Place and Personhood

Social formations--from small groups to societies--consist of individuals. More abstractly, however, social formations consist of places (positions, statuses or "membership categories") that are occupied by individuals and groups. Groups include cliques, gangs, teams, families, classrooms, schools, neighborhooods, communities (defined by area and/or common interest), "races," nationalities, and language communities. Examples of social places include "good provider," "nurturing mother," "masterful teacher," "wise administrator," "respected elder," "sweet child," "gangster," "class fool," "homeless," "student with a learning disability," "mental defective," "underclass," and the places occupied by persons and groups labeled with terms such as "scum of the earth," "kike," "wop," "spic," "dumb blonde," "slut," "white trash," "nigger," and "queer." Most persons have commonsense knowledge of position or place. For example, one hears comments such as "You can't talk that way to someone in my position," or one observes that some persons said to have mental retardation look at the floor and give minimal responses when talking to persons in the category "normal" (Yearley & Brewer, 1989).

Place, Personhood, and Identity are Achievements

Some people take for granted a desirable social membership and personal identity. However, persons who were never asked to a school dance, who have recently lost their jobs, who have a history of abuse or school failure, or who have "physical anomalies," know that membership and identity are neither inherent characteristics (i.e., part of them), nor things that can be taken for granted. Instead, a desirable membership (place) and identity are hard won and sometimes temporary achievements. Members of large groups know this, too. For example, the civil rights movement of the 1950's and 60's represents the efforts of African Americans to improve their place. Similarly, members of the disability movement want it understood that bodies have impairments, but disability is a stigmatized social place (Oliver, 1996). Therefore, we can say that place and identity are achievements--in fact, they are ongoing collaborative achievements. We acquire, learn, sustain, and change places and identities through social interaction. Note: this interaction can be at the interpersonal level (e.g., teacher and student; passersby on the street) and at the group level (e.g., between one community and another). Interactions that bring individuals and groups into larger social formations, and that bestow, sustain, or up-grade valued places and identities, are part of a personalization process (Henry,1966). However, interactions that deny, degrade, or remove a person's or a group's place are part of a depersonalization process.

Personalization and Depersonalization May be "Invisible" or Public

Most place-bestowing interactions (e.g., when parents bring a new child into the family) and most place-sustaining interactions (e.g., treating a person who has undergone a disfiguring operation as the same person) are mundane, and almost invisible. For example, family members teach a young child her place, and remind themselves how they see the child, by the way they feed and dress her; respond to her preferences and dispreferences; and give her opportunities to participate. Depersonalization, too, is accomplished through mundane interactions, such as harsh punishment; insults; humiliation; and deprivation of opportunities, affection and protection. For instance, the diagnosis that a student has a (learning disability, attention disorder, conduct disorder), and the prognosis that the student is not likely to learn much from "normal" classroom instruction, may be understood as rational outcomes of a competent assessment (Mehan, 1993). Yet, the diagnosis and prognosis may be steps in the invisible process of assigning the student a disvalued place in the school and in the larger society (Carrier, 1983; McDermott, 1993). However, some personalizing (place-bestowing, -sustaining, or -improving) interactions are planned and perhaps public. These are rites of passage. Examples include baptism, confirmation, graduations, and birthday celebrations. Likewise, explicit and sometimes official depersonalization occurs during "degradation ceremonies" (Garfinkel, 1956) or "rituals of adversity" (Murphy, Scheer, Murphy, & Mack,1988). These include competency hearings, body searches, transfers from regular to special education classes, derogatory propaganda, mass imprisonment, and genocide.

Attributes of Social Place: Qualities, Resources, and Moral Obligations

Each place has certain attributes associated with it. One set of attributes is qualities that are ascribed to occupants of a place. These qualities include humanness, membership, value, and identity. This does not mean that occupants actually have the ascribed qualities. The point is that members of a culture assume that anyone who occupies a certain place either must have or eventually will reveal certain qualities.

Regarding the quality of humanness, occupants of a place might be seen as fully human (part of the biological species and of the human community defined by common origins, sufferings, and fate). Or, occupants might be seen as lesser sorts of humans (missing what are deemed essential features, such as an understanding of the facts of human existence). Or, finally, occupants might be seen as nonhuman.

The midwife wonder'd and the women cried
'O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!'
And so I was; which plainly signified
That I should snarl and bite and play the dog."
(Richard, Duke of Gloucester, in Shakespeare's Henry VI).

Membership is another quality ascribed to occupants of a place. For example, occupants might be seen as valued members in good standing, incompetent members, members whose place is tenuous, members on the fringe of the circle of "us," or partial members. Identity is a third quality ascribed to occupants. It consists of alleged stable traits such as rationality or irrationality, intelligence, honesty, strength, competence, and value.

A second attribute of any place is resources that members believe it is appropriate to provide, permit, or deny occupants. Resources include food, shelter, clothing, health care, educational and occupational opportunities, advancement, justice, affection, approval, prestige, and protection.

A third attribute of place is moral obligationsof persons within the same place or between different places. These include the understood obligation vs the understood absence of obligation to empathize with the sufferings of other individuals or groups; the obligation vs lack of obligation to protect others; the obligation vs lack of obligation to be sensitive and to satisfy other persons' preferences and dispreferences; and the obligation vs lack of obligation to control aggressive impulses against individuals and groups.

Social Functions of Personalization and Depersonalization

Personalization and depersonalization serve several functions. One function is simply the distribution of life, resources, suffering, and identities in a social formation (Bourdieu, 1990; Hocart, 1970; Walzer, 1983). Who will receive the better sorts of health care and schooling? Who will be protected from dealth, illness, injustice, and violence? Who will be exposed to violence and environmental toxins (Wise & Lowe, 1992)? Whose claims to deserving respect and better treatment are we obliged to listen to and validate? Examples of a personalizing distribution include parents buying toys for their awaited baby, life-giving medical procedures for sick infants, and practices (e.g., baptism, admission to regular education classes) that bring newcomers into families and communities. Examples of a depersonalizing distribution, however, include abortion, institutionalizing children with disabilities, discrimination in hiring and promotion, and infanticide (e.g., restricting food to newborns with disabilities or killing newborns of the less valued sex) (Elks, 1993; Evans, 1983; Wolfensberger, 1994). By these means, the pool of individuals and groups with claims to a place and to the resources that go with a place is limited and controlled.

A second function of personalization and depersonalization processes is defending members against vulnerability by isolating or degrading individuals and groups whose bodies, behaviors, or life circumstances provoke fears of disfigurement, pain, illness, poverty, failure, madness, disgrace, or abandonment. In much the same way that old, mad or sick people have been selected as scapegoats for the sins of the community, and then killed or driven out--thereby decreasing the vulnerability of the group to the judgment of the gods--so in modern societies certain places ("retard," "loser," "homeless, "weird family") are understood as occupied by people whose misfortunes symbolize the host of bad things that can happen.

Imagine a number of men in chains...some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of the others; those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows, and looking at each other with grief and despair await their turn. This is an image of the human condition. (Pascal, 1966, p. 165)

A third function is filling important but disvalued positions in communities, organizations, and groups. Examples include the "butt of jokes," the child or family being evaluated, the status of student in resource rooms or segregated classes, and people who do the "dirty work" of society.

A final function of personalization and depersonalization is sustaining the illusion of moral rectitude, professional expertise, and therefore legitimate authority in schools and human service agencies by transforming unsatisfactory outcomes (which could be attributed to malevolence or incompetence) into evidence of clients' deviance (Bourdieu, 1977; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; Carrier, 1983). For example, staff at a school that employs highly painful methods to control problem behavior may explain worsening "aggression" of students as part of the natural course of the students' disorders or as a result of unknown neurological factors.

How is it that some individuals and groups are allocated a valued place, while other are allocated and sustained in a disvalued place, such as "outsider," "failure," "troublemaker," or "retard"? The answer, in part, is that each individual or group displays "socially significant symbols." These are physical, behavioral, and social characteristics that are understood as defining (i.e., are considered signs of) humanness, value, and personal identity (Henry, 1966). The individual or group who is allocated the social place "outsider" or "retard," is not likely to have some of the significant symbols (e.g., "correct" skin color, "correct" language, competence as defined by a dominant group, a high-status family, an attractive body, and nice clothes) that are understood as indicators of common humanity, value, and social power, and that exert a moral force on other persons, obliging them to help the individual to have a decent life. In summary, socially significant symbols are tools for assigning and justifying place.

Definition of Socially Significant Symbols

On what basis do members allocate, deny, remove, upgrade, or degrade place--and associated humanness, membership, identity, resources and moral obligation? The answer, in part, is that groups develop a stock of "significant symbols" that enable members to make sense of their world (actually, to create and to sustain a "world"). Through interaction, members of groups come to see certain events (e.g., gestures, postures, utterances, objects, activities, "signs" in nature) as signifying or pointing to something else. For example, a young child learns that a parent's upturned lips and wide-open eyes point to something inside the parent (happiness) and predict the parent's next action (e.g., hugging the child). When the gesture has the same meaning or significance for the child (receiver) as it does for the parent (sender), the gesture is called a significant symbol (Mead, 1956). Groups develop stocks of significant symbols that constitute much of what they communicate about and how they communicate. Moreover, the repeated use of significant symbols (sending and receiving mutually understood gestures) enables members to assume that they live in an intersubjective world--that they understand one another and constitute a community--a we (Schutz, 1970).

Different stocks of significant symbols (items with shared meaning) are relevant for different activities in communities. For instance, farmers know the signs of wheat rust and fertile soil. Another and a very large set of significant symbols is used in personalizing and depersonalizing activities. This set of socially significant symbols is understood as pointing to humanness, value, and personal identity. Note that some socially significant symbols are stigmata--i.e., signs of nonhumanness, incompetence, low status, threats to social order, and "spoiled" identity (Goffman, 1963a).

Four Groups of Socially Significant Symbols

Socially significant symbols used in personalization and depersonalization fall into four groups, as noted by Jules Henry (1966).

Body. One group consists of features of the body, such as stature, the complement of body parts, the operation of parts, and the placement and proportionality of parts (e.g., eyes that are spaced properly). Deviations from aesthetic and medical (official) standards of the "normal" body may be seen as stigmata--in this case "body abominations" (Goffman, 1963a) or forms of "distortedness" (Henry, 1963). When other persons regard an individual's body or a group's body type as attractive and healthy, they may feel an initial attachment to the individual or group--a bond of humanness--and provide at least a minimum of sensitivity and protection (care). However, when other persons regard an individual's body or a group's body type as a distortion of the human form, they may feel a lack of human kinship; their own vulnerabilities to injury, disfigurement, disgrace, and rejection may be provoked; and (depending on other significant symbols identified below) may actively or passively deny life or valuable place.

Competence and Comportment Depending on the culture, community, organization, or family, aspects of behavior that point to humanness, value, and identity include: 1) proper orientation and attention to the outer world; 2) proper rates and intensities of activity (i.e., between hyper- and hypoactive; 3) locomotion (e.g., upright and steady); 4) skillful turn-taking (e.g., initiating, reciprocating, and repairing interaction); 5) communication via words and embodied gestures; 6) self-care (e.g., presenting an attractive appearance and demonstrating knowledge and respect for the "shame and disgust function" of the group by, for instance, cleaning body fluids from the hands) (Henry, 1966); and 7) competence at routine activities (e.g., playing, making friends, making money, doing chores). When an individual or group acquires and displays socially important competencies, other persons are likely to see the individual or group as being "like us," valuable, and hence worthy of protection, formal instruction and other opportunities to learn and to participate.

Possessions A third group of socially significant symbols consists of material possessions. Examples include eating utensils, clothing, toys, bed, seat at the supper table, books, watch, television set, bike, stereo, and computer. Of course, the set of possessions that define a member in good standing depends on the culture, family, peer group, and on the individual's age. When individuals or groups display socially important possessions, other people assume that these individuals or groups have something to offer (are valuable), know what is "in" (are geared into cultural trends), and are cared for (have protection and social power). Therefore, individuals and groups who display socially important possessions are likely to be accorded a more valuable place and personhood than individuals who lack these symbols.

Life Circumstances Life circumstances that are important signs of humanness, value, and identity in some cultures and groups include: 1) having a family, friends, and job; 2) having children who are "normal"; 3) being a member of certain religious, ethnic, or racial groups; 4) being a member of a certain social class defined by income or area of residence; 5) having places to live, play, and hang-out (i.e., territory); and 6) having some autonomy and independence (e.g., an effective voice in deciding the conditions of one's life or the lives of people to whom one feels obligated). Individuals and groups who have important life circumstances may be perceived as more competent, as having more resources, and as having more value. Therefore, other things being equal (body and comportment), they may be accorded a more valuable place and personhood. As stated, the above socially significant symbols are understood as evidence of proper place, and are therefore used to allocate (or to deny) and to justify attributions of humanness, value, membership, identity, resources, and moral obligation. The next sections examine this in more detail.

The Ascription of Personhood: Humanness,Value, and Identity

Humanness Humanness implies membership in the human species based on significant symbols that define a well-functioning and aesthetically acceptable body. Therefore, when an infant is born with "deformities," other persons may experience difficulty assigning full humanness. This may result in depersonalizing child-caregiver interaction, assignment to the social place of "freak," or death.

Second, humanness implies membership in a community defined by a group's conception of the facts of human existence. For example, a group may believe that each member confronts the inescapability of suffering and death; is responsible for giving life meaning; and must be independent, productive, and tough. Therefore, when some individuals' bodies and/or behaviors are taken to signify that the individuals are incapable of understanding the facts of life or incapable of meeting the challenges of existence, these individuals may be ascribed less than full humanness and treated in a commensurate fashion (e.g., life in subordinate statuses or in some form of institution).

Third, humanness implies intersubjectivity. To ascribe intersubjectivity is to infer that many events common to a group have the same meaning for the individual as they do for other members; that the individual experiences a "we" feeling with other members; and that if the individual trades standpoints with another member, the individual will have the same experiences as the other (Schutz, 1970). Socially significant symbols that point to intersubjectivity or to the capacity for intersubjectivity include working sense organs (especially eyes [Fraiberg, 1974]); orientation, attention, and responsiveness to activities (e.g., showing recognition); and interaction competence.

In summary, the ascription of intersubjectivity is based on features of the body and comportment that are understood as indicating that an individual is geared into the same conventional reality and can communicate with other members. The ascription of intersubjectivity has several personalizing effects. It increases the incentive to enter into social relations with the individual; it almost automatically results in other persons seeing the individual not merely as moving meat, but a self that inhabits a body (Berger & Luckmann, 1967; Ostrow, 1990); it fosters sympathy; and it carries the moral obligation to treat an individual with appropriate sensitivity and respect (Schopenhauer, 1958).

Value An individual's or a group's perceived value is based on competence, contributions to social activities, and material possessions. People who attain these are likely to considered worthy of other members' time and effort, protection, nurturance, clothing, shelter, toys, education, and medical care (Tronto, 1993). The inferior teaching materials and the harsh child-caregiver interaction found in some classes and families of children with disabilities reflect (and sustain) the ascription of low value to the children. Value is also ascribed on the basis of significant symbols that imply social ties. For example, the visibility of family, friends, and other advocates; membership in religious, sports, and other groups; and symbols of socioeconomic status (e.g., possessions) suggest that an individual or group has protection and resources for social influence (e.g., pressure, newsworthiness) that can be drawn upon. The individual's or group's social ties, therefore, exert a political force that obliges other persons (teachers, police, clergy, lawyers, media) to be sensitive to the individual's or group's welfare, and to provide special care if called on.

Identity Socially significant symbols are used to make ascriptions about who an individual or group is. Some socially significant symbols are understood as pointing inward to a self or a mind (Coulter, 1979; Wittgenstein, 1971). They signify the individual's or group's "aliveness" or "with-it-ness" as an actor (Goffman, 1963b). Specifically, functioning sense organs and proper comportment (attention, responsiveness, competence) suggest that an individual or group is an embodiment of will (energy, drive), consciousness, purpose, and reason. These ascriptions powerfully affect other persons' interactions with the individual or group. To the extent, for example, that a child's body and behavior are seen as signifying that the child is less-than-fully-sentient and manifests little intentionality, other persons may have difficulty imagining a self inside the child's skin that has experiences and that wills actions (Goode, 1991). They may, therefore, feel little intersubjectivity with the child, judge efforts to reach the child as futile, interact with the child in ways that foster conflict and social distance, and feel little obligation to provide resources for a decent life.

An individual's or group's comportment is also used to ascribe durable traits. Examples of traits include: 1) actions (whiny, demanding, cooperative, competent); 2) feelings (irritable, depressed, happy); 3) motives (to injure, to please); 4) attitudes (serious, frivolous, careful, studious, egoistic); and 5) ways of thinking (quick, confused, illogical, reasonable). The ascription of traits such as irritable, demanding, self-centered, hostile, and destructive may result in an evaluation that the individual's presence is aversive and costly. This may foster or sustain conflictual interaction (e.g., threat and counter-threat; mutual punishment) that engenders increasingly deviant behavior, leading to a child's assignment to a lesser social place (e.g., the place of a "person with an emotional disturbance") (Baden & Howe, 1992; Campbell, Pierce, March, Ewing, & Szumowski, 1994; Olson, Bates, & Bayles, 1989; Pettit & Bates, 1989; van de Rijt-Plooij & Plooij, 1993).

The Allocation of Place: Rights, Resources, and Opportunities to Partcipate

Social place is defined in part by the material resources made available to an individual or group, and by the rights, care, and opportunities that are accorded. Different social places provide incumbents with greater or fewer opportunities to voice their rights, preferences, and dispreferences, and to have their voices validated. The cries of a child with high social place (e.g., the "sweet child," the "challenged but one of us" child) may provoke nurturing responses from caregivers. The cries of a child or a group with low social place ("job-stealing foreigners") may provoke contemptuous interpretations of the crying as "attention-getting." People who are allocated a higher social place are also likely have access to a greater quantity and higher quality of food, protection, clothing, shelter, toys, medical care, and other resources. Finally, the higher the social place, the greater and more valuable are opportunities (educational, economic, political) accorded to the individual or group and that the individual or group comes to regard as rightful possessions.

Under certain conditions, experiences of personalization and depersonalization yield identities that match the treatment received. Sufficiently powerful and consistent experiences of personalization may foster self (or group) satisfaction, confidence, and attachment to the larger social formation. Sufficiently powerful and consistent experiences of depersonalization, however, may foster self (or group) loathing, vulnerability, and alienation from the larger social formation. This latter was eloquently expressed by W.E.B Du Bois.

It is in the early days of rollicking boyhood that the revelation first bursts upon one... I remember well when the shadow swept over me... (S)omething put it into the boys' and girls' head to buy gorgeous visiting cards...and exchange. The exchange was a merry one till one girl , a tall newcomer, refused my card, --refused it peremptorily with a glance. Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others...Why did God make me a stranger and an outcast in mine own house?...It is a peculiar sensation,...this sense of always looking at one's self though the eyes of others, of measuring oneself by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity... But the facing of so vast a prejudice could not help but bring the inevitable self-questioning, self-disparagement, and lowering of ideals which ever accompany repression and breed an atmoshpere of contempt and hate. (The souls of Black folk)

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