Andrew Thrash read and liked Cat's review of Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity:

"These the second Erving Goffman book that I've read this year (the other being "Asylums", please see my review on Amazon.com if interested).
I work as a criminal defense attorney and I read "Asylums" in an effort to gain pers...more These the second Erving Goffman book that I've read this year (the other being "Asylums", please see my review on Amazon.com if interested).
I work as a criminal defense attorney and I read "Asylums" in an effort to gain perspective on the attitudes of institutionalized persons (i.e. convicts). I was suprised by how brilliant "Asylums" was, so I picked up "Stigma". I was similarily impressed with Stigma.

Where "Asylums" dealt with the relationship of individuals and institutions, "Stigma" deals more with inter personal relationships. The role of instituions in forming identity is noted in footnotes throughout, but the primary focus is in discussing the relationship between identity and stigma.

Goffman, of course, defines the dickens out of his concepts. If you gain nothing else from this book, you will have a thorough understanding of what it means to have a "stigma". The heart of the book consists of Goffman defining a five phase process which individuals with stigma go through. First you learn what it is to be "normal". Then you learn you're not "normal". Then you learn to control disclosure of information about your stigma, then you learn to "pass" as someone without a stigma and then you learn how to "voluntarily disclose" your stigma.

I don't have a degree in sociology, so I'm not sure about the theoretical backgrounding of this approach, but it made sense to me.

The best part of this book was the end, where Goffman argues (persuaively, I thought) that even "Normal" people have to deal with some sort of stigma at some time in their life. In that way, by studying people with stigma we study the interactions of "normals" with each other. So really there's no difference, just a continuum of stigma, ranging from those who are always suffering frm stigma, to those who rarely ever have to deal with it.

I thought that was an interesting insight. I recommend this book highly, and I look forward to reading his classic: "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life." (less) "