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The Deviant Mystique Involvements, Realities, and Regulation
Robert Prus, Scott Grills
ISBN: 0-275-97822-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-275-97822-8
328 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 2/28/2003
List Price: $86.95 (UK Sterling Price: £59.95)
Availability: Print on demand
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Description: Adopting a symbolic interactionist perspective and building extensively on the ethnographic research tradition, this book analyzes the mystique that often accompanies deviance by examining deviance as an ongoing feature of community life. Because deviance is approached in nonprescriptive ways, as a product of community interchange, the emphasis here is on the ways in which deviance is defined, engaged, and regulated. It is examined as the product of human association, as something that is generated by people as they interact with one another, assume viewpoints and initiatives, and try to influence and resist one another within the context of community life. Prus and Grills do not attempt to address various deviant behaviors; instead, they provide readers with a glimpse into how deviance is formulated, practiced, viewed, and treated.

Who defines deviance? Why? What are the effects of deviance on others? How do subcultures form? These and other questions are answered in this unique approach to the study of deviance. Providing a conceptually coherent framework for approaching the study of deviance as an ongoing feature of the human community, the authors pay special attention to the many theaters of operation in which people come together and engage one another with respect to morality and deviance. Recognizing that audience definitions of deviance are pivotal to community notions of reality and actual interaction, consideration is given to the interrelated processes of defining deviance, identifying deviants, regulating deviance informally and formally, and experiencing treatment and disinvolvement. This thoughtful consideration serves to shed new light on the mystique that has been created around ideas about deviance.
Table of Contents:
  • Preface
    The Conceptual Frame
    Encountering the Deviant Mystique: Fascination, Indignation, and the Dramatization of Evil
    Intersubjective Accomplishment: Human Knowing and Acting
    Theaters of Operation: Deviance as Community Enterprise
    Designating Deviance
    Defining Deviance: Perspectives and Practices
    Labeling Deviants: Disrespectable Persons
    Experiencing Deviance
    Becoming Involved: Subcultural Mosaics and Careers of Participation
    Engaging Subcultures: Interactive Life-Worlds
    Subcultural Ventures: Forming and Coordinating Associations
    Solitary Deviance: Alone with Others
    Regulating Deviance
    Encountering Trouble: Handling Deviance Informally
    Organizational Agendas: Maintaining Control Agencies
    Assuming Office: Control Agents at Work
    Experiencing Disinvolvement: The Problematics of Disengagement
    In Perspective
    Studying Deviance: Ethnographic Examinations of Community Life
About the Author: ROBERT PRUS is Professor of Sociology at the University of Waterloo. His published books include Symbolic Interaction and Ethnographic Research, Subcultural Mosaics and Intersubjective Realities, and Beyond the Power of Mystique, among others.

SCOTT GRILLS is Dean of Arts and Associate Professor of Sociology at Brandon University in Manitoba. He is the editor of Doing Ethnographic Reasearch: Fieldwork Settings and has served on the editorial board of the Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology and the interdisciplinary journal Dianoia.
LCC Class: 302
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