Though a hugely influential and prolific figure in twentieth-century social theory, Erving Goffman's work has long been critiqued as much as it has been celebrated. The essays presented in this edited collection seek to reclaim elements of his thought and practice for use in contemporary scholarship, particularly in the space of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, whilst providing a detailed and clear overview of some of his key ideas in their original context.
Frequently, the collected authors highlight what is underdeveloped in Goffman's work, along with his idiosyncratic style and somewhat general approach to method, but these limitations are offered as sites of opportunity from which new work can be developed. Criticisms of Goffman's work from both his contemporary moment and more recently are confronted directly, leaving the reader with a clear sense of his utility for the fields of sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, as well as those engaged in critical discourse analysis.
All of the studies provided in the book endeavour to expand on the social processes that occur in co-presence, reflecting Goffman's foregrounding of this particular form of social organisation. Utilising the methods and theoretical concepts of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EMCA), we observe application across a wider range of different fields and spaces. Unifying each empirical study are their points of origin in EMCA, focus on particular and discrete fields of study to give shape to the new work at chapter level, detailed attention paid to different forms of embodied interactional practices (for example, movement and gaze), and, of course, the use of Goffman's ideas as a starting point.
In the first part of the book, we find a review of some of Goffman's key conceptual work (including interaction order and frame) evaluated in the light of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. These chapters serve as a reminder not only of the breadth of Goffman's oeuvre, but also ground new readers, unfamiliar with his wider work, in his key areas of practice. Douglas W. Maynard & Jason Turowetz's defence of the combination of Goffman's work and EMCA is of significance to the overall purpose of the book in its reflexivity here.
Of particular interest are the wide range of fields covered by the individual studies in each chapter of the book's second part. These include a demonstration of Goffman's ideas of participation and presentation of self, applied to an individual with aphasia in Charles Goodwin & Marjorie Harness Goodwin's chapter; Anssi Peräkylä's discussion of the challenges of applying Goffman's notion of ‘face’ to assessment interviews in psychiatry; and the use Christian Heath & Paul Luff make of ideas around interactional resources in their chapter on the case of auctions and auction houses. As this diverse sample of some of the cases presented in the book demonstrate, a wide application of Goffman's ideas is offered, suggesting new avenues for potential purpose.
In summary, this book offers cross-disciplinary perspectives on Goffman's work, framing his ideas with greater methodological rigour, and offers new insight into his relevance for those working in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology in our current moment.
