"Not then, men and their moments. Rather, moment and their men,"
writes Erving Goffman in the introduction to his groundbreaking
1967 Interaction Ritual, a study of face-to-face interaction in
natural settings, that class of events which occurs during
co-presence and by virtue of co-presence. The ultimate behavioral
materials are the glances, gestures, positionings, and verbal
statements that people continuously feed into situations, whether
intended or not. A sociology of occasions is here advocated. Social
organization is the central theme, but what is organized is the
co-mingling of persons and the temporary interactional enterprises
that can arise therefrom. A normatively stabilized structure is at
issue, a "social gathering," but this is a shifting entity,
necessarily evanescent, created by arrivals and killed by
departures. The major section of the book is the essay "Where the
Action Is," drawing on Goffman's last major ethnographic project
observation of Nevada casinos. Tom Burns says of Goffman's work
"The eleven books form a singularly compact body of writing. All
his published work was devoted to topics and themes which were
closely connected, and the methodology, angles of approach and of
course style of writing remained characteristically his own
throughout. Interaction Ritual in particular is an interesting
account of daily social interaction viewed with a new perspective
for the logic of our behavior in such ordinary circumstances as
entering a crowded elevator or bus." In his new introduction, Joel
Best considers Goffman's work in toto and places Interaction Ritual
in that total context as one of Goffman's pivotal works: "His
subject matter was unique. In sharp contrast to the natural
tendency of many scholars to tackle big, important topics, Goffman
was a minimalist, working on a small scale, and concentrating on
the most mundane, ordinary social contacts, on everyday life.'"
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