Susie Scott

Revisiting the Total Institution: Performative Regulation in the Reinventive Institution

This article revisits the concept of the total institution (TI), critically assessing the extent to which it has changed from being repressively coercive to relatively voluntaristic. I propose two new concepts, the ‘Reinventive Institution’ (RI) and ‘performative regulation’, to take the debate forward. The model of the TI outlined in Goffman’s Asylums has been (mis-)interpreted as rendering its inmates powerless, but they also demonstrated agency through gestures of resistance. Conversely, RIs, which members elect to join for purposes of self-improvement, appear to celebrate the subject’s autonomy but suggest a unique form of social control based on mutual surveillance. This performative regulation is enacted through the interaction order, as members actively produce, negotiate and legitimate the exercise of power.

Researching Shyness: A Contradiction in Terms?

The image of the ‘ideal’ research participant as reflexive and articulate is typically associated with loquacious vocality. By contrast, the shy person is apparently quiet and reticent, representing the complete anathema of this ideal. Nevertheless, it is possible to conduct qualitative research with self-defined shy people if we treat shyness as an emergent property of interaction rather than a fixed personality trait. Methodological innovation can help us to avoid evoking shyness in the research encounter itself, as we see from a study in which in-depth interviews and an email-based discussion group allowed participants to step out of the shy role. Drawing on their experiences of observing social life from the margins, these actors provided detailed, reflexive narratives about the social context in which shyness is defined and managed. Paradoxically, therefore, the shy display a unique form of vocality and prove themselves to be remarkably similar to the ‘ideal’ research participant.

The reluctant researcher: shyness in the field

Despite the attention qualitative researchers have given to the interaction context and social process of data collection, there has been scant recognition of the dramaturgical dilemmas this poses for the fieldworker. Respondents have been caricatured in an essentialist typology, ranging from the ideal to the reluctant, while the researcher has been assumed to take a relatively privileged position as director of the drama. Here we report on a study of shyness in art galleries and museums, using extracts from our fieldnotes to illustrate how researchers may themselves be prone to feelings of self-consciousness, incompetence and impostordom. Different methodologies and fieldwork scenarios can be located along a ‘cringe spectrum’, to the extent that they involve high levels of performance, improvisation and interactional contingency. We discuss the strategies used by shy and non-shy members of our team to manage such dramaturgical stress, and argue for more reflexive dialogue about this issue.

The Shell, the Stranger and the Competent Other Towards a Sociology of Shyness

In contemporary Western societies, shyness appears to be an increasingly common experience, and yet its sociological relevance has been overlooked. Within psychology, the condition has been seen as an individual pathology, and there has been little attempt to relate this to the wider cultural context. The argument of this article is that shyness can be interpreted as both a privately felt state of mind and a publicly recognized social role. I revisit Mead’s conception of the self as an inner conversation between the ‘I’ and the ‘Me’, arguing that the shy actor perceives themselves as relatively unskilled in interaction by comparison to a ‘Competent Other’. It is then suggested that it is normal for people to drift into isolated episodes of shyness as primary deviance, but that in some cases the reactions of others can lead to a career of secondary deviance. However, while a display of shyness may be normalized in certain situations, in others it can pose a more serious or enduring threat to the residual rules of interaction.This motivates the non-shy majority to defend their normative assumptions by casting moral blame upon the individual, and reframes the ‘problem’ outside of society.

How to look good (nearly) naked: the performative regulation of the swimmer's body

This article explores the discursive construction, regulation and performance of the body in the context of the swimming pool. The near-naked state of the swimmer’s body presents a potential threat to the interaction order, insofar as social encounters may be misconstrued as sexual, and so rituals are enacted to create a ‘civilized’ definition of the situation. The term ‘performative regulation’ is introduced to theorize this process, as a synergy of the symbolic interactionist models of dramaturgy (Goffman) and negotiated order (Strauss) and the post-structuralist concept of disciplinary power (Foucault). The regulation and representation of the swimmer’s body can be understood as mutually constitutive mechanisms, enforced by the pool-as-institution but enacted through the embodied practices of individual actors in the pool-as-interaction. Crossley’s notion of reflexive body techniques is applied to interpret this dualistic process in relation to communicative gestures and facework rituals, which implicates both individual and social bodies in the somatization of the interaction order.

Negotiating the boundaries of intimacy: the personal lives of asexual people

This paper uses findings from research diaries to explore the use of practices of intimacy among asexual people. While much of the literature to date has focused on the supposedly transformative and political nature of uniquely asexual practices of intimacy, our findings suggest something different. Rather than seeking to transform the nature of intimate relationships, asexual people make pragmatic adjustments and engage in negotiations to achieve the forms of physical and emotional intimacy they seek. We discuss this in relation to three areas: friendships, sex as a practice of intimacy, and exclusion from intimacy. Our findings suggest the importance of not only considering the social context in which asexual people practise intimacy, but also how the practices in which they engage may be shared with non-asexual people.

‘I just want to be me when I am exercising’: Adrianna's construction of a vulnerable exercise identity

This study explores the social and dynamic aspects of the concept ‘exercise identity’. Previous research, mainly in psychology, has documented a link between exercise identity and exercise behaviour. However, the process of identity formation is not straightforward but rather something that can change with time, context and interaction with others. Subsequently, the present work is informed by a social constructivist approach that views exercise identity as a social product and the formation of it as a social process. Our case study of ‘Adrianna’ examined through a biographical narrative analysis how such an identity may be constructed through interaction and over the life course. Three themes were identified; Adriannas relationship to (1) significant others, (2) her body and (3) sociocultural norms and expectations. Reflecting this fluidity of exercise identities, we suggest the alternative concept ‘vulnerable exercise identity’ to better understand the subtler dynamics of exercise identity formation and development. Adriannas case is presented as a ‘recognizable story’, representative of the struggle many people face when trying to become more physically active in contemporary western societies.

Rethinking asexuality: A Symbolic Interactionist account

This article aims to contribute a Symbolic Interactionist approach to the study of asexuality. Previous research in psychology, sexology and sociology has had an individualized focus, which has downplayed the interactive and relational dimensions of asexual identities. In order to capture such elements we demonstrate the relevance of some key Symbolic Interactionist concepts: meaning, negotiation, social selfhood and trajectory. In doing so, we suggest it is possible to see asexual identity as a process of becoming within the context of negotiation with intimate others.

College hats or lecture trousers? Stage fright and performance anxiety in university teachers

This article examines the experience of ‘stage fright’ in teachers in higher education, drawing on the dramaturgical perspective from sociology. Interviews were conducted with 10 ‘novice’ and ‘expert’ lecturers, alongside focus groups with undergraduate students, to compare their perceptions and expectations. The students defined a good lecturer as one who communicated well and was friendly and approachable; this was not related to nervousness. The two groups of lecturers reported different strategies for coping with stage fright, which can be broadly categorised in Goffmans terms as ‘cynical’ (written scripts, backstage rehearsals, and dressing up) or ‘sincere’ (acknowledging nervousness, viewing students as team-mates, and reneging perfectionism). There was a general shift from cynical to sincere performances as teachers gained experience, suggesting that while feelings of stage fright may attenuate over time, we can also devise more effective ways of managing them.

Intimate deception in everyday life

Purpose – To analyse the patterns of deception that take place at five different levels of intimacy: fleeting encounters between strangers, performance teams and their audiences, competitive game play between teammates, intimate partners, and individual selfhood. Approach – Symbolic interactionist and dramaturgical theories are applied alongside Simmels dialectical model of social relations. Findings – Symbolic interactionist theories posit that deception can be socially good, regardless of whether it is morally right or wrong, because of its facilitative effects on interaction order. While applicable to the tactful ‘polite fictions’ that characterise some routine encounters in everyday life, this model of pragmatic rationality becomes complicated when we analyse its deployment in more intimate forms of social relationship. Drawing on Simmels dialectic of fascination and fear, I suggest that the relative influence of these factors shifts as intimacy increases: cautious reserve gives way to trust, excitement and risk taking, experienced through both collusive deception and honesty. This culminates in the Goffmanesque ‘transceiver’, an agent who can take the view of both fraudster and victim simultaneously, viewing the social drama from both perspectives; fear, suspicion and cynicism then paradoxically re-emerge. The consequences of transceivership are explored in relation to self-deception, through the example of academic impostordom. Originality and value – The paper critically explores the limitations of SI and dramaturgy for understanding more intimate forms of deception, while arguing that Simmelian ideas can be usefully applied to augment the theories and compensate for these effects.