Hope, A & LeCoure, J. (2009). Dramaturgy. In A. Mills, G. Durepos, & E. Wiebe. (Eds.). Encyclopedia for Case Study Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications

Through employing the metaphor of ‘life as theater’, dramaturgical sociology is concerned with how certain understandings of reality are negotiated, maintained, sustained, and negated through human interaction.  In dramaturgy, the micro-level interactions, the acts performed by various actors/actresses, are what constitute the human experience and create, rather than signify, the social order.