理论“在逃”与伦理“受审”——评爱丽丝·戈夫曼的《在逃》

Theory “On the Run” and Ethics “On Trial”:A Book Review of Alice Goffman’s On the Run

2014年,爱丽丝·戈夫曼出版《在逃》一书,探讨大规模监禁政策下美国贫困黑人的日常生活,借此反思和评估公共政策。该书引发广泛关注,然而评论家却未注意到爱丽丝的理论意图。事实上,《在逃》与欧文·戈夫曼的《收容所》具有内在关联性,该书蕴含的"总体性社会"模型可以纳入欧文·戈夫曼和米歇尔·福柯建构的关于社会监控的理论谱系。在研究方法上,爱丽丝将民族志送上了审判席,它遭受的攻击主要来自法学和犯罪学,其中涉及两点批评:一是涉嫌犯罪;二是资料不真实。这种争论暴露出不同学科之间的冲突,其本质是捍卫学科的合法性以及争夺话语权。总体而言,《在逃》是一部重要的都市民族志,在理论、现实和方法层面都具有重要价值。

In 2014,American sociologist Alice Goffman published On the Run:Fugitive Life in an American City,a book discussing the daily life of African Americans under the mass incarceration policy.By doing so,Goffman’s book calls for reconsidering and reassessing public policies.The book raised widespread attention and concerns,but the critics failed to realize Alice Goffman’s theoretical ambition.In fact,On the Run has an obvious correlation with Erving Goffman’s classic work Asylums:Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and other Inmates.Through the model of"Total Society,"we could link Alice’s theory to the theoretical genealogy of social surveillance contributed by Erving Goffman and Michel Foucault.In terms of methodology,Alice put the ethnography on trial.The attacks mainly came from law and criminology,which focused on two main points:the alleged involvement in crime and data fabrication.The debate explored the conflicts across disciplines;the dispute is essentially scholars defending the legitimacy and discourse power of each discipline.To sum up,On the Run is an important modern urban ethnography,which has significant theoretical,methodological and practical values.