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- Title
ON TOTAL INSTITUTIONS.
- Authors
Mouzelis, Nicos P.
- Abstract
The article focuses on the concept of total institutions in the work of sociologist Erving Goffman. Goffman defines a total institution as a place of residence and work where a large number of like-situated individuals, cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life. As prisons and mental hospitals are the organizations which most often come to mind when reference is made to total institutions, their inherently sinister aspect, so ingeniously analyzed by Goffman, has been unquestionably accepted. The author argues that not all total institutions portray the negative characteristics associated with them and that even when mortification process exist, they do not always have destructive or degrading implications for the self. Mortification processes constitute the central theme in Goffman's theory of total institutions. Such processes range from role-stripping practices and tyrannization of everyday life. The reason of such practices is a practical one.
- Subjects
MORTIFICATION; GOFFMAN, Erving, 1922-1982; PRISONS; PSYCHIATRIC hospitals; HOUSING; SELF-denial
- Publication
Sociology, 1971, Vol 5, Issue 1, p113
- ISSN
0038-0385
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/003803857100500108