ABSTRACT
By degradation ceremonies, Garfinkel meant communicative work that names an actor as an ‘outsider’, that transforms an individual’s total identity into an identity ‘lower in the group’s scheme of social types’. Courtroom ceremonies tend to degradation rather than reintegration— that is, they remove both event and perpetrator from the everyday domain in just the way suggested by Garfinkel. Courtroom ceremonies tend to degradation rather than reintegration— that is, they remove both event and perpetrator from the everyday domain in just the way suggested by Garfinkel. A common feature of successful reintegration ceremonies can be a rallying of the support of loved ones behind the disassociation of self created by a genuine apology. Thus the idea that shaming and reintegration ceremonies are valuable only for the young is not well founded. Indeed, preliminary qualitative evidence indicates that it may be extremely valuable for individuals well into middle age.
