The Complexity of Deviance: A Sociological Perspective, Slides of Introduction to Sociology

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Chapter 16

STRAYING: DEVIANCE

Sociology of Deviance

The sociology of deviance has traditionally

relied on norms as a key definitional feature of

its inquiry. This reliance needs serious

examination as the relationship between

deviance and straying needs to be seen as

complex and heterogeneous.

Norms and Sanctions:

Emile Durkheim

The 'acceptance' of norms does not stem from some kind of democratic vote or social survey, rather it comes from the fact that we are born into a pre-existing order that comes ready-made with a large stock of norms and rules that we must learn if we are to participate as competent members of society. In Emile Durkheim’s famous words, norms are a ‘social fact’, they exhibit ‘the power of external coercion’, capable of being exercised upon individuals, where ‘the presence of this power is in turn recognisable because of the existence of some pre- determined sanction’

Durkheim, 1982[1895], pp. 56-

Norms (1)

1. First, whose norms? In complex societies there simply may not be a consensus regarding norms, instead there will be many conflicting and competing norms, hence dissensus may be more frequent than consensus in determining the relevant rules to apply to any particular behaviour.

Questions about how normative orders form, and how specific norms work, have occupied sociologists for many years. In a useful discussion Sharyn Roach Anleu (1991) summarises five key questions surrounding norms:

Norms (3)

4. Does visibility make a difference? Despite the fact that everybody breaks norms not everyone is sanctioned or accused of deviant behaviour. Factors such as gender, ethnicity, and appearance all affect visibility and hence may lead to a greater chance of drawing official sanctioning action.
5. Can there be deviance without breaking norms? Some people may be defined as deviant because of physical or other characteristics even though they have not consciously broken any rules.

Reaching a Dead-End?

The existence of these diverse questions

about norms is one reason why the sociology

of deviance is full of debate and competing

theories, and has even led one commentator

(Sumner, 1994) to seriously claim that the

field reached a dead-end by the late 1970s.

Labelling Theory

This point was stated with great clarity in Becker’s influential labelling theory of deviance:

‘The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied; deviant behaviour is behaviour that people so label’ (Becker, 1963, p. 9).

Or, as Georges Canguilhem puts it in his analyses of ‘normality’, ‘We have to reserve the designation ‘monster’ for organic beings only. There are no mineral monsters. There are no mechanical monsters’ (Canguilhem, 2005, p. 187).

So, both normality and deviance are the result of active, human, sense-making work, in short, they are constructed.

Deviance and the Looping of

Interactive Kinds (1)

1. The prevalence of moral connotations around

what people are called;

2. The fact that humans are self-aware, thus the

term “interactive kinds”.

Ian Hacking introduces two ideas about

interactivity:

Action, Awareness and Agency:

Self and Social Incorporated

The awareness may be personal, but more commonly is an awareness shared and developed within a group of people, embedded in practices and institutions to which they are assigned in virtue of the way they are classified. We are especially concerned with classifications that, when known by people or by those around them, and put to work in institutions, change the way in which individuals experience themselves - and may even lead people to evolve their feelings and behaviour in part because they are so classified. Such kinds (of people and their behaviour) are interactive kinds

Hacking, The Social Construction of What 1999, p. 104

The Looping Effect

For example, using terms such as

“schizophrenic” and “pathological gambler”

on self-aware people, within social and

institutional contexts, leads to changes in

consciousness and social practice;

it makes and moulds kinds of people.

This looping effect in many ways brings us

full circle back to the classic “labelling

perspective” on deviance (Becker, 1963).