Social life is performance. We manage impressions front-stage and relax back-stage, depending on the audience.
- +Fits Interpretivist Epistemology, Constructivist Epistemology
- –Tension with Positivist Epistemology
The longer story
Goffman treated social life as theatre. We perform roles, manage impressions, maintain faces. There's a front stage (public performance) and backstage (private preparation). Every interaction involves presenting a self—but that doesn't mean there's a 'real' self behind the performance. For research on professional identity in creative fields, Goffman provides vocabulary: how do artists perform being artists? What impression management is involved in creative careers? Where's the backstage, and who gets access?