006:2378)
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