WHAT IS STIGMA?

WHAT IS STIGMA? 

Stephen Kimotho 

One philosophical assumption that I will make here is that stigmas are social constructions. Social constructionists hold as their cardinal assumption that in a society, people jointly construct their understanding of phenomena in their world and meanings are developed during social interaction.

 Social constructionist approaches to stigma spring from Goffman’s (1963) seminal work, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, originally published in 1963. Goffman’s theory of stigma derived from his analysis of people’s lives, for instance, those who are physically challenged, mentally ill, blind, deaf, prostitutes, and homosexuals. Goffman averred that individuals are categorized by the society on the basis of the anticipated normative values – separating the “normal” from the “deviants.” Stigma, according to Goffman, refers to an attribute that is profoundly degrading, reducing the individual that possesses a particular trait from a whole to an aspersed and discredited one (Goffman, 1963), and consequently the person is socially disregarded. The gist of this approach is the understanding that stigma arises during a social interaction.

 By defining stigma as a spoiled identity, which means that a person is somehow not normal or accepted by society because of a physical disability, signs of “immoral” or non-conforming behaviour, or membership to a particular group, Goffman cast stigma as a social construction in which society determines which statuses deserve to be stigmatized (Smith, 2009). 

As such, the creation and maintenance of stigmatizing beliefs and stereotypes about any condition or disease would be represented in the common  language of the people in that society.

Therefore, stigma is the process whereby society negatively defines a particular mark as “… an attribute that is deeply discrediting….” (Goffman, 1963, p.3). In other words, at its most basic level, stigma, from social constructionists’ point of view, is a powerful discrediting and sullying social label that radically alters the way individuals view themselves and are viewed by others as persons. In general, stigmas result from stereotypic labels, which may or may not be true but nonetheless affect a person’s social standing and self-image. 

Reference

Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.