An Interview With Erving Goffman, 1980

Abstract

In this interview Goffman refuses to be labeled to belong to a special theoretical approach of sociology and compares his position with some theoretical streams in sociology. He links his position with the experiences of scholars trained in the late 40s at the University of Chicago, and looks back at teachers and books that were influential for his further development as a sociologist. An important part of the interview is dedicated to a reflection on his book Frame Analysis. This leads the interview to a reflection of the interviewee on the individual and society. After this theme Goffman offers his opinion on social reality that might receive another meaning because society frames this reality. The analysis is linked with the Western world, and more particularly the American society. Goffman describes his relation with the work of Weber, Durkheim, and Parsons and calls himself a positivist. He explains his opinion on objective and subjective experience, tells how he is doing his research, and the problems he meets according to some critics. He considers his work as more inductive, and he contends that he does not start from or create a big theory. He explains what he sees as a value-free approach in sociology, and describes the opposition between quantitative and qualitative research in American Sociology. At the end he offers his vision on Symbolic Interactionism, the position of G.H. Mead, J. Dewey, H. Blumer, and social pragmatism in relation to the development of Symbolic Interactionism.

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