Análisis Externo

Whilst Girard’s ideas are relevant to an analysis of the identity work of peer mentoring, his work is generally more concerned with desire rather than identity formation specifically. The work of Erving Goffman, however, is principally concerned with identity. For Goffman, identity is seen in terms of performance: people perform a variety of roles, they take on institutional definitions of identity and their character can be inferred from who

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their time is spent with (Goffman, 1959; 1961; 1963). However these roles and directions are far from stable and always require interpretation and performance on the part of the individual:

When the individual does move into a new position in society and obtains a new part to perform, he is not likely to be told in full detail how to conduct himself… he will be given only a few cues, hints and stage directions, and it will be assumed that he already has in his repertoire a large number of bits and pieces of performances that will be required in the new setting (Goffman, 1959: 79).

Learning to desist from crime, or being ‘socialised’ to desist, requires the transmission of ‘pieces of expression’ (Goffman, 1959: 79) (in this case from mentors), but also interpretation and invention (in this case from mentees). As a result: ‘There is no essential character behind one’s acts’, rather ‘the individual is free to perform, project and manage a variety of official and unofficial selves’ (Hardie-Bick and Hadfield, 2011: 16). Identity here is viewed as a complex, multifarious set of performances, which take direction from a variety of sources and settings. In this light the interactions which take place within peer mentoring relationships become just one of several sites of stage direction and interpretive performance to which mentors and mentees are subject. Within the mentoring space both mentors and mentees must not only look for hints to their role performance, but also fill the gaps from their side.

To complicate the interaction further, performances are subject to a social audience who themselves have the power to shape the identity of the performer. Goffman (1963: 132) highlights, for example, how ‘the stigmatized individual defines himself as no different

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from any other human being, while at the same time he and those around him define him as someone set apart’. The existing perceptions of the social audience, therefore, set the parameters of credibility in the performance being viewed. This feeds into the performance itself. In other words, a peer mentor’s (or indeed desisting mentee’s) performance is only likely to be as successful as its audience decides it to be. Crucially however, there are two ‘audiences’ to consider here. On one level, peer mentors themselves constitute a social audience offering feedback to mentees as to whether or not the identity performance is successful (Asencio and Burke, 2011). On a broader level society itself constitutes a social audience and within this society ‘a criminal conviction – no matter how trivial or how long ago it occurred – scars one for life’ (Petersilia, 2003: 19). No matter how well an ex- offender performs the role of desister, of being ‘no different’, it is likely that they will continue to be viewed as different by those around them. Where a social force as powerful as stigma is at work, the freedom to perform is limited. The social audience already has a strong perception of a person’s pre-defined character and indeed often avoids contact on this premise. The very anticipation of ‘mixed contact’ between people who are stigmatised and people who are not can ‘lead normals and the stigmatized to arrange life so as to avoid them’ (Goffman, 1963: 23). This serves to undermine any performance on the stigmatised actor’s part before it has begun. As a result, Goffman argues, there is a sacrifice to be made: ‘[a]mong his own, the stigmatized individual can use his disadvantage as a basis for organizing life, but he must assign himself to a half-world to do so’ (Goffman, 1963: 32). In this light, peer mentoring can be interpreted as an opportunity for ex-offenders to belong and have a purpose, to ‘organise life’; it creates a valuable opportunity for people who often find it difficult to obtain work otherwise (Clinks and MBF, 2012). However, it can also be seen as a restricting practice, one in which mentors are necessarily identified by their past offending. As a result they are seen as targets for bullying or pressure to pass

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drugs, mobile phones or information (Boyce et al., 2009; Devilly et al., 2005) and face difficulties in relation to access and CRB clearance (Clinks and MBF, 2012). In Goffman’s terms they are consigned to a ‘half world’. There is another problem faced by those aiming to employ their stigma:

In making a profession of their stigma, native leaders [in this case peer mentors] are obliged to have dealings with representatives of other categories, and so find themselves breaking out of the closed circle of their own kind. Instead of leaning on their crutch, they get to play golf with it, ceasing, in terms of social participation, to be representative of the people they represent (Goffman, 1963: 39).

In aiming to reduce the border between stigmatized and normal, the ‘native leader’ becomes lost in the wasteland between: no longer representative, but also not ‘normal’ (Goffman, 1963). This liminal space is potentially one which peer mentors will come to inhabit. As they do so they are potentially doubly disadvantaged as not only are they perceived as ‘risky’ by criminal justice service providers, but they may also be seen as detached from their peers and therefore not representative. This tension will be explored in chapters five and eight as observers ask questions about mentors’ credibility as role models and their close alignment with punitive criminal justice systems.

Goffman has some commonalties with Girard; given that both imagine the self as being dependent upon social interactions for its shape. For Girard this shape is born of mimetic desire, for Goffman the process is more of a dialectic performance correlated with situational routine and audience. Peer mentors and mentees, viewed in Goffman’s terms, are essentially social performers. The identity of the mentee, as potential desister, receives

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direction from situational rules which seem to be in place and from social cues; including the ‘stage directions’ provided by peer mentors. However performances of identity also require individual improvisation, the mentee therefore needs to interpret what is expected of desister and client roles and manage these expectations. Goffman also illustrates how audiences help to define these performances. Because peer mentors straddle the border between ‘offender’ and ‘desister’ they meet potential problems in terms of how their new identity performance is interpreted by those around them, which may undermine their position as ‘role models’ in the eyes of both professional and lay observers.