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Identities: gender & ethnicity

Lecture 03

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Recap: symbolic interactionism

• Ideas, images, symbols

• Individuals use symbols and images in a process of visualising themselves

• Identity emerges from the individual’s ability to think of him/herself in terms of the community into which s/he has been socialised. This is a conscious, creative, and reflective ability

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Invent Lives for Yourselves

Duration: a few months

Props: none

Effect: disturbing

From: Roger-Pol Droit (2002) Astonish Yourself: 101 Experiments in the philosophy of everyday life London, Penguin

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The ‘Me’ Decade• "In 1961 a copywriter in the employ of Foote, Cone & Belding named

Shirley Polykoff came up with the line: 'If I've only one life, let me live it as a blonde!' The basic attitude of having 'only one life,' said Wolfe, contradicted a general belief among families and nations that had existed for centuries, which you could sum up as a belief in 'serial immortality.'

• "Boiled down, serial immortality means that we're all part of a familial stream -- our lives being a completion or fulfillment of our parents' lives and our children's lives completing and fulfilling our own, and everyone understanding that we're part of the same genetic river of existence and spirit.

• "Polykoff's copy line, which was written for Clairol hair colouring, basically said 'the hell with that -- it's just me, it's just my life and my goals, and I'm going to satisfy myself!' By the time the early '70s rolled around the culture had begun to believe in the 'me first' philosophy en masse.

• Tom Wolfe 'The Me Decade and the Third Great Awakening.'

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Performance

• Irving Goffman: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

• ‘Life is a dramatically enacted thing’

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Performance

• All the world really is a stage - life is a dramatic performance

• We ‘perform’ for others.

• We present a kind of ‘act’ to them.

• We perform differently in different situations

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Persona

• the different personality ‘masks’ we wear in different situations, for different people.

For instance, the way we behave with our family on a picnic is different to how we would behave with prisoners if we worked as a probation officer.

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Performance

• This refers to how we wear our persona or personality mask. For instance:

– We might be ‘sincere’ in how we behave. We are honest in what we say and do.

or– We might be ‘cynical’ – and not really believe in

our performance.

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StageWhat do we need for our ‘performance’?

• A certain location.• Props/objects.• Costume/dress.

These form the context for our performance.

• For instance, if you were out on the ‘pull’ you mightwear attractive, new clothes and go to a club/pub.

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Role

This refers to the individual ‘jobs’ or responsibilities wehave.

• We wake up as a son or daughter, within a family.• We go downstairs and clear up last night’s mess (role as

cleaner?) to help other family members.• We act as a comforter to an upset friend on the bus. We

chat to other friends.• We arrive at university and attend lectures, use the

library …

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Personal Style

• This is the unique, individual aspects of yourself you bring to teams, roles, persona and how you stage things!

• This is what makes you different to others.

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Frames

• Models we rely on to make sense of experience

• Frames are learned through interaction with the generalised other (society)

• We share common frames• Frames reflect cultural knowledge

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Use the model

• Describe a first date using Goffman’s dramaturgical model– What impression do you want to create?– What definition of the situation do you want your date

to accept?– How do you manage your dress, gestures, words to

project the image of yourself?– How do you control the stage?– What can you not do to create the desired impression?

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Impression Management

• The process of managing setting, verbal/non-verbal communication, dress etc. to create a particular impression

• Constructive or deceitful?

• Give one example of the ways you manage the impressions you create?

• Why do you use this?

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Front stage/Back stage

• What are the characteristics of:

– Front stage

– Back stage

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Front stage/Back stage

• Identify a role you perform, the audience for that role and the frame in which the role is enacted

• List the front stage and back stage behaviours you engage in

• Predict what would happen if your backstage behaviour could be observed by your audience

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Concepts and Theories: Goffman

• Now complete the notes for Goffman using the model.

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Concepts and Theories: Goffman

• Roles, actors, performance, giving off information.

• Identities are acted out in everyday interactions with other people. We act out identities rather like we act our roles in a play where scripts are already written but we have some scope for interpretation and improvisation.

• Identities are social, the product of the society in which we live. People can gain information about themselves and others through the way they behave with each other. This is not always conscious. We find out about how this happens through observation.