DOI: 10.1111/ijsw.
12452
Int J Soc Welfare 2020: 0: 1–1
Book Review
A Sociology of Shame and Blame: Insiders vs Outsiders by
Graham Scambler. 2020 Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature.
118 pp. ISBN 978-3-030-23142-2
In Graham Scambler’s new book, A sociology of Shame and Blame:
Insiders vs Outsiders, Scambler examines how society functions in
between binary tensions that are culturally structured, of which in-
clude shame and blame. He aptly argues that stigma is being ‘wea-
ponised’ in deliberately political ways to make people accountable
for their own problems by, in part, being blamed for their shame.
This enables the state to abandon any communal obligation for
helping people, and allows those in power to cut welfare. Shaming
and blaming, stigma and deviance cover two unique forms of ex-
clusion, those related to othering and those related to vulnerability.
Throughout the book, Scambler discusses eight types of vulnera-
bility: (i) anomie, (ii) alienation, (iii) powerlessness, (iv) marginali-
sation, (v) exclusion, (vi) cultural imperialism, (vii) loneliness, and
(viii) symbolic violence. He argues that power is a leading cause
of shame and blame and is directly linked with the accumulation
of wealth, including economic, cultural and social capital. He fur-
ther argues that racism is produced by cultural imperialism. Money
and power are used to control the economy and states, while fi-
nancial capitalism continues to colonise the globe through money
and power. Cultural norms govern the characteristics of shame and
blame, with stigma being an outcome of those misuing socioeco-
nomic and political power. He argues that ‘relations of stigma are
central to the constitution of the social order’, and the social order
‘promotes the interests of dominant groups as well as distinctions
and hierarchies of ranking between them’ (p. 93).
The book consists of seven chapters. In the Introduction
(Chapter 1), Scambler uses an example of a young girl from
Myanmar who was forced to undertake sex work in a Bangkok
brothel after being sold by her impoverished family. Scambler
uses this case study to highlight the relationships between
agency, culture and structure, arguing that despite oppression,
the young girl from Myanmar never forgot her agency in a new
culture as culture plays a mediating role between agency and
structure. Furthermore, Scambler argues that sex workers are
heterogeneous groups consisting of female, male and transgen-
der people with different levels of prestige associated with their
levels of earning. He also highlights issues of migration, long-
term sickness and disability and homelessness. He argues that
long-term sickness and disability are a global issue resulting in
part from increased life expectancies.
In Chapter 2, Scambler describes some of the main sociological
approaches to, and theories of, stigma. In particular, he introduces
Goffman’s concept of ‘lifeworld’, describing this as the ‘rules gov-
erning everyday interactions’ that maintain social order. He also in-
troduces Goffman’s term ‘dramaturgical’ to explain that people are
actors performing inline with pre-determined scripts. Habermas’s
concept of ‘communicative action’, which refers to how people
come to agree on an interpretation of a situation and their planned
actions through language and interactions, is covered. Scambler
also describes Goffman’s varying types of stigma and presents
Durkheim’s critique of Goffman’s micro approach for stigma. This
is followed by a presentation of Tyler (2018) work, focused on
macro- and meso-political sociological efforts regarding stigma.
In Chapter 3, Scambler delves further into the concept of
the lifeworld. He highlights how the lifeworld is a medium in
which culture and personality along with social integration are
reproduced and sustained. He presents Habermas’ ‘principle of
Int J Soc Welfare 2020: 0: 1–1
© 2020 Akademikerförbundet SSR (ASSR) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
I N T E R N AT I O N A L
JOURNAL OF
SOCIAL WELFARE
ISSN 1369-6866
universalization’ to explain role exchange and role-taking as
they relate to moral questions of ‘justice’ and ‘solidarity’ or. as
Mead terms it. ‘universal discourse’.
In Chapter 4, Scambler focuses on Archer’s work concern-
ing reflexivity and introduces the concept of metareflection,
which refers to the use of extant social resources in theory and
research. Scambler explains reflexives as the ‘internal conserva-
tion’ method in which people ‘reflexively’ create their world as
active agents by using ‘self-in-society’. Reflexivity is exercised
through multiple modalities, as Archer initially categorised
them: (i) communicative, (ii) autonomous, and (iii) meta-reflex-
ivity. However, after that he added another – fractured (Archer,
2012). Scambler draws from the example of sex workers, intro-
duced in Chapter 1, to highlight the hierarchy that prevails in
this industry. He highlights the historic stigma attached to this
industry constructed through social and structural systems.
In Chapter 5, ‘Fordist capitalism’ and ‘Welfare capitalism’ are in-
troduced as examples of ‘system and social integration’ of stigma. He
describes the transition of financial capitalism, through changes in the
distribution of working types to class. These classes mainly include
workers at the top tiers of the working hierarchy, workers at lower
tiers, technical and junior staff, small business holders, technical and
supporting staff, semi-routine occupations, and basic occupations.
He also describes capitalist executive categories that play their role
mainly in wealth accumulation: (i) Capital monopolists, that is, ‘the
players’ who are heavy capital owners; (ii) Capital auxiliaries, that is,
‘non-players’ who are the soft auxiliary core of heavy capital-owners;
and (iii) Capital sleepers, that is, the ‘player’s supporter’ who influ-
ences governments to develop and launch policies favouring them.
The rest of two chapters of this book deals mainly with the
concepts of shame and blame, stigma and deviance. Stigma is
weaponised and implemented by financial capitalism or Fordist
Capitalists through their agents. Scambler tries to relate these con-
cepts with different real-life phenomenon such as sex work, home-
lessness, migration and long-term disability. He uses the concept
‘lifeworld’ to explain everyday happenings in people’s lives and
he shares the views of different scholars. Scambler argues that
capitalist-state actors build policies for their interest while the public
tries to avoid stigma and shame. Scambler grapples with genuine
concerns of contemporary society and tries to get the attention of
policymakers as well as global thinktanks. However, key issues are
overlooked. For example, he does not discuss long-term disability in
relation to shame and blame, and instead focuses more on sex work,
migration and homelessness. Furthermore, he largely ignores forced
commercial sex work, human trafficking in relation to migration and
disability inflicted by crime gangs. Nevertheless, Scambler presents
a strong argument that stigma is being used as a calculated political
strategy to support capital accumulation over justice. He further ar-
ticulates how the impacts of stigma mean that those affected are not
only shamed for their experiences but also blamed.
Aftab Ahmed1, Abid Ghafoor Chaudhry2
1
Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan
2
PMAS-Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan
References
Archer, M. (2012). The refexive imperative. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Tyler, I. (2018). Resituating Erving Goffman: From stigma power to
blackpower. Sociological Review, 66, 744–765.
1