ABSTRACT
Deviant phenomena have long provided one of the foci of sociological thought. The interactionist approach to deviance has served not only to clarify the phenomena that have conventionally been studied under that rubric but also to complicate our moral view of them. This chapter begins by disposing of some seemingly difficult points rather summarily, in a way that will make clear the dissatisfaction with the expression ‘labelling theory’. The act of labelling, as carried out by moral entrepreneurs, while important, cannot possibly be conceived as the sole explanation of what alleged deviants actually do. It would be foolish to propose that stick-up men stick people up simply because someone has labelled them stick-up men, or that everything a homosexual does results from someone having called him homosexual. Labelling theory, then, is neither a theory, with all the achievements and obligations that go with the title, nor focused so exclusively on the act of labelling as some have thought.
