The social etiquette of sleep: some sociological reflections and observations

This article provides a critical examination of the seemingly counter-intuitive sociological notion of the 'social etiquette of sleep': the socially appropriate and inappropriate, prescriptive and proscriptive, ways of 'doing' sleeping, that is to say, in, everyday/night life. The first part of the article provides a brief discussion of the rationale for a sociological engagement with sleep. The remaining sections then proceed to a detailed sociological account of the 'civilizing' of sleep, the social uses and abuses of sleep, the socially attentive sleeper, the inconsiderate or selfish sleeper, and the anarchic, anomic, deviant or stigmatized sleeper. The article closes with some further sociological reflections on these dormative/normative matters, A sociological engagement with sleep, it concludes, is far from a contradiction in terms