Review of the book “Deviance: Social Constructions and Blurred Boundaries,” by Leon Anderson, 2017. Oakland: University of California Press, paper, 449 pages.

“Only symbolic interactionism moves beyond the limited question of what causes deviant behavior” (p. xi).

The important thing to remember with this book is that it is not so much that we want to label and judge those who are somehow deviant but more we want to describe and watch people take on more of the deviance.  Based in symbolic interaction, the book does not attempt to look at good or bad behavior.  Symbolic interaction is all about members of society taking on certain types of behavior and accepting them as normal, standard, of the majority.  Something that is deviant, then, is outside that agreed-upon set of behaviors.

The author reminds us that “Definitions of deviance are far from universal, even within most societies at any given point in time.  Focusing exclusively on the causes of deviant behavior misses more of the deviance process than it captures (p. xi).

He also tells us that symbolic interaction has been critical for studying deviance since the 1960s and that labeling theory came into play in the 1970s.  He reminds us that “The core insight of labeling theory was the idea that being identified and treated as deviant often leads to increased deviant behavior and roll engulfment in a deviant identity (p. xi).

It is rather Goffmanesque.  People within communities deemed deviant by outsiders take on the attitudes and behaviors of those communities, with gays accepting jokes and costumes in the mainstream of their community.  Alcoholics take on the stories and mantras of their group, calling themselves “drunks” to lessen the blow of the term, and people in any deviant community taking on the speech patterns and terminology that make them better, fuller members of their group.

The book devotes over 100 pages to theories and methods of studies in deviance.  That is almost one-fourth of the text.  The other chapters provide information on criminal deviance, lifestyle deviance, and status deviance.  Under a section on drug users and street ethnography, those of us who interview and deal with the homeless will find some guidance and reminders about the difficulties of talking with users.  Crack users and others may experience paranoia when we are trying to interview them.  Police may interfere with our work or complicate it.  Drug sellers my not wish us to be “on the scene” because we can complicate the smoothness of their sales and marketing on the street.

In a street marketplace for drugs, ethnographers are the deviant participants.  They do not talk like drug dealers.  They do not buy or sell drugs.  They do not use them (though there have been those who use drugs or alcohol to fit in with certain groups and become participant observers and less outsiders).   

The book is thorough on so many different types of deviance, but it does not have a chapter or subsection on homelessness.  It does not deal with that community of deviance per se.  That being said, the book does provide in-depth discussions of the deviance types of drug users (may unhoused persons having challenges in this area) and alcoholism (again many unkeyed persons being drinkers) and members of the LGBTQ+ community (high shared membership between this group and the homeless).  Trans and other members of the LGBTQ+ community are rather high, especially among teenagers and young adults and very high among teenagers who have been kidnapped, trafficked, and forced out of their family homes because of dangers of rape, harassment, violence, and hatred from parents and other family members.

Obviously a textbook, the big volume here is organized very clearly with what you will expect in each chapter, then the information, then a review of what you have learned, in addition to a glossary at the end of each chapter.  What a great resource for self-study and for reference!

The book would also be great as a professional development (PD) device for workshops—especially those in which professionals without a lot of tradition training in deviance and social work or sociology could benefit from reading, then going over in a group what they have read.

Also, a great use would be groups readings these in-depths chapters and formulating their own chapter-end and chapter-review questions to present to others in that PD group.  There is a wide range of coverage of “deviant” types, and many of them have members among the unhoused persons out there.

Street helpers, social workers, researchers, and housing agency staff members can all profit from reading this book as background—or review for them.  It is also good as a reference when dealing with new areas of “deviance” when counseling, helping, and encouraging unsheltered persons who need our understanding and assistance.

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Further Reading:

Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism: Perspective and method. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Anchor Books.

Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Mead, G. H. (1967). Mind, self, and society from the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Roe, J., Joseph, S., & Middleton, H. (2010). Symbolic interaction: A theoretical approach to understanding stigma and recovery. Mental Health Review Journal, 15(1), 29–36.

Snow, D., & Anderson, L. (1993). Down on Their Luck: A Study of Homeless Street People.  University of California Press.

Stryker, S. (1980). Symbolic interactionism: A social structural version. Menlo Park: Benjamin/Cummings.