Asylums

Description

By Erving Goffman

A total institution is defined by Goffman 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. Prisons serve as a clear example, providing we appreciate that what is prison-like about prisons is found in institutions whose members have broken no laws. This volume deals with total institutions in general and mental hospitals in particular. The main focus is on the world of the inmate rather than the world of the staff, and a chief concern is to develop a sociological version of the structure of the self. Each of the four essays approaches that single issue from a different vantage point in sociology.

Erving Goffman was Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania until his death in 1982.