Goffman: Stigma-Notes on A Spoiled Identity

STIGMA: Chapter 1

Stigma

A state of “markedness” in which there is a bodily SIGN designed to expose something unusual or bad about the moral status of an individual. TODAY the emphasis is on the DISGRACE rather than the physical signed of it.

--“scarlet letter”

--“gang tattoo”

--Slave branding

--Leprocy & other moral diseases

--Malformation & other disability

--subtle marks:

·      How have each of you experienced STIGMA in your lives (we all have a story). 

·      How does our experience with stigmatization affect our experiences, choices and behaviors?

·      What kinds of things are stigmatized by society & culture today? 

·      Can stigmas be manipulated?

                      SIGNIFIER ===SIGN (signified)

“Actual social identity” VS “Virtual social identity”

Discrepancy between the actual social identity of a person and the virtual social identity (all the traits we expect to associate with an individual based on first impressions) These discrepancies QUESTION THEIR IDENTITY  in our minds. When these discrepancies create a negative evaluation of a person’s social identity. We call it a stigma.

·      Not all discrepancies are stigmas

·      Stigmas are attributes that deeply discrediting (social judgment)

·      Evaluation can not be removed from its social context

·      Can be apparent (discredited) or hidden (discreditable)

3 Types of Stigma:

·      Abominations of the body

o   Physical deformities

·      Blemishes of the character

o   Mental disorder, criminality, addiction, homosexuality, unemployment, divorce, 

·      Tribal stigma

o   Race, religion, nationalism

In each case the individual has a mark which identifies them as discredited (other than expected) and interferes with normal social intercourse

Those without a mark we call NORMALS

Normals see those with stigmas at “not quite human”, and therefore we treat them with some sort discrimination which affects (reduces) their life chances.

1.   “stigma theory” an ideology constructed to explain the inferiority of the stigmatized person and explain the dangerous (LIMINAL (VanGennup), Contaminating (Douglas)) nature of stigmatized people. 

2.   Stigma terminology is constructed as a shorthand to connect with these socially constructed and maintained beliefs (without having to really define what they mean)

o   Moron, retard, bastard, faggot, cripple

3. Stigma Halo emanates from the category and we attribute a plethora of negative attributes to the original demarcation, including some “supernatural” or sixth sense on occasion (also imputes dangerous/nonhuman nature).

4. Shared Vision though there are exceptions, in the USA, 

o   Shame: stigmatized individuals tend to share the evaluation that normals have of them. This leads to a sense of “self alienation” and “disempowerment” that often prevents social change. It is not just the hegemony that keeps stigma alive; it is a SHARED SOCIAL UNDERSTANDING. 

o   This is strengthened by the fact that we have DEFINED STIGMA, and therefore have a set of clear expectations for their behavior, and a mandate for it to be realized. NORMALS have a greater set of options for behavior and decreased expectations for meeting these characteristics since the ABSENCE OF STIGMA defines them in large part.

o   EXCEPTIONS: often need to separate themselves from hegemonic society & create their own norms: Orthodox Jews, Gypsies, Mennonites, etc.

o   Goal: erase shame and achieve Acceptance.

Paths to Acceptance:

1.    Correct cause of stigma (erase blemish)

·      plastic surgery

·      conversion through therapy to heterosexuality

·      born again

2.   Strive to Overcome Deficit

·      Bind person learns to ski

·      Wheelchair athlete 
3. Deny the stigmatized evaluation by society

Normal & Stigmatized Interactions

These are often difficult and rife with discomfort from both sides

Sympathetic Others

·      Those who share the stigma

o    Create a support community

o   share a differently constructed value system

o   feel at-ease with this knowledge

o   disadvantage used as a basis for organizing their lives with others of similar disadvantage (shared common experience)

o   May REJECT the stigmatized group and ally with normals (don’t focus on stigma)

o   May lead to a negative valuation by 

o   Networks, urban milieu, residential communities

§  Use softer language (PC)

§  Represent the community in public/events

§  Lobby for the concerns of the stigmatized

§  Create publications which create an “ideology of membership”

o   Success Stories: become REPRESENTATIVES of their “category” of stigma

·      The Wise: those who are normal but whose special situation make them privy to and sympathetic to the situation of the stigmatized. (receive a COURTESY STIGMA)

o   Must offer themselves to the stigmatized community

o   Must wait to be accepted by the stigmatized community

§  Someone who serves the community (physical therapists)

§  Someone who is kin to (family) with the community

·      Family inherit stigmatization

·      Can make normals uncomfortable and may themselves experience a separate stigmatization

Moral Career: the personal history of stigmatization

(4 patterns)

1.    Inborn stigma: become socialized into their disadvantaged position even while learning and incorporating the standards against which they fall short

2.   Protective Capsule (family/community): How long this protective capsule can last will depend upon social standing, isolation, etc.---home schooling, private school, physical isolation, information control---problems can arise when the capsule can no longer provide protection

3.   One Who becomes Stigmatized Late in Life: learns about the normal and the stigmatized long before he must recognize himself as deficient—need to REIDENTIFY. Special likelihood of developing disapproval of self.

4.   Initially Socialized in Stigma and then Reintegrated: uneasy feeling about new acquaintances and status may give way to uneasy feeling about old ones. (sometimes applies to #3)

#3 & #4 may experience “affiliation cycles” where they vacillate between affiliation in the two disparate groups.

INFORMATION CONTROL AND PERSONAL IDENTITY

• Information control between DISCREDITED and NORMALS are focused on managing the tension generated in social interaction.
• Interactions between DISCREDITED and NORMALS are focused on managing information about one's failing.
• PASSING (as we will see) is the management of undisclosed discrediting information.

SOCIAL INFORMATION

• SIGNS: convey social information about one's ABIDING CHARACTERISTICS as opposed to temporary ones.
• expressed by the individual because they are embodied during social interaction

• SYMBOLS: Routinely sought and received signs (manipulated in social interactions)
• status symbol (points), Stigma symbol (slips)
• draw attention to ones identity immediately
• DISIDENTIFIERS: sign or symbol meant to throw doubt on a stigmatized social identity
• speaks "good English"
• wears a suit and tie
• can have variable meaning within a culture
• rainbow
• tattoo
• colors
• WITH: company you keep acts as a social symbol

VISIBILITY

• the degree to which a stigma is visible/perceivable, determines one's options for passing
• OBTRUSIVENESS: how much the stigma interferes with social interaction
• KNOWN-ABOUT-NESS: how much the stigma is common knowledge or the social group is aware of it (previous knowledge)
• PERCEIVED FOCUS: the behavioral expectations , social disqualifications, which are perceived to be associated with a particular stigma
• DECODING CAPACITY OF THE AUDIENCE: how the audience is able to read the symbols and signs determines its visibility.

PERSONAL IDENTITY (as opposed to social identity)

• "Breaking Through" (Fred Davis) an attempt to move from "impersonal (stereotypic social id) to personal contact (relieves stigma). Successfully establishing a personal rather than a social identity=NORMALIZATION
• SHELTERING: protection of a stigmatized person by individuals and/or institutions that know them personally.
• discredited and discrediting individuals have very different problems managing personal identity. 
• discrediting persons may avoid intimates for fear of judgement (choosing others as sympathetic)
• easily concealed stigmas often have a greater potential impact on intimates (impotence, addiction, abuse, homosexuality) because it challenges ones personal identity
• sometimes intimates will help hide their stigma by COVERING for the passing individual
• Personal Identity (uniqueness and individual characteristics) vs Social Identity (embodied signs and symbols. MANAGEMENT:
• BIOGRAPHY (every one has a story that they can construct and manage)
• memory
• testimony of others
• non-contradictory facts
• PERSONAL PR
• IDENTITY DOCUMENTS
• Manipulation of Optional symbols (Jewish star, eg)

PASSING

Usually falls between complete secrecy on the one hand, and complete revelation on the other. WHY DO IT?

• There are great REWARDS for being "normal", therefore those that have the opportunity to do so will often pass
• BLACKMAIL: revelation by those who are aware of the persons personal identity
• so, FEAR of being found out when passing. The more that one knows of your biography, the more treacherous it is to be around them
• DOUBLE LIFE: the individual keeps two separate social  and personal identities by creating two separate physical spheres of interaction (double biography may develop here).
• 3 SOCIAL ENVIRONMENTS
• OUT OF BOUNDS PLACES-cant go lest they be found out
• CIVIL PLACES-places where they can interact with normals
• BACK PLACES -places where they can be themselves and not have to worry about passing or any other stigma management

• High level of anxiety due to deeper and deeper lying. may experience alienation from both groups (normals and stigmatized)
• children with a stigma pass with the help of parents efforts (unwitting passer-sheltering)
•  repercussions can be damaging
• when do you let them know about the" real world"

TECHNIQUES OF INFORMATION CONTROL

• name changing (some famous examples)

Alan Alda (Alphonzo de'Abruzzo)
Jennifer Aniston (Jennifer Anastanssakis)
George Burns (Nathan Birenbaum)
Dyan Cannon (Samille Diane Friesen)
Lee J Cobb (Leo Jacoby)
Tony Curtis (Bernard Schwartz)
Rodney Dangerfield (Jacob Cohen)
Kirk Douglas (Issur Danielovitch)
Melvyn Douglas (Melvyn Hesselberg)
John Garfield (Julius Garfinkel)
Paulette Goddard (Marion Levy)
Joel Grey (Joe Katz)
Lawrence Harvey (Larushka Mischa Skikne)
Judy Holiday (Judith Tuvim)
Danny Kaye (David Daniel Kaminsky)
Jerry Lewis (Joseph Levitch)
Peter Lorre (Lazio Lowenstein)
--------------
Amahd Rashad (Bobby Moore)
Muhammad Ali (Cassius Marcellus Clay)
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Ferdinand Lewis Alcinder)

• reject using a "stigma tool"
• use of disidentifiers and concealment of stigma symbols
• present signs of a horrible stigma as a LESS HORRIBLE STIGMA
• confide only in a small group who help you & pass to everyone else (curtail intimacy & enlist mutual aid in passing)
• Voluntarily disclose stigma
• wear stigma symbol
• make fleeting references to stigma
• DISCLOSURE ETIQUETTE: prevents others from slipping up in social situations and is appreciated in social interaction by normals
• LEARNING HOW TO PASS: one stage in the stigmatized persons development according to Goffman. later they become comfortable with their identity and feel no need to pass (empowerment) 
• 
  

COVERING

Managing the difference between obtrusiveness and visibility.making a great effort to minimize the obtrusiveness of a stigma. MORE COMMON THAN PASSING (which is both difficult and risky). Only option to some who are visible at all times.

• reduce social tension
• change name to English
• assimilation techniques used by ethnic groups 
• give others dispensation from politeness rules
• draw attention away from the stigma 
• hide unpleasant images or ideas
• get a nose job
• wear dark glasses
• get breast reconstruction
• cover a scar
• wear a prosthesis
• wear makeup 
• feign normalcy 
• learn to get on in the normal world
• adapt your behavior to normals

AMBIVALENCE OF THE STIGMATIZED

• oscillations of identification and association the individual exhibits regarding his FELLOW stigmatized
• ranks his own by how obtrusive they are
• the more allied with NORMALS the individual is, the more he will see himself in non-stigmatic terms (usually)
• concern with group "purity" distaste with the exhibition of stereotypical traits of others of his kind
• NEARING :coming close to an undesirable instance of his own kind while in the presence of normals...most profound

•  PRIMAL SCENE IN SOCIOLOGY

These are situations in which the lack of "normality of an interaction becomes PAINFULLY apparent. In Primal scenes the OBVIOUS character of a stigmatized person is bared for all to see and the nature of the stigma (what makes it less than human) is revealed. Primal scenes make us VERY UNCOMFORTABLE. 

PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATIONS

• codes of behavior for the stigmatized:
• desirable patterns of revealing and concealing
• forulas for dealing with tickleish situations
• support he shopuld give to his own
• typoe of fraternization with normals
• attacks to his own kind he should IGNORE or TAKE TO HEART
• the extent to which he should present himself "just like everyone else"
• the extent to which he should expect/demand special treatment
• the facts about his own to take pride in
• the facts about his own he should "face up to"
• warned against attempting to pass completely
• warned against fully accepting the negative attitude of others
• warned against MINSTRALIZATION
• stigmatized person acts out before normals, the full stereotypical extent of the bad qualities imputed to his kind (viewed as clownish) 
• warned against NORMIFICATION (deminstralization) 
• stigmatized person

to fail to adhere to the code is to be SELF-DELUDED & MISGUIDED. Adhering is considered AUTHENTICITY (someone who is well adapted and true to themselves)

---may through this advice become a critic of the sical scene (acute observer of human relations) "Situation Conscious"

---feelings of exposure and betrayal as these codes often touch on private and personal matters.

More Rules!

IN-GROUP ALIGNMENTS (rules for behavior):

• consolidates public image on outspoken politisized member
• militancy in group behavior can lead to further separation and decreased acceptance

OUT-GROUP ALIGNMENTS (rules for behavior):

• if he follows the requests of normals, he is seen as well-adjusted (psychological definition)
• fulfil normal activities as best as you can
• dont make a big deal about your stigma 
• dont feel bitter or resentful
• help others in mixed social situations (relax normals by covering)
• let normals present FEEL like wise ones
• acceptance is conditional on following the expectations for adjustment

POLITICS OF IDENTITY (rules for behavior)

• should act NORMAL, but not too normal (contradiction)
• a subset of the group will REFUSE TO COVER (new discrimination-Yoshino)
• distinction is made between BEING & DOING (assimilation oriented-Yoshino)
• what happens when you are stigmatized but can't meet these identity norms?
• support the norms but do not realize them
• reject the norms & alienate yourself from the community
• passing & covering

DEVIATIONS & DEVIANCE

• In-Group Deviant- outlier in a group of stigmatized people whoise biography will explain their strangeness
• Social deviant: members of a group of outlies who reject normal society and its morays. May feel that they are better than normals. Obtaining potential recruits from normal society and often sympathy.
• collective denial of social order
• fail to use opportunities to advance
• show disrespect
• bohemians
• political radicals

MEDIA PORTRAYALS: How do they impact our views?