Moments Make Men- Sociology of Goffman & Bourdieu

1. THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE
“LINE OF CONSISTENCY”
In Social Interaction
Dr Madhu Prabakaran

2. SOURCE: ERVING GOFFMAN (1955) ON
FACE-WORK, PSYCHIATRY, 18:3, 213-231

3. IN OUR INTERACTION
WE TAKE A LINE!

4. LINE
Line is, a pattern of verbal and nonverbal acts by which we express our
views of the situations …. We present ourselves through our “line”
“Regardless of whether a person intends to take a line, he will find that he has
done so in effect”.

5. • Persons have -or be in - or maintain face when
consistent line is preserved.
“A person's face is something that is not lodged in or
on his body, but rather something that is diffusely
located in the flow of events in his/her social
encounter”
• “It becomes manifest only when these events are
read and interpreted for the appraisals expressed in
them”.

6. WE LIVE IN THE
WORLD OF SOCIAL
ENCOUNTERS,
INTERACTIONS…

7. IN WHICH WE
• Lose Face
• Gain Face
• Save face
• Give Face to others

8. FACE WORK
• How we workout our face
• Face work is mostly habituated & unconscious
(practical consciousness)
• When ‘face’ is threatened , we work on it
• Communication can be bypassed, withdrawn from,
disbelieved, conveniently misunderstood, or tactically
conveyed

9. FACE
• Is the social value
• by the line others assume
• About us
• reading our line in
interactions!

10. FACE: A POSITIVE SOCIAL VALUE A PERSON
CLAIMS FOR ONESELF
Maintaining Face Lip Service Face saving

11. “MOMENTS MAKE THEIR MEN”
- GOFFMAN
FOR GOFFMAN, MOMENTS ARE MOMENTS THAT REINFORCE OR BREAKAWAY WITH THE LINE

12. A MOMENT MAKING A MAN?
Making Face Context Losing Face

13. IS IT JUST A MOMENT MAKING A MAN OR
BEYOND IT?

15. Moments are moments of Line
But, what makes the LINEs & their
cobwebs?

16. Do we have Choice?
Moments too have momentum

17. IN OUR INTERACTION
WE TAKE A LINE!

19. PICTURE FROM PHD THESIS OF VADAKKINIYIL, DINESAN. 2009. TEYYAM: THE POIESIS OF RITE AND GOD IN MALABAR AND
SOUTH INDIA. PH.D. THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, BERGEN: UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN

20. SOMATIZATION OF SOCIAL
RELATIONS OF DOMINATION

22. What makes them to be in
consistent with line?

23. THERE ARE BURIED STRUCTURES
BENEATH THE “LINE OF CONSISTENCY”
IN INTERACTIONS

24. DECIPHER ITS “LOGIC OF
PRACTICE”
• Logic of practice – unfolds from Habitus- habituated internal dispositions: a
system of structured, structuring, dispositions – in practical relation to the
world (- Bourdieu)
• Bourdieu defines habitus as : systems of durable, transposable dispositions,
structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures
• Logic of practice is constrained/ facilitated by “in actu” social capitals:
social capital, cultural capital, symbolic capital. Ones’ position in social
space
• Observed through body postures, body automations…durable ways of
standing, sitting, speaking (Doxa),
• Interactions happen within the limits of structurally limited internal dispositions

25. REFLEXIVE SOCIOLOGICAL
PRACTICE
• How to study
• For understanding “the logic of practice” Reflexive Sociology is Bourdieu's
sociology’s attempt to create a modus operandi to “understand”

26. SOCIOLOGICAL EYE LOOKS FOR
•the fields of cultural production
•habitus & strategy
•Identify illusio & practical sense
•& Recognize symbolic power

27. THE TASK OF REFLEXIVE SOCIOLOGY
• “to uncover the most profoundly buried structures of the various social worlds which
constitute the social universe, as well as the 'mechanisms’ which tend to ensure their
reproduction or their transformation”
• Explore the distribution of socially scarce goods & values (Forms of capital)
• Understand the symbolic templates for the practical activities: the consciousness and
interpretations of agents are an essential component of the full reality, of the social world
• Explore the social-praxeology (weaving together structuralist & constructivist approaches)
• Understand the “generative matrix”

28. Human existence need not condemned to be
the Inter-twixed embodiments between
upcoming and outgoing illusios of the social-
fields

29. REFERENCES
• Bourdieu P, Wacquant L (1992). Introduction to Reflexive Sociology.
Cambridge: Polity Press
• Bourdieu P (1990). The Logic of Practice. Stanford: Stanford University Press
• Dinesan V (2009). Teyyam: The Poiesis of Rite and God in Malabar and South
India. Ph.D. thesis submitted to the Department of Social Anthropology,
Bergen: University of Bergen
• Goffman E (1955). On Face Work. Psychiatry, 18:3, 213-231