ABSTRACT
I begin by examining the use of spatial metaphors in some of Erving Goffman’s work and conceptualize the maintenance of individual and/or group identity and informational preserves as involving the building and maintenance of boundaries and the regulation of informational flow across such boundaries-in a sense, a geography of emotions and emotional relationships. Dramaturgical stress emanates from threats to self-other or group boundaries, or to the security of informational preserves-threats, in short, to ontological security (Laing 1965; Giddens 1984). I then turn to the embodied aspect of emotions and social relationships. This is followed by a discussion of emotional communication, psychosomatic space as well as dramaturgical stress in intra-psychosomatic space. Finally, I examine dramaturgically stressful encounters in social-physical space and their relationships to an actor’s social space and the forms of social control imposed on him or her. The chapter concludes by addressing issues involved in linking dramaturgical stress to health.
