I •no- 2.2 Erving Goffman Herbert Willems •g 1 Naturalistic observation* 24 2 Metaphors, models, theoretical perspectives 25 3 From abnormality to normality 25 4 Deconstructions 26 5 Material classifications, ideal typologies, differentiations 26 6 Sequential analysis 26 7 Oouble hermeneutics 27 8 Concept constructions 27 Goffman's methods arc determined by his centra) object, face-to-face interaction. In this Goffman sees predominantly - and the whole of his method is marked by this - a world of implicit knowledge that actors can barely articulate or 'say' because of its habitual nature. The kind of knowledge he means is manifest, for example. In the equally unconsidered and subtly adapted behaviours of looking, smiling, tactful avoidance or repartee. A Tesult of the 'unconscious' nature of this kind of behaviour (Giddens speaks of 'practical consciousness' as opposed to 'discursive consciousness') is the limited nature of methods that depend on explanations and self-descriptions from the actors under investigation (for example, interviews, or personal biographical evidence). In Goffman's view, laboratory experiments are even more limited in value because they eliminate precisely what ought to he Investigated first, the 'social' nature of (Interactive) behaviour. The set of methods that Goffman used in place of what he called 'traditional Investigative procedure' (Goffman 1971: XVI) will be listed below. 1 NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION Goffman developed interaction ethology (l*t7h X). The aim of this methodological framework Is to Investigate the processes of interaction 'naturallsilcally', that Is, first to discover and document them in their 'natural milieu'. In a posthumously published lecture on flcklwork, Goffman (1989) stresses that it is a matter of getting as close as possible to the objects of research, and ot subjecting oneself as authentically as possible to the circumstances of their life. Only in this way can the decisive goal be reached, that of a high degree of familiarity with the practice in question and its actors. In this familiarity Goffman sees a preliminary stage of sociological information which is then arranged at a first level when the investigator succeeds in discovering natural behaviour patterns in apparently unordered streams of behaviour. In his early works Goffman uses naturalistic observation primarily to mean 'participant observation' (see S.5). Working, In this sense, as an 'ethnologist of his own culture' (Dahrendorfs term), he observes, on the one hand, normal 'everyday life'. On t lie other hand he Invokes particular, remarkable and separate worlds beyond the layman's everyday world. A remote community of peasant farmers, a gaming casino and a psychiatric institution are the best-known examples. Goffman's studies of these (cf. 19S9. 1961a, 1961b) show the systematic possibilities that sociological observers have of using their own 'alienness' as a generator of information. By becoming familiar, as an 'outsider', with the society and meanings under investigation, the researcher may experience their peculiarities as a set of difiercnecs from what he/she has taken tor granted. In his later work Goffman sees a special and especially important option for naturalistic observation in the use of audio-visual recording equipment (sec 5.6, 5.7). With 'recorded' data, they produce, in his opinion, a qualitatively new basis for 'microfunctional study, that is an examination ot the role of a bit of behaviour in the stream which precedes co-occurs and follows' (Gotfman 1979: 24). From his belief that the 'coincidence of a subject matter and recording technology ... places the student in an entirely novel relation to his data, (Goffman 1979: 24), he does not draw the conclusion, however, that media recordings should be privileged or allowed to play the only central role. Goffman's basic position on the question of data lends to be 'pluralistic'. He makes use of a range of materials In order to obtain alternative and complementary access routes to his research objects and alternative bases tor comparison. It Is also Important that Goffman relics on the richness of his own primary experience and on newspaper 'stories'. 2 METAPHORS, MODELS, THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES From the very beginning Goffman's 'naturalism' means more than simply 'empiricism'. In Goffman we are dealing rather with a 'theoretically oriented empiricist' (Collins 1980: 174). Goffman's full observational, analytical and descriptive strategy therefore consists of using metaphors, concepts and models. For example, Goffman uses theatrical metaphors (1959), a ritual model (1967, 1971, 1979) and the game-theory (1969). On the one hand he is concerned with the generation of conceptual and meaning devices that are applicable. In the sense of a 'strategy of analogies' (Unz 1991: 57), to the widest range of social practices. On the other hand Goffman aims at sociological information by means of relative alienation from social reality, that is, the familiar reality of everyday life. Many of Goffman's 'discoveries' are a result of the reflective and distancing perspective of his 'frames' that give new significance to the obvious and the well-known (cf. Williams 1988: 73). Here it is important that Goffman relies on certain ERVING GOFFMAN (is) Interpretative tools which, like the theatre or games, have their own world of meaning and reality which, however, resembles that of the object of investigaiion. This is the basis of Goffman's 'comparative analysis' which leads -In a systematic and empirically valid manner -to the determination of Identities, relationships and also differences. Goffman practises tills strategy In a number of studies which, in terms of the 'Interaction order' (Goffman 1983), have the same object of interest, but which are framed from different perspectives. This corresponds to his idea that there is both an unbridgeable gulf between sociological objects and methods or interpretation and also that the different methods of interpretation each have their own relativity. Goffman counters this relativity - that is, the specific blindness attached to every individual perspective in an investigation - with a pluralization of his own perspectives. 3 FROM ABNORMALITY TO NORMALITY One of Goffman's most important research strategies has been called by Hans Oswald (1984: 212) 'the method of extreme contrast' and by Paul Drew and Anthony Wootton (1988: 7) 'the investigation of the normal through the abnormal'. This refers to the fact that Goffman uses extremes, deviations, crises, instances of anornie and other 'abnormalities' as bridges to the understanding of normal forms. Ultimately, therefore, Goffman's analyses of strategic interaction aim to shed light on the structural principles of everyday interaction. Similarly, Goffman elaborates the 'negative experience' (1974: 378) in which normality collapses, is broken or never exists. Extreme experiences, such as those of psychiatric inmates, provide Goffman (1961b, 1963a) with a way into wha/ultimately 'holds normality together'. Apart from his reliance on 'natural' contrasts or deviations, Goffman's way of using 'artificial' deviations and Irritations Is totally In accord with other approaches within qualitative social research. There Is a kind of 'crisis experiment' (see 3.2) In his investigation of gender representation ln advertising photographs (1979). There he recommends that the gender of the subjects displayed should be mentally interchanged to reveal implicit expectations of normal forms. This 'technique' could rely on the 00 (as) A COMPANION TO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH 'vast social competence oí the eye and the Impressive consensus sustained by viewers' (1979: 25). Here, as eveiywhere else, Goffman assumes Hut social scientists may make analytical use of their intuitive (ŕmi>iríu-)knowIedge because they share this with other members of society. 4 DECONSTRUCTIONS Goffman also pursues his goal of unveiling social 'meaning mechanisms' and 'mental machination' with a kind of sociological deep-structure hermeneutics that"J.deconstructs' such daily-life constructs as that of the speaker and such distinctions as ih.it between truth and falsehood (see, for example, 1959, 1961a, 1971. 1981). Goffman's Hist monograph, The Presentation of Self In Everyday Life, which deconstructs the 'individual' into various dramaturgical functions and elements, was already conceived along these lines and may therefore be understood programmatically. The systematic high point in Goffman's 'deconstroctivísť perspective is, without doubt, his Frame Analysis (1974). Goffman's strategy of frame analysis, used to reveal 'unconscious' meaning complexity, corresponds to a complex system of concepts that permits the identifica-Hon of different classes of frames and the deM liption of logical transformational relationships between different frames. Transcending the level of Interaction (and thereby the boundaries of mlcrosociology), Goffman analyses and deconstructs the reflexivity and stratification of various kinds ol social meaning. 5 MATERIAL CLASSIFICATIONS. IDEAL TYPOLOGIES. DIFFERENTIATIONS One variant of Goffman's way of handling phenomena and data may be labelled 'subsumption -logical'. In Gender Advertisements he pursues his analytical goal on the basis of arranging and rearranging a variety of pictorial material. He makes the subsumption of 'superficially' diverse data which, on the principle of 'trial and error', he locales hypothelically In one and the same Irame (1979: 25). The classification ol the mate rials reveals a kind of form, namely a structural Identity, that emerges from the recorded differential contexts. The depth and breadth of the contextual differences In the materials somehow convey, according to Goffman, 'a sense of structure, a sense of a single organizatlonnmderlylng mere surface differences' (1979: 25). The logic of this procedure corresponds u> Max Weber's notion of ideal types to which Goffman explicitly refers in Asylums as his 'method' (1961b: 5). Concepts such as that of the 'total institution' are therefore abstract constructs, incorporating a large number of different phenomena rertca I -analytical programme, rather closer to tpnsons's sociology than is generally believed. "Goffman's critical distance and even opposition to Parsons cannot hide the fact that his approach deserves (he title of 'stnictural-functtonallsm' that Is normally associated with Parsons. And even Parsons's formalism finds. In Goffman's sociology, not an opponent bufiMthcr an emulation. FURTHER READING Bums, T. (1992) Erving Goffman. London: Routledge. Manning. Ph. (1992) Erving Goffmůn and Modem Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press. Williams, R. (1988) 'Understanding Goffman's methods', In P. Drew and A, Wootton (eds), Erving Goffman - Exploring the Interaction Order. Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 64-88. >»■ ijL. 2.3 Harold Garfinkel and Harvey Sacks Jörg R. Bergmann 1 Scientific and historical background 2 Development of the research programme 3 Research practice 4 Garfinkel, Sacks and qualitative social research 29 30 32 34 Harold Garfinkel (b. 1917) is widely known today as the founder of ethnomethodology. He gave this research approach its name, and in his early work, which appeared in his 1967 collection Studies in Eihnoinethodohgy, he created the theoretical, conceptual and methodological foundations of the approach. The subject of ethnomethodology, according to Garfinkel. is practical everyday action in situations. Its goal is to determine the practices and procedures (or methods) that are taken for granted, and by means of which members of a society (or tíh-nos), in their actions, moke their own behaviour perceptible and recognizable, and structure and order meaningfully thi reality that surrounds them. Unlike the work of Giving Goffman (see 2.2), which dates from about the same period, Garfinkel's works are much more cumbersome and inaccessible: they arc basic in their demands, thoroughly programmatic in character, and for these reasons are often very opaque. In spile of this, or perhaps even because of this, Garfinkel has attracted a large number of followers who made 'ethnomethodology' into a school of its own. In the 1960s and 1970s conversation analysis (see 5.17) developed out of ethnomethodology, as an independent research orientation that concentrates on Identifying the structural mechanisms of linguistic and non-linguistic Interaction. In conversation analysis the work of Harvey Sacks (193S-197S), In particular his Latum (1992), was of fundamental importance. For reasons that will be explained below, both Garfinkel and Sacks were very reserved in explaining and setting out the methods of their procedure. It will therefore be all the more revealing to examine the research style of these two scientists more closely. 1 SCIENTIFIC AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Garfinkel's decision to place everyday action at the centre of social scientific Interest was not due to a fascination with the exotic nature of trivial matters. It is based, rather, on a theoretical consideration with many underlying assumptions. Garfinkel's starting point is a theme that is known in sociology as the Hobbesian Problem, and relates to the question of how social order is possible when human beings pursue egoistical goals and ate therefore constantly in conflict with one another. Garfin kef began with the reflections of Talcott Parsons (1937), his doctoral supervisor, who had set out in his theory of social action a general framework for sociology, and who dominated International sociological debate at that time. Parsons saw the solution of the problem of social order not In utilitarian models of society, but In a way already landmarked by Duikhelm and Freud: social order, he claimed, results from the collective adoption and internalization of