Stigma Revisited

Stacey Hannem, Chris Bruckert

• Publisher: University of Ottawa Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9780776607832
• eBook ISBN:
  9780776620268
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Stigma Revisited: Implications of the Mark is a collection of qualitative, empirical studies of populations who experience stigma. Discrimination, marginality and social injustice are recognized as indelibly tied to the phenomena of stigma. This volume builds on the work of Erving Goffman and integrates a larger, structural understanding of stigma based in Michel Foucault's governmentality writings. Contemporary notions of risk, riskiness and danger are linked to the labelling of "deviant" populations in the name of social control and risk management; these labels result in the institutional and systemic perpetuation of stereotypes and stigmatic attitudes. The research presented in this book addresses the individual experience of symbolic stigma as well as the collective impact of structural stigma. With unique, personal vignettes that position each of the academic contributors in relation to their subjects, this collection of essays challenges social science researchers to understand their own role in reproducing and contesting hegemonic discourses that stigmatize and marginalize.

Table of contents

• Cover page
• Title Page
• Copyright Notice
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 - Speaking Out | Down, Out, Crazy!
• 2 - Theorizing Stigma and the Politics of Resistance | Symbolic and Structural Stigma in Everyday Life
• 3 - The Mark of Racialization | Afghan-Canadian Men Negotiate Stigma Post-9/11
• 4 - The Mark of “Disreputable” Labour | Workin’ It: Sex Workers Negotiate Stigma
• 5 - The Mark of Sexual Deviance | What Keeps Men Who Have Sex with Men Up at Night?
• 6 - The Mark of Association | Transferred Stigma and the Families of Male Prisoners
• 7 - The Stigma of Mental Illness | “Slashing” and Managing the Stigma of a Scarred Body
• 8 - Speaking Out | On Being a Nigger
• 9 - The Mark of Criminality | Rejections and Reversals, Disclosure and Distance: Stigma and the Ex-Prisoner
• 10 - Speaking Out | A Poem and a Conversation
• 11 - Concluding Thoughts | Academic Activism: A Call to Action
• References
• Contributors
• Index