Asylums (book)

Asylums ia 1961 collection of four essays written by sociologist Erving Goffman. Based on participant-observer field work by him, the book details Goffman's theory of the "total institution" (principally in the example he gives, as the title of the book indicates, mental instiutions) and the process by which they take efforts to maintain predictable and regular behavior on the part of both "guard" and "captor", suggesting that many of the features of such instiutions served the ritual function of ensuring that both classes of people knew their function and social role. The book also examines ways in which individual persons may both adapat to this social milieu and find loopholes and advantages in the system as part of an effort to make it conform to their own needs.

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