Susie Scott,
“Revisiting the Total Institution: Performative Regulation in the Reinventive
Institution,” Sociology 44 (2), 2010
Total Institutions key features - "the unfolding of the daily round in the same place and under the same authority"
"batch living, or being treated as part of an anonymous mass"
"the rigid timetabling and scheduling of activities"
"an institutional goal of resocialisation" p.215
"Power was conceptualised as the capacity to influence others through communicative practices that limit their access to resources" p.215
"Goffman's argument was that inmates perceived themselves to be powerless, because of the ways in which their erstwhile identities were ground down." p.215
Social process through which a persons identity is changed:
"pre-patient, when significant others complained of one's inappropriate behaviour and instigated a professional intervention; in-patient, when one was hospitalised, treated as mentally ill and denied the rights and privileges of a 'normal' civilian; and ex-patient, which involved dealing with the stigmatising effects of having been in this situation." p.216
Patients began changing their behaviour in order to give a more 'acceptable' performance of the self: "Long-term inmates experienced 'moral loosening' (Goffman, 1961:152) as they ceased to care about their status within the hospital and did whatever it took to get out." p.216
"Rather than a simple breaking of the will, this was an agentic instrumental act performed to manipulate those in authority - a 'shameless game' of 'civic apathy' (1961: 151)" p.216
Reinventive Institutions: "places to which people retreat for periods of intense self-reflection, education, enrichment and reform, but under their own volition, in the pursuit of 'self-improvement'." p.218
"Rather than cling defensively to their previous, civilian roles, they embrace the prospect of acquiring or discovering a 'new me'... The real, authentic self is perceived to reside not in the person who went into the TI, but in the one who might come out." p.219
"The rise of RIs can be contextualised within this culture of dissatisfaction with the fallible self. THey offer to process, reshape and reform by trimming away negative emotional experiences, so that what emerges is a set of 'ginger-bread people'" p.219
Life politics - "an anxious preoccupation with the self as a reflexive project, and a quest for authentic living that necessitates our trust in abstract systems of expertise." p.220
Performative regulation "occurs where groups of people submit themselves to the authority of an institution, internalise its values and enact them through mutual surveillance in an inmate culture" p.221
When inmates are in an RI, "a subtler form of power operates through performative regulation, whereby actors not only submit to disciplinary regimes but also participate in their production and administration, through techniques of mutual surveillance; their motivations are shaped by seductive discourses and reinforced by inmate cultures." p.226-7
Total Institutions key features - "the unfolding of the daily round in the same place and under the same authority"
"batch living, or being treated as part of an anonymous mass"
"the rigid timetabling and scheduling of activities"
"an institutional goal of resocialisation" p.215
"Power was conceptualised as the capacity to influence others through communicative practices that limit their access to resources" p.215
"Goffman's argument was that inmates perceived themselves to be powerless, because of the ways in which their erstwhile identities were ground down." p.215
Social process through which a persons identity is changed:
"pre-patient, when significant others complained of one's inappropriate behaviour and instigated a professional intervention; in-patient, when one was hospitalised, treated as mentally ill and denied the rights and privileges of a 'normal' civilian; and ex-patient, which involved dealing with the stigmatising effects of having been in this situation." p.216
Patients began changing their behaviour in order to give a more 'acceptable' performance of the self: "Long-term inmates experienced 'moral loosening' (Goffman, 1961:152) as they ceased to care about their status within the hospital and did whatever it took to get out." p.216
"Rather than a simple breaking of the will, this was an agentic instrumental act performed to manipulate those in authority - a 'shameless game' of 'civic apathy' (1961: 151)" p.216
Reinventive Institutions: "places to which people retreat for periods of intense self-reflection, education, enrichment and reform, but under their own volition, in the pursuit of 'self-improvement'." p.218
"Rather than cling defensively to their previous, civilian roles, they embrace the prospect of acquiring or discovering a 'new me'... The real, authentic self is perceived to reside not in the person who went into the TI, but in the one who might come out." p.219
"The rise of RIs can be contextualised within this culture of dissatisfaction with the fallible self. THey offer to process, reshape and reform by trimming away negative emotional experiences, so that what emerges is a set of 'ginger-bread people'" p.219
Life politics - "an anxious preoccupation with the self as a reflexive project, and a quest for authentic living that necessitates our trust in abstract systems of expertise." p.220
Performative regulation "occurs where groups of people submit themselves to the authority of an institution, internalise its values and enact them through mutual surveillance in an inmate culture" p.221
When inmates are in an RI, "a subtler form of power operates through performative regulation, whereby actors not only submit to disciplinary regimes but also participate in their production and administration, through techniques of mutual surveillance; their motivations are shaped by seductive discourses and reinforced by inmate cultures." p.226-7
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