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makes himself or herself 'available' for moving into that gathering or may
actually form it if it is dyadic in character. Gatherings presume the mutual
reflective monitoring of conduct in and through co-presence. The
contextuality of gatherings is vital, in a very intimate and integral fashion,
to such processes of monitoring. Context includes the physical
environment of interaction but is not something merely 'in which'
interaction occurs (see pp. 118). Aspects of context, including the
temporal order of gestures and talk, are routinely drawn upon by actors in
constituting communication. The importance of this for the formulation of
'meaning' in gestures and in talk, as Garfinkel has done more than anyone
else to elucidate, can scarcely be exaggerated .41 Thus linguists have very
often sought to analyse semantic problems either in terms of the 'internal'
linguistic competence of individual speakers or by examining the
properties of isolated speech acts. But the 'closure of meaning' of the
polyvalent terminologies of everyday language achieved in discourse can
be grasped only by studying the contextual ordering of whole
conversations.
Gatherings may have a very loose and transitory form, such as that of a
fleeting exchange of 'friendly glances' or greetings in a hallway. More
formalized contexts in which gatherings occur can be called social
occasions. Social occasions are gatherings which involve a plurality of
individuals. They are typically rather clearly bounded in time and space
and often employ special forms of fixed equipment - formalized
arrangements of tables and chairs and so on. A social occasion provides
the 'structuring social context' (Goffman's term) in which many gatherings
'are likely to form, dissolve and re-form, while a pattern of conduct tends
to be recognized as the appropriate and (often) official or intended one'." A
whole variety of routinized aspects of daily life, such as the work day in a
factory or office, are of this sort. But there are also many more irregular
social occasions, including parties, dances, sports events and a diversity of
other examples. Of course, a sector of physical space may simultaneously
be the site or locale of several social occasions, each involving multiple
gatherings. But more often than not there is a normatively sanctioned
((72))
overriding social occasion' to which others are supposedly subordinated in
a particular sector of time-space.
The contextual characteristics of gatherings, whether or not these occur
on social occasions, can be divided into two main forms. Unfocused
interaction relates to all those gestures and signals which can be
communicated between individuals simply because of their co-presence
within a specific context. The physical properties of the body and the
limited scope of the positioning of the face are major constraints here.
Actors' generalized awareness of the presence of others may range subtly
over a wide spatial extension, even including those standing behind them.
But such 'cueings of the body' are very diffuse compared with those that
are possible, and are chronically utilized, in face-to-face interaction.
Focused interaction occurs where two or more individuals co-ordinate
their activities through a continued intersection of facial expression and
voice. However much the participants might monitor whatever else is
going on in the wider gathering, focused interaction in some part
introduces an enclosure of those involved from others who are co-present.
A unit of focused interaction is a face engagement or an encounter.
Encounters are the guiding thread of social interaction, the succession of
engagements with others ordered within the daily cycle of activity.
Although Goffman does not include this formally within his schema of
concepts, I think it highly important to emphasize the fact that encounters
typically occur as routines. That is, what from the angle of the fleeting
moment might appear brief and trivial interchanges take on much more
substance when seen as inherent in the iterative nature of social life. The
routinization of encounters is of major significance in binding the fleeting
encounter to social reproduction and thus to the seeming 'fixity' of
institutions.
I have defined social integration as systemness in circumstances of
co-presence. Several phenomena suggest themselves as being most
immediately relevant to the constitution of social integration thus defined.
First, in order to grasp the connection of encounters with social
reproduction stretching away over time and space, we must emphasize
how encounters are formed and reformed in the durée of daily
existence. Second, we should seek to identify the main mechanisms of the
duality of structure whereby encounters are organized in and through the
intersections of practical and
discursive consciousness. This in turn has to be explicated in terms both of
the control of the body and of the sustaining or rules or conventions.
Third, encounters are sustained above all through talk, through everyday
conversation. In analysing the communication of meaning in interaction
via the use of interpretative schemes, the phenomenon of talk has to be
taken very seriously, as constitutively involved in encounters. Finally, the
contextual organization of encounters must be examined, since the
mobilization of time-space is the 'grounding' of all the above elements. I
shall undertake this latter task in terms of several basic notions, those of
'presence-availability', 'locale' and the relation of 'enclosure/disclosure'.
Rather than discussing these latter three concepts in this chapter, however,
I shall defer them until later.
Seriality
Encounters are sequenced phenomena, interpolated within, yet giving form
to, the seriality of day-to-day life. The systematic properties of encounters
can be traced to two principal characteristics: opening and closing, and
turn-taking. Let me look briefly at each of these. The durée of daily
life, as lived by each individual, is a continuous flow of activity, broken
only (but regularly) by the relative passivity of sleep. The durée of
activity can be 'bracketed' or 'conceptually segmented', as Schutz says, by a
reflexive moment of attention on the part of the subject. This is what
happens when someone is asked by another to supply 'a reason' or 'reason'
for, or otherwise to explicate, certain features of his or her activity. But the
durée of daily life is also 'bracketed' by the opening and closing of
encounters. In Goffman's words, 'One may speak, then, of opening and
closing temporal brackets and bounding spatial brackets."' Fond as he is of
dramaturgical metaphors and analogies, Goffman gives as an example the
devices which are employed in the opening and closing of theatrical
spectacles. To signal the opening of a play, a bell rings, the lights go down
and the curtain is raised. At the conclusion the auditorium lights go on
again as the curtain falls. Most social occasions use some type of formal
cueing devices for opening and closing a characteristic of ritual occasions
as much in traditional cultures as in the variety of more secular
((74))
social occasions characteristic of contemporary societies. The bracketing
of initiation ceremonies, for example, typically cues a dramatic change in
the manner of conduct within the frame of the occasion - markers
indicating, as it were, a shift from the profane to the sacred. Caillois has
demonstrated in this regard the parallels between, as well as the directly
historical influences upon, the spheres of religion and 'play'." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]