Introduction

* Whose theories of social order I will be using as the focus of my assignment. (Goffman and Foucault)

Main Content

* Goffmans views on what constitutes social order being made and remade through individuals, and how Mondermans’ Thesis relates to how Goffman views social order.

* Foucaults’ views on what constitutes social order being made and remade through institutions and how Buchanans’ report relates to how Foucault views social order.

* The differences and similarities with Goffman and Foucaults findings.

Summary

* Summarise what both theorists have said regarding social order and what I understand about these findings.

There are many ways in which social order is produced and maintained. Social scientists are interested in a broader view of society, they look at what leads to problems and the things that need some sort of solution creating to improve them (Reflections on Ordered Lives); I am going to describe how social order is made by using the explanations of Michael Foucault and Erving Goffman, who are social scientists that have attempted to explain how social order is created and where it has come from, I will also be discussing how their views both differ in their approach and how they are similar.
I am beginning with Goffmans’ explanations, from the detailed studies he undertook working within the framework of the functions of rituals and order in everyday life; he has tried to show ways in which societies are ordered through multiple performances in contexts such as everyday interactions and where orderliness of encounters come from. He sees social order as being built through the process of building social interactions, which lead to the ordering of social life. His approach is an analytical one of interaction order such as social situations this perspective he has adopted is an analogy of the everyday life and the theatrical, with the theatrical being how individuals display and perform according to the requirements of situations and their roles in it using posture, and body and eye movements. These performances are aimed toward communicating a positive impression, he proposes that in order to understand society we need to understand the way individuals’ actions and interactions are organised (Goffman cited by Silva, 2009, p318-319).
Goffman explains disorder in society as something being broken or breached and this is something that gets repaired in the flow of interactional order by people in society. He believes that when order becomes broken or disrupted people generally manage to negotiate between themselves to restore it which would lead to people performing differently and new forms of coordination becoming ways to keep order based on new rules and practices that continually arise (Learning Companion 2). Such as the way we use our vehicles on the road, it requires social coordination that configures a particular way of ordering behaviour and interaction but one that people are often not aware of (Online Activity 23). For example the way we negotiate driving without thinking, like when we stop to let people out, how we acknowledge someone who has done this, or how we flash our lights to let another driver know something is wrong, these are not set laws but it is something that a lot of motorists have adapted when driving which is known as road etiquette (www.squidoo.com).
When studying Mondermans Thesis I have found some of his findings to be similar to Goffmans for example his thesis shows that the best way for pedestrians and vehicles to work best together is to remove roadside markings and warnings, which he has called ‘psychological traffic calming’ the aim of this being pedestrians and motorists to negotiate the use of the road. Like Goffman he feels that this would be more effective to encourage people to accept responsibility for their actions rather than them being told what they should do (Monderman cited by Silva, 2009, p333). This shared space approach does not have set rules but enables interactions and negotiations between individuals and will create social order as an ongoing process (Monderman cited by Silva, 2009, p341).
Next I will discuss the contrast of Foucaults’ examinations to Goffmans’, from the studies that he undertook he has found that social order is shaped and organised by authoritive knowledge, particularly forms of knowledge that are put to work in social and political institutions like family, schools, the workplace, hospitals, the neighbourhood, prisons or from governments and welfare systems that try to govern human conduct (Foucault cited by Silva, 2009, 319) these institutions continually evaluate new ways of repairing the order in society. He preferred to analyse society in its entirety instead of the focus of individual behaviours and suggests that power is used to maintain order and is a major source of social discipline. He sees discipline as a structure of control adopted by systems such as the school system, government and the armed forces and that order in society is made and remade through the power of discourses and authoritive knowledge.
Foucault puts a lot of emphasis on discourses believing they provide frameworks to shape what can be thought and talked about in relation to social order; he uses the term discourses as a way of explaining that for people to know that if they behave in a certain way then they are seen as being normal. He suggests that the power that social and political institutions have works in subtle ways through discourse, for example what can be talked about, how popular attitudes are shaped and how these are used to normalise behaviour (Foucault cited by Silva, 2009, p319). Although Foucault believes that people are not the authors of society, discourses are governed independently of anyone’s purpose (Learning Companion 2), the institutions he mentions help to keep order in society, although he is concerned about who can claim the authority of who has the power to rule how others should behave (Foucault cited by Silva, 2009, p319).
When looking at Buchanans’ report I have found his findings to be similar to Foucaults’ in the way that they believe that rules have to be in place to have social order in society; Buchanan was commissioned to do his report by the UK government in 1961 which was ‘Traffic in Towns’ aimed at finding solutions for urban space to accommodate pedestrians and cars. He found that social order was linked to the segregation of humans and motor vehicles and the need to create an array of measures in urban design for the regulation of the conduct of drivers and pedestrians, this vision is in contrast to Mondermans’ thesis of a shared approach. Buchanans’ model assumes individuals should conform to rules and a state that solves problems and looks after individual behaviour by having rules in place to help control situations (Buchanan cited by Silva, 2009, p341).
When comparing the differences and similarities of the approaches of Goffman and Foucault in their research of social order I found that Goffmans analysis is down to individuals’ performances and Foucault constitutes the social aspect, the idea of discourse being at the centre of his thinking, although neither Goffman nor Foucault offer a general theory of social order or think there was a centre of power that directs society. Their findings and research differ by breaking down wider questions into smaller ones that reflect their particular focus, with Goffman having the individual as centre, which is known as micro social and Foucault using discourse as centre which would be known as micro and macro social, micro and macro are terms used by social scientists to tell the difference in the levels of social life with micro being the smallest and macro the largest. Foucault is concerned with the historical dimension of social order and how and by whom interactions are authorised while Goffman is concerned with people’s individual performance. Goffman studied everyday interactions between individuals in familiar settings to make social order visible while Foucault focused on historical documents to make sense of how things happened in the past to ordering the present (Online Activity 23) while Goffman believes social order has been built from social interactions and is not concerned with the historical practices that have embed these orders and the way the orders have been authorised (Cited by Silva, 2009, p319). The similarities in their work are centred on being concerned with the wider questions of understanding how society has been established. They both look for wider ways of understanding the issues that arise from social interaction and explaining the link between individual and social situations but their findings have found different explanations to social order and how it is maintained (Online Activity 23).
To summarise what I have learned from the research into social order by these theorists I have come to understand that social order involves a sense of how individuals all fit together in shared spaces, it could not be made and repaired unless individuals are able to make sense of and make use of the shared norms that govern our behaviour. These shared norms and expectations mean that we take social order for granted as it is part of our everyday lives and interactions with other people. It also appears that we only seem to become aware of social order when it has been disrupted or broken in some way. But sometimes people do not want to be ordered and may disagree about what sort of social order they want to live in (Reflections on Ordered Lives). To conclude the key points of these theories Goffman thinks social order is produced through regular practices and interactions of people in their day to day lives and people being able to negotiate with each other, whereas Foucault believes social order is shaped through authoritive knowledge and establishments that can govern people’s behaviour. I can see where both points of views can be valued, with Foucault I agree that we do need institutions setting guidelines and rules that we should follow for an ordered society as without establishments like schools, the police and local councils we would have disorder, but I also agree like Goffman we need to be in charge of our own social interactions and be responsible for our own behaviour.