The Interaction Order: American Sociological Association, 1982 Presidential Address

Unpublished translation into Portuguese of the article originally published in the American Sociological ReviewTranslated by Bruna Gisi and Roberta SoaresThis article was the last by Erving Goffman, originally written for the presidential address of the American Sociological Association and published in 1983 in the American Sociological Review (v. 48, n. 1, pp. 1-17). Goffman synthesizes the main theoretical contribution of his work to sociology. The article sustains the argument that face-to-face interactions constitute a specific, ordered and fundamental domain of social life – the interaction order – that cannot be reduced to the determinations of social structure. Throughout the text, Goffman explores the interfaces between the interaction order and different dimensions of macro-structural social organization. Dilemas publishes this text for the first time in Portuguese with the permission of the American Sociological Association.