Stigma revisited : implications of the mark /

Canadian criminology professors Hannem (Wilfrid Laurier Univ.) and Bruckert (Univ. of Ottawa) have edited 11 chapters by social scientists, a prisoner, a street corner poet, a social worker, and a correctional services employee who discuss the effects and management of stigma in a poem, personal reflections, and qualitative empirical studies, and offer a theoretical discussion. This collection is distinguished from the many other books on stigma by the disparate backgrounds of its contributors, the varied approaches they employ in examining the stigmatization process, and the wide range of stigmatic "marks," including racial discrimination, mental illness, self-injury, sex work, and incarceration. This study of discriminatory and marginalizing experiences of stigma and resistance to stigmatizing processes seeks to extend Irving Goffman's 1963 classic analysis, Stigma, by linking it with the structural understanding provided by Foucault's work, and with the risk management literature. The editors conclude with a chapter that calls academics and policy makers to action in resisting stigmatizing discourses and processes. Useful for collections in social psychology and the sociology of deviance. Summing Up: Recommended. All undergraduate libraries. R. P. Weiss SUNY-Plattsburgh