This is a book about the tensions between Christian ideals of love and the concrete realities of everyday monastic life. Based on a study of Cistercian monasteries in France, it develops a novel conceptualization of fraternal relations and addresses how monks and nuns strive to accomplish such relationships within their communities. By focusing on the main interaction contexts of monasteries as a form of voluntary total institution, the book shows how attempts to generate collective solidarity, relate to other members as equals and avoid preferential relations conflict with practices of everyday life. Although fraternal ideals are similar for monks and nuns, the analysis reveals significant gender differences regarding the legitimacy of different forms of interaction and relationships as well as how to control them. The book appeals to readers with an interest in total institutions, sociology of religion, sociology of friendship, sociology of intimacy and also to scholars with an interest in theology of love and practical theology.

In this introduction, we reemphasize some key parts of meta-organization theory and their implications for understanding meta-organizations and meta-organizing processes. We clarify what meta-organizations are and what they are not and then analyze their key purposes and activities. We then present the papers of the special issue and discuss venues for future research. Although many key contributions have been made to meta-organization theory and research, there are many more things to investigate before we know as much about meta-organizations as we know about individual-based organizations. 

This chapter focuses on Goffman’s notion of total institutions, starting with a brief description of the context in which it was developed. The remainder of the chapter is divided into four main sections. The first and most extensive section discusses the definition of the concept and the various types of total institutions that Goffman mentioned. This includes highlighting some important distinctions that these types address, such as whether entry is coercive or voluntary and what consequences this has for how total institutions shape identities and what forms of control that are employed. The next two sections provide a discussion of the various applications of the concept and a review of different criticisms, both of the concept and its definition and of its scope and applicability relative to Goffman’s claims. The fourth section presents some of the ways in which the concept has been developed, including, for example, discussion of the notions of reinventive institution and total organization. The chapter ends with a conclusion.

How do monks and nuns manage expectations regarding how to 'open their hearts'? What alternatives do they have and what are the consequences? Based on a multi-sited case study of Cistercian monasteries in France, this article compares the different situation of nuns and monks. The analysis shows how monks are free to choose who they will 'open their heart' to, whereas nuns are expected to rely on the abbess. While certain ways that nuns circumvent these expectations are illegitimate, some ways of distancing from the abbess align with, rather than diverge from, other central tenets of monastic life. Compared to monks, nuns face a double-penalty, being less free and facing more ambivalent expectations within this restricted space.

Total institutions are by definition totalitarian, but not necessarily authoritarian. Voluntary total institutions consist of members who have chosen to enter, but what opportunities do they have to leave? This article addresses opportunities for exit and voice in Catholic monasteries within the Cistercian Order of Strict Observance. Monasteries have institutionalized important democratic processes regarding membership and leadership. Members are involved in decision-making through community bodies and discussions, but in many practical concerns, superiors may wrest control by neglecting to ask the community for alternative opinions. The superior's decision-making style therefore crucially affects the range of democratic decision-making in individual monastic communities. Complete exits are common during the initial entry process. The cost of leaving is higher for full members, and the internal exit option to other monastic communities in the Order is therefore of great importance. It means that monastic communities cease to operate as monopolies.

The argument of this chapter is that brotherhood can be conceptualized as a partially organized relationship, based on membership and rules. To illustrate the conceptualization, the chapter draws examples from three different arenas where there is a strong rhetorical emphasis on brotherhood, or fraternity: the military, motorcycle clubs, and monasteries. Membership determines who is a brother or not and while the brotherly relationship sometimes extends beyond the cessation of membership in a formal organization, it presupposes membership at some point. Rules clarify important components of brotherhood including homogeneous relations among all brothers (or sisters). This makes a crucial difference relative to friendship, which is a type of relationship that can even be a threat for brotherhood. In areas where collectivist ideology, homogeneity of relationships, and requests on loyalty are especially forceful, personal or friendly relations between individual members cannot compensate for failure as a “brother.” Brotherhood justifies sacrifice of individual needs to collective demands, and this may include the sacrifice of a personal relation.

How is work organized and experienced in monasteries? Based on a multi-sited, qualitative case study of Cistercian monasteries in France, this article brings an archetypal setting of normative control into the purview of sociological research on work and organization. It reveals a tension between the hierarchical organization of work and the ideology of all forms of work as services of equal importance and shows how the ideology affects the experiences of member differently depending on their position. Whereas those who feel recognized become spokespersons, less privileged members are not only discontent, but this experience also constitutes a failure to obey gladly. Because members have chosen to enter a monastery, it is up to them to reach a state of acceptance regardless of the work position they have. The notion of ascetic responsibilization conceptualizes the mechanism behind this reasoning, which serves to maintain a status quo in monastic power relations.

Tensions between different relationship forms exist in every organisational setting. Catholic monasteries - as archetypical examples of voluntary total and greedy institutions - provide strategic cases of inquiry for understanding relational conflicts owing to the significance they assign to exclusively fraternal relations, resulting in explicit tensions regarding personal forms of relationships, such as friendship. Based on a multi-sited, qualitative case study of Cistercian monasteries in France, the present article pushes theorising on fraternal relations forward. Fraternal relations as a social form is membership-based and characterised by collectivism, egalitarianism and an imposed level of intimacy. In the monastic setting, it takes the form of prescribed impersonal love. The ideals of fraternal relations pose normative constraints for establishing friendship, but the ambition to minimise verbal interaction, perceived differences between members and the severe limits on joint, extra-organisational activities constitute additional constraints for friendship to form in monasteries.

Examining the organization of everyday life inside the regiments of the French Foreign Legion, this book takes its theoretical point of departure in the notion of the voluntary total organization; that is to say, an institution that constitutes a geographically delimited place of residence and work in which inmates are voluntarily separated from the outside world, leading an enclosed, formally administered life. Informed by a modified version of Goffman’s original concept of the total institution, A Sociology of the Total Organization untangles the Foreign Legion and the ways in which different kinds of social orders interplay there. A detailed and empirically grounded study of the mechanisms in which the Foreign Legion not only cuts members’ ties to people outside the organization, but also restricts the creation and maintenance of ties among its members, this book shows how atomistic unity is not limited to greedy organizations such as the military, but applies to a variety of collectivist settings. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and anthropology with interests in military life, social relations, social theory and the work of Goffman.

The French Foreign Legion is an elite force within the regular French army and it represents an interesting sociological case study of how an organization might enjoin cohesion when wider cultural bonds are absent. This chapter draws on organizational sociology to discuss this issue in relation to power in the Legion as organization and institution respectively. Based on ethnographic material, the chapter argues that the Legion is one of the most rigid and authoritarian Western military organizations and that the sanctity of the order is central to its culture. The recognition of status qualifies and moderates the extreme hierarchy, yet the latitude for flexibility is very narrow. In conclusion, the emphasis on unthinking obedience has some organizational advantages for the Legion, at the same time this dedication to orders has also potentially rendered it too rigid. This may be a disadvantage in an era of complex hybrid operations.