| This is a study of informal social control in the context of a lesbian community in the heartland of the United States. By social control, I mean the organized ways in which members of a community "respond to behavior and people [they] regard as deviant, problematic, worrying, threatening, troublesome, or undesirable in some way or other" (Cohen 1985, pg. 1). In addition, social control includes the ways in which members attempt to preempt undesirable conduct of other community members. I argue that social control is central to the production of this lesbian community; that it operates as a set of discursive interactional practices that are routinely administered by lesbian community members; and that it functions to discipline its members into acting in ways that have been defined as appropriate by the lesbian community.; There are three components of the production of this lesbian community. The first pertains to establishing the parameters of the lesbian community and enforcing the boundaries of community membership (defining who is "us" and who is "them"). This is accomplished by policing the identities of the people who attend community events. The second aspect entails producing and sustaining the very existence of community institutions that lesbians create and maintain for themselves. Low attendance at lesbian community events is threatening to the viability of the community. Therefore, generating attendance at community events becomes one objective of social control. The final aspect pertains to defining and enforcing the norms of the community. The normative conduct of community members is also produced by social control. |
