Goffman - Total Institutions Flashcards
Moral Career and Total Institutions
How does Goffman define a total institution?
A place of residence and work where a large number of like-situated individuals are cut off from greater society and lead an enclosed, formally administered lifestyle.
It is a social hybrid, part residential community, part formal organization.
What are social establishments?
Institutions are places in which a particular kind of activity occurs - place for activities that people draw social status from, others are elective or unserious.
What differentiates a total institution from a social establishment?
Every establishment has an encompassing tendency - they capture the time and interest if their members and provide a world for them
The encompassing tendency of a total institutions is a barrier to social intercourse with the outside world.
The central feature of total establishments is they they breakdown the barriers separating work, sleep, and play.
What are the five kinds of total institutions describes by Goffman in Asylums?
Give examples of each.
1 - Those felt to be incapable and harmless (homes for blind, aged, orphaned, indigent)
2 - Those considered incapable of looking after themselves and who pose an unintended threat to the community (TB sanitaria, leprosaria, mental hospitals)
3 - Those felt to be intentional danger to community (jails, pow camps)
4 - Institutions established to better pursue work-like task and the institution is established instrumentally to support this (Work-camps, boarding schools, ships, army barracks)
5 - Those established to be retreats from the world but also serve as training stations fir the religious (monasteries, convents)
What are the chief characteristics of a total institution?
Breakdown of barriers usually separating work, play, rest
Staff-Inmate split
Altered Work-Payment Structure
Family Life
A chief component of a TI is the breakdown of barriers separating work/play/rest. What is meant by this?
Days routine is tightly scheduled, activities are performed with several similarly grouped individuals, all under the same authority which is operating to fulfill the goals of the institution
A chief component of a staff/inmate split. What is meant by this and what are its implications?
The authority in total institutions is personnel whose main purpose is surveillance. This authority, usually staff of the institution who work to uphold its goals, often limits the spread of information between those inside the institution and higher staff within it. They also frequently limit knowledge about plans for the inmates from them, heightening the power imbalance.
A key distinguishing feature of TIs and greater society is an altered work-payment structure. What is meant by this and what are its implications?
Those in TIs often have food and basic needs provided for by it, and often need to be motivated to perform duties with outside of monetary incentive. This may be rations, ceremonial or holiday gifts, or even the threat of physical punishment. Due to the works requirements of those in TIs either being so little that they grow bored, or so overwhelming that they have time for nothing else, the lack of control and incentive to perform their duties leads many in TIs to feel an alienation from their sense of self, possession, and work capacity. his is demoralizing.
A key distinguishing feature of TIs and greater society is the dissolution of family life. What is meant by this and what are its implications?
Usually people work and play in social establishments and return home to family where they live and rest. In a TI such dynamics are disturbed as the inmates live with the same people they work and spend the rest of their time with (batch living). The structural establishment and maintenance of the household ensures that that the TI will not meet resistance and maintains the power dynamic between personnel (who can return home to their households after each shift) and inmates.
