#12622 - Goffman The Interaction Order - Sociological Theory

Erving Goffman - The Interaction Order

• Social interaction = that which transpires in social situations; environments in which multiple individuals are physically in each other’s presence (or phone etc)

  • this approach means that macro structures/distinctions are initially irrelevant

  • the theoretical justification of the interaction order is that its contained elements fit together better than with elements outside the order

• Most of our lives is spend in the presence of other people - socially situated

  • the consequences of our social interaction have been treated as effects of social structures e.g. class, race, gender, etc

  • in fact we need to explore what these effects have in common, so that we can categorise the social interaction that leads to them

• What are the characteristics of the interaction order?

  • engrossment, involvement and states of participants

  • face-to-face interaction seems rooted in a universal precondition of social life

  • we are able to interpret behaviour as pointing to intentions

  • individuals are able to share a joint focus of attention, allowing coordination. speech makes this way more efficient

  • individuals can be identified by individual (unique impression based on appearance, tone, name etc) or categoric (placement in categories e.g. class) identification

  • interactions places us in danger, so we may make deals to ensure our safety e.g. submit to a coercive power

    • but interaction also enables us, often through the same mechanisms (sex, violence) that can threaten us

  • similar properties/patterns of interaction in many diverse social situations

  • a cognitive relation with those present, that allows us to make judgements about how to interact and hence behave meaningfully

• The interactive order is in fact orderly, in virtue of ‘a large base of shared cognitive presuppositions’

• There are two common explanations for the interactive order

  • the contract model - participants pay a small price and obtain a large convenience

  • the consensus model - it it seen as a product of normative consensus. Individuals take for granted rules that they nevertheless consider just

    • but neither tells us anything about the effects of interactive order, only the motive

    • in any case, interactive order can survive systematic violation

      • though it may be in the individual’s interest to convince others to maintain the order, it is not necessarily in his own

    • do we really believe that individuals always get more from the order than they lose? e.g. disadvantaged groups

      • if not, why do they generally uphold it

• In spite of unequal distribution of rights and risk in the interactive order, there is a traffic of use which facilitates a diversity of projects

  • but the fact that it is predicated on rules raises questions over enforcement

    • however, the interactive order existed before states

• What are the basic substantive units of the interactive order?

  • persons, groups of persons, files/processions/queues

  • contact, wherever an individual comes into another’s response presence

  • informal arrangements where individuals come together and talk, act interdependently

  • the platform format: when an activity is placed before an audience

  • the celebrative social occasion, in honour of some jointly appreciated circumstances

    • featuring high levels of coordination

• What about the relationship between the interactive order and traditionally considered elements of social organization?

  • clearly there are cases in which single interactive events have a big effect upon structures/institutions - obvz

  • for Bourdieu, it is in interactive processing encounters that the social structure is reproduced

    • the correlation between social structure and individual interactions is not so close or direct, but individual interactions can serve to reinforce or loosen the structure

      • this has led sociologists to claim that all macrosociological features of society are reducible to an aggregate of interactional effects. BUT:

        • this confuses the interaction format with its content; with what is actually expressed. clearly it is usually the content that matters the most

        • we can’t learn about the structure of the economy, structure of kinship systems, changes in dialects etc by aggregating social encounters

        • the face to face is no more real than the dealings between corporations, the distribution of crime etc

          • it is simply that the face-to-face is much more common, and something we are better able to empathise with. hence it is more open to systematic analysis

• The interactive order is, then, neither claimed to be prior, fundamental or constitutive of macro phenomena nor immutable

• There are branches of social science which consider local interaction as a vital in e.g. individuals affirming their affiliation and commitment to their collectivities

  • this can be reduced to this: interactional activity has effects on macro structures

    • so, for example, the interaction of a big political rally will have an effect on political organization

    • but it is difficult to maintain that in general ceremony leads to macroscopic effects

      • ceremony can cease to be social reality, but in fact a nostalgia about what was once social reality

      • often ceremony can be the only time a group ever comes together - where is the macro effect here?

• We can contrast ceremonials with contact rituals - perfunctory, mundane expressions occurring that are incidental to everyday action. What principles inform the bearing of social structures on contact rituals?

  • cultures will have biases that mean some resources are exploited more than others

    • social structures don’t determine culturally standard displays, but help select from the available repertoire

    • the fact that we can use first names in a situation doesn’t tell us that the conversants stand in a particular structural relation

      • this is because there is loads of other variation

  • there is a loose coupling between interactional practices and social structures

    • often there will be some correspondence between social structures and patterns of interaction, but a pattern belongs analytically to the interaction order where there is a complete pattern of interaction

  • interaction does depend on things outside of interaction, but these are not necessarily structural

    • e.g. cognitive relations between participants, assumed knowledge

• This relation between structure and interactions allows us to proceed:

  • our enquiry is who does what to whom and then categorise. this means the categories are unlikely to coincide perfectly with any structural division (e.g. gender)

  • it means we can allow for changes in rituals that don’t reflect changes in structures

  • in distinguishing the two, we can appreciate the effects of the structure (e.g. state directives) on interaction, and also the bottom-up power of interaction with respect to structures

  • we can also appreciate the leverage that sensitivity to interaction can have in an ideological movement

• Social relationships are a big part of the interactive order, and they lead to many different kind of interactional obligation, depending on their state

• Four obvious statuses in sociology: age, gender, class and race

  • they offer a grid on which individuals can be located

  • our placement on the grid is evident ‘by virtue of the markers out bodies bring with them into all our social situations’

• Now consider a paradigmatic case of microsociology: the server-served relationship

  • this relationship is understood to be one of equality, respect and courtesy

    • e.g. in...