The airplane passenger: Protection of self in an encapsulated group

Data from participant observation and unstructured interviews demonstrate that being a passenger on commercial airplanes leads to membership in an “encapsulated group.” Encapsulated groups are collectivities of individuals who voluntarily or involuntarily share physical but not necessarily social closeness for the purpose of attaining some goal or reaching some destination. Encapsulated groups flow through “people pipelines,” a network of social and physical channels for processing human beings in contemporary urban society, especially in bureaucratic organizations. The role of airplane passenger is analyzed to demonstrate how individuals defend self-integrity in the encapsulated group. The passenger enactment process and the encapsulated group are shown to manifest several characteristics of total institutions (Goffman, 1961a). The author expresses appreciation to Ralph Turner, John Lofland, John Irwin, Erving Goffman, Garry Shirts, Charles Bonjean, James McKie, Irwin Lieb, Susan Zurcher, Marianne Hopper, Michael Wood, Mary Elizabeth Bender and Carolyn Lindsey for their helpful observations and comments. The preparation of this paper was facilitated by a small grant from The University of Texas Research Institute.