ABSTRACT
Role-distance is one way by which we intentionally and publically reject one or more disagreeable aspects of a role. The idea was pioneered by Erving Goffman (1961). It is, moreover, a fine illustration of both the fecundity of the dramaturgic perspective as metaphor and the limits necessarily imposed by all metaphoric thinking. This chapter, after setting out the conceptual framework of role-distance, reviews the literature on the subject that has accumulated since Goffman’s original statement. I then go beyond role to apply the idea to taking distance from the disagreeable requirements of activities. That is by no means all of what we want to distance ourselves from can be conceived of in the limited conceptualization of role. For everywhere in life we engage in activities not conceivable as roles, as the latter are conventionally and dramaturgically defined in the social sciences. Hence the argument: the limits of metaphoric thinking are as important for discovering new ideas as the metaphor itself.
