Erving Goffman and Empirical Research
Abstract
I situate Goffman’s work in the context of American sociology in the 1950s. I read
Goffman as someone responding to three of the dominant concerns of his day:
Parsonsian theory, psychoanalysis and Chicagoan qualitative sociology. My
approach accounts for Goffman’s adoption of some of the formal theoretical
strategies of Parsons, his preference for a Durkheimian emphasis on ritual rather
than a Freudian approach and his preference for observational methods rather than
the survey research approach of his Master’s thesis. Goffman’s decisions – like
Parsons’ decisions – often suggested an analytic/synthetic dualism that Parsons’
Harvard colleague, W.V.O Quine has shown to fail. I conclude the talk by suggesting
that reading Goffman in the light of Quine shows us that the conceptual frameworks
embedded in The Presentation of Self, Asylums and Frame Analysis can only be
developed by allowing empirical research to alter them – up to and including the
point at which they are obsolete. Parsons rejected this Weberian observation about
the nature of sociology. Goffman accepted it in principle but rarely in practice. It is
the opening for the continuation of Goffman’s research. The alternative is for
Goffman to remain as a museum piece, merely a chapter in theory textbooks.