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Created: March 21, 2004
Latest Update: March 21, 2004
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Deviance and Neutralization

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, March 2004.
"Fair use" encouraged.

I have lots more to say about this, but short on time right now. The topic of neutralization in deviance relates strongly to answerability and interpassivity. To the extent that the deviant, forgive the labelling for shorthand communication, is behaving interpassively (is that a word?) with the traditionally imposed social structure, neutralization is fairly easy, because it cannot be challenged for want of any exterior evidence. At that point that the deviant acts on his own voice and values (answers), the Other can answer (Bakhtin). When the Other answers in horror and labels the deviant, secondary deviance says that that response of the Other interacts with the deviant Person's perceptions, and I would add, level of passivity to the more general infrastructure. The thing is that we of the dominant world get to answer; we have values, needs, desires, agendas, and levels of passivity, just like the one we're calling the Deviant Other.

A good project would be to try to portray this answerability as it affects both the Deviant and the Other in the process of interpersonal relations and as Bakhtin would understand the effect of those relations on th social structure.

More soon.

Techniques of Neutralization: Sociological Theories of Deviance Gresham M. Sykes and David Matza Backup

Learning to Deviate: Motive and Justification for Breaking Normative Bonds Police use of Techniques of Neutralization. Backup.

Sykes and Matza's Techniques of Neutralisation Drift Theory. From Site at Hewett. Backup.

Deviance Outline Sounds like a student's notes. Don't rely on it without checking for accuracy, but it's a good example of how you might put together an overall outline for your exams, in which I don't believe, of course. jeanne