Boundaries in the Making: Transformations in Erving Goffman’s Total Institution through the Case of a Female Benedictine Monastery

Introduction

Contemporary western societies have experienced large institutional transformations since Erving Goffman published his seminal work on total institutions in 1961. New societal conditions emerging in the late 1960s fostered an avoidance of aggressive interventionism towards individuality (Beck et al., 1994; Wagner, 1994) and severe forms of physical confinement (Deleuze, 1992). These circumstances have undermined the total character of institutions such as monasteries, which Goffman took as a prototypical example of a voluntary total institution (Goffman, 1961: 5). A defining feature of monasteries is their enclosed nature – the existence of boundaries that physically demarcate the cloister and restrict the relationships of their members with the outside world. This bounded spatial configuration lies at the core of Goffman’s conceptualisation, whereby barriers – usually taking the material form of obstacles – symbolise the totality of an institution (Goffman, 1961: 4). However, since Goffman presented his model, the boundaries that delimit monasteries have undergone profound changes. Contemporary forms of monasticism exhibit greater closeness to society (Hervieu-Léger, 2012, 2018; Irvine, 2017; Jonveaux, 2018) and cloisters have become increasingly porous due to tourism (De Groot et al., 2014; Van Tongeren, 2017), new economic activities (Jonveaux, 2011, 2013a), uses of new media (Filoramo and Giorda, 2015; Jonveaux, 2013b, 2015b) and opportunities for departure (Sundberg, 2020). While this greater permeability and fluidity with the surrounding society can be interpreted as a form of ‘de-totalisation’, I argue instead that these modifications indicate a transformation in the forms in which totality is expressed.

The present article explores the ways in which a total institution transforms and persists under contemporary circumstances by critically investigating the relation between shifts in the configuration of monastic boundaries, on the one hand, and internal institutional transformations, on the other. In doing so, this article rethinks Goffman’s concept and discusses its relevance for comprehending the contemporary monastery as a total institution. The analysis is based on an in-depth study of an iconic Benedictine monastery for women in Catalonia that has undergone important changes with regard to its engagement with the outside world. Drawing on Georg Simmel’s (1997) spatial insights, I examine how the boundaries that characterise the monastery as a total institution are historically reconfigured through changing relations of distance and proximity to society, and how these shifts influence the ways in which the monastery exercises authority and control. I use ethnographic data to demonstrate that the principles and practices underlying monastic enclosure have been modified in a manner that enables the monastery to maintain a measure of totality amid changing contemporary circumstances.

My findings contribute to research on total institutions by revisiting one of Goffman’s lesser discussed establishments and highlights how totality takes on new forms under shifting societal conditions. They also enhance current scholarship on boundary work by illustrating its relevance to processes of institutional change (Lamont and Molnár, 2002; Pachucki et al., 2007). Finally, they improve our comprehension of contemporary monasteries by providing new empirical insights based upon the exploration of local forms (Jonveaux, 2017).

Defining the Total Enclosed Space

A central feature of total institutions is their enclosed, delimited and tightly controlled spatial configuration where ‘all aspects of life are conducted in the same place and under the same single authority’ (Goffman, 1961: 6). Total institutions are characterised by a particular spatial design that physically separates and isolates individuals from wider society. Goffman highlights the key role of perceptible barriers that coercively restrict relationships with the outside world and possibilities for departure. Boundaries are thus crucial for understanding the nature of total establishments. Simmel’s (1997) spatial analytical tools of proximity and distance are fruitful for further outlining the physically bounded character of total places and the relationality that configures their outer limits. According to Simmel, boundaries are a condensation of specific relations of distance and proximity (Cantó-Milà, 2016). The predominance of distance over closeness that characterises total institutions’ relation to society is what defines and shapes their hermetic boundaries. These physical boundaries crystallise ‘the proximity within the bounded [group] and underline the distance with what lies beyond it’. They also symbolise psychological limits, since material boundaries are ‘the spatial expression of the psychological limitation processes which alone are real’ (Simmel, 1997: 142).

This distanced relation to society that structures enclosed total spaces, however, manifests differently depending on the type of institution in question – whether it is voluntary or involuntary (Goffman, 1961: 5). Monasteries are archetypes of voluntary total institutions whose separation from society is predicated on a specific relation of distance, as represented by the fuga mundi, a utopian monastic ideal of escape from the world by living in a temporal and spatial logic different from the secular (Séguy, 1971). Chapter LXVI of the Rule of St Benedict states: ‘the monastery, if possible, must be established in such a way that all the necessary things . . . must be inside the monastery, so that the monks do not need to venture outside, because it is not convenient for their souls’. Entering into monastic life involves crossing both a physical and symbolic boundary that demarcates the sacred and pure world of the monastery from the profane, secular world outside it (Douglas, 1970; Durkheim, 2001 [1912]). This boundary has traditionally manifested materially as bars and locked doors that delineate a spatial disjuncture. However, it is also an experiential one, since monasteries exhibit a ‘greedy’ institutional form (Coser, 1974), insofar as they demand exclusive belonging and total commitment.

While the distinction between the sacred and profane worlds – as epitomised by the separation of the monastery from society – has been a defining feature of monastic life since its origins, the specific form that boundaries have taken has varied over time depending on the specificities of each monastery. Nowadays, most monasteries are still spatially delimited and formally administrated places of residence and work that constrain interactions with the outside society (Sundberg, 2019a). Nevertheless, recent research on contemporary monasticism highlights important changes in the spatial demarcations that characterise total sites. Despite general perceptions of monasteries as ‘zombie institutions’ (Bauman, 2000: 6) that are almost dead but still alive due to the crisis of vocations and ageing trend of communities, this research has noted shifts towards a greater closeness and permeability of monasteries to society. Given these transformations, to what extent do contemporary monasteries remain total institutions in Goffman’s sense of the term?

A number of studies have revisited Goffman’s conceptualisation and addressed how scholars should conceive modifications of the closed impermeable character of his original model. Several works have noted that Goffman’s initial theorisation allowed for significant variability in degrees of totality, including variations of physical confinement. Davies (1989) and Mouzelis (1971) emphasise inter-institutional differences, distinguishing common characteristics but arguing that total institutions are not homogenous. These scholars underscore the importance of asking ‘how’ and ‘how much’ with respect to Goffman’s asylum-based model. Mouzelis (1971) indicates substantial variation in ‘mortification processes’ such as isolation, indicating factors like the organisational culture and the sociocultural context of a given institution. Davies (1989) advocates precision in the use of Goffman’s concept and proposes a classification of degrees of totality, including the degree of openness and closedness. Wallace complements these contributions by highlighting intra-institutional and temporal variation, pointing to ‘how the same institution changes its totality over the years, both increasing or decreasing’ (Wallace, 1971: 3). However, he differs from Mouzelis and Davies in equating totality with totalitarian control.

Recent studies have dealt with institutional changes in late-modern western societies, inquiring into the total sites identified by Goffman. Addressing the ‘crisis of the environments of enclosure’ discussed by Deleuze (1992) in relation to Foucault’s (1975) ‘disciplinary institutions’, these works have questioned the persistence of totality as represented by physical confinement and proposed alternative conceptual models to capture these changes. Quirk et al. (2006) have re-examined psychiatric institutions, and their research shows greater engagement of mental hospitals with the outside world through normalised contact between patients and the broader society, as well as democratised regulation of this openness by the staff. They interpret these modifications in terms of a decrease of totality and develop the concept of ‘permeable institution’ to better represent current mental hospitals, locating this new model along ‘a continuum of institutional permeability’ (2006: 2114). A key premise of their framework is that permeability and totality are at odds and located on opposite ends of a spectrum.

Scott (2010, 2011) also explored the validity of Goffman’s model, but she investigates a new institutional form that emerged since Goffman’s time, which she calls the ‘reinventive institution’. While Scott also underscores the permeability of these new establishments, she nuances Quirk et al.’s (2006) premise by giving further attention to the shifting dynamics of power and control involved in this openness. Like Kelly (2015), who questioned Deleuze’s emphasis on the decline of confinement in terms of a decrease of discipline, Scott interrogates whether greater permeability of an institution implies ‘a real shift of power into the hands of their members’, or by contrast, whether ‘the latter have simply become complicit in a subtler form of social control’ (Scott, 2010: 222). She coins the notion of ‘performative regulation’ to capture a new form of power that operates despite the lack of physical confinement when people ‘submit to the authority of an institution and internalise its values, but also monitor each other’s conduct, sanction deviance and evaluate their own progress in relative terms through mutual surveillance’ (Scott, 2010: 221). Along these lines, Sundberg’s (2015) notion of ‘atomistic unity’ points to the importance of considering both symbolic and physical aspects of regulation and control in the case of current voluntary total institutions.

In sum, this literature offers insights into the heightened permeability of traditional enclosed total sites, but mainly addresses such shifts either as a decrease of totality or as its replacement by a new model. Building upon and extending these contributions, I argue that greater permeability of traditional total settings such as the monastery does not exclusively indicate a quantitative difference, nor does it necessarily imply complete de-totalisation. Rather, it may reveal qualitative changes in the material forms and configurations of power that have traditionally characterised totality. My empirical analysis entails a detailed examination of changes in core aspects of the bounded monastic structure with a focus on the relation of distance to wider society, the hermetic barriers that physically demarcate the cloister and the restricted social interactions with the outside through limited personal relationships, exchange of information, visits and departures. It illustrates how a greater closeness, openness and flexibility has also entailed parallel processes of closure, separation and control through specific rituals and schedules along with a rearranged obedience and authority. My case study complements previous research by highlighting that the reconfiguration of boundaries has modified but not dismantled the all-encompassing and formally administrated enclosed life. Therefore, I assert that there is a transformation of totality, rather than the complete loss of it.

I contend that Goffman’s original conceptualisation is sufficiently flexible so as to include room for such changes. Goffman considered not only variability between different total establishments, but also their adaptative and transformative potential through his understanding of the permeability of total institutions as ‘the degree to which the social standards maintained within the institution and [those] maintained in the environing society have influenced each other, the consequence being to minimise differences’ (Goffman, 1961: 119). He underlined that this issue allows us to consider ‘some of the dynamic relations between a total institution and the wider society that supports it or tolerates it’ (Goffman, 1961: 119). I argue that this relational dynamism is critical for explaining how the features of total institutions could modify reflecting societal changes to retain legitimacy over time. In accounting for this relationality, I assert that Goffman’s framework remains helpful for theorising contemporary manifestations of totality in institutions like monasteries.

Case Study and Methodology

The data presented in this article stem from a project on total institutions in Spain and focus on a voluntary type of total institution, a case study of a Catholic Benedictine monastery of women in Catalonia called Sant Benet de Montserrat. The strategy selected for the research has been that of an ‘intrinsic’ case study (Stake, 1995: 3) due to its singularity and exceptionality in two interrelated aspects. First, the intergenerational character of the community that contrasts the ageing trend observed in other monasteries in Catalonia, Spain and other parts of the global North (Ebaugh, 1993; Jonveaux, 2015a). Second, the admission of a new generation of nuns who, breaking with traditional domestic female roles (Woodhead, 2008), have become ‘carriers’ (Weber, 1965 [1922]) of modifications made to the traditional principles and practices of monastic life. Building upon an eventful sociology that takes seriously the dimensions of the unexpected in the transformation of structures (Sewell, 2005), I have considered the contingency of this generational shift in this monastery as a relevant approach to institutional transformations. I have delimited the collection of data to two abbatial periods, where this generational shift is observed, in order to offer a historical approach to address these transformations. The first abbatial period (1954–1995) covers the foundation of the monastery constituted as a total institution, and the ecclesial and societal transformations that undermined the plausibility of the monastery during subsequent decades. The second abbatial period (1995–2015) accounts for the institutional changes that resulted from the admission of a new generation of nuns under a context of broader late-modern religious and sociocultural conditions in Catalonia (Griera, 2014).

The study was presented to and approved by the monastery’s abbess and community, all of whom agreed to host me as a researcher. I assured anonymity to my interviewees, although it was agreed that the real name of the monastery could be specified. The research was based on a qualitative methodology with an ethnographic approach. I carried out my fieldwork between 2012 and 2015 through negotiated periodic short- and long-term stays in the monastic guest quarters. I combined different methods of collecting data, with the main source of data for this article being in-depth interviews with nuns. I started the research with participant observations, living in the monastery guest quarters and joining various monastery activities open to the public. I learned about everyday life in the monastery and built trust with the community. I attended the Liturgy of Hours and specific religious celebrations, and I participated in touristic visits and different workshops organised by the nuns. These activities were relevant to observe how nuns construct spatial boundaries, draw demarcations of the community and relate to visitors and present themselves to society.

The number of interviews collected was determined by the abbess’ approval and individual availability, as some older nuns were not able to participate for medical reasons. The interviews lasted between one and two hours and were recorded and transcribed in all instances. The interviews were semi-structured, including descriptions of monastic life, historical episodes and institutional transformations experienced. I interviewed seven nuns who entered the monastery between the years of its foundation until 1979, when the last successful vocation was recorded. The ages of this group ranged from 60 to 90. I also collected 10 interviews with the new generation of nuns who entered between 1995 and 2015; their ages ranged between 30 and 50. All empirical data were complemented by studying documents, including the Rule of Saint Benedict, and its recent reinterpretations by the monastery’s abbess. I also visited the monastery’s archives, where I examined the monastic constitutions and other available historical material. Data analysis was guided by abductive reasoning throughout the research project (Timmermans and Tavory, 2012), including the collection and codification of data. To respect the privacy of the interviewees, only a nun’s generational cohort (i.e. ‘older’ versus ‘younger’) is mentioned, rather than her specific age. The presented quotations have been translated from Catalan to English.

The Institutionalisation of Boundaries

The monastery was founded in 1954 after the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and during Francisco Franco’s dictatorship (1939–1975), a period marked by political repression and the church–state alliance, as represented by the official state ideology of Nationalist Catholicism. The institutionalisation of the monastic enclosure must be interpreted within these particular historical conditions, which sustained the institutionalisation of boundaries as expressed materially and coercively in the obstacles described by Goffman. The founding constitutions of the monastery – which regulate monastic life in each monastery according to the Rule of St Benedict – established the cloister as a rigidly isolated place in terms of ‘keeping as far as possible in our cloisters the spirit of the world and preserving in the greatest purity and fidelity the authentic contemplative spirit of our order’ (Monastery’s Constitutions, 1954).

Drawing on the Council of Trent, the notion of female sequestering found parallels beyond the monastic cloisters in the conditions of secular women and their domestic role (Aranda, 1992). Nuns, at a distance, have to pray for the abstract and faceless outside world. The institutionalisation of boundaries arose and was maintained through a conceptual distinction and relational distance that opposed the social and monastic reality. The world outside the monastery appeared to be hostile to a ‘pure’ and ‘suprahuman’ monastic life, defined as existing beyond secular temporality with spatial and cognitive consequences in relation to the ‘profane’ world. This construction of a dangerous foreign element, full of temptations and sins that could potentially ‘contaminate’ life within the monastery, consolidated a sense of collective identity. At the same time, it activated a system of social control to suppress any aspect that could disturb or threaten the institutional order (Douglas, 1970), since the monastery was preserved from possible assaults from the outside (Foucault, 2013 [1973]).

The institutionalisation of boundaries projected this specific relationship of physical and sensory distance onto society through which monastic life was defined (Simmel, 1997). All the interviewees of the older generation recalled the opening of enclosure by showing me the marks that still exist in the floor from the wooden bars at the entrance of the monastery and the church. These were used to separate the nuns from lay people. Likewise, they pointed out traces of the padlocks that sealed the windows of the visiting room to prevent nuns from looking outside. These physical demarcations were established by the bishop when he visited the monastery in 1963, since the constitutions of the monastery prescribed physical and visible limits under the tutelary role of the male clergy.

Not only was the monastic enclosure represented by spatial barriers, but it was also materially embodied. The black monastic habit with the veil that covered almost all of the nuns’ faces illustrates how boundaries were also lines and obstacles drawn around the body. While these limits were arranged and justified by a sense of enhancing interiority, the weight and covering of the habit constrained the movements and vision of the nuns, as well as their interactions with others. Informal conversations were not allowed, nor were friendships between nuns, since an ‘atomistic unity’ based on non-affectionate ties between nuns and a strong commitment to the community shaped group cohesion (Sundberg, 2015). In effect, nuns had to perform a social and affective distance through which boundaries were exhibited and experienced. Various interviewees of the older generation explained how they had to watch their behaviour carefully with special restraint in the expression of emotions. As one of the older nuns related, ‘the spirit was to keep to yourself and not do too much particularly with the family, not show them too much’ and ‘not to touch them, especially if they brought children’.

This opacity also had an impact on the discursive level. The enclosure crystallised into the narrative of the monastery. According to older interviewees, it was important to show great reservation and discretion when speaking of anything inside the monastery, as the idea was to project the image of a perfect monastic life. The ‘sacred’ and ‘pure’ world of the monastery was conceived in terms of a perfection that was performed and enveloped in certain secrecy. Monasticism was bestowed with the status of a superior life – in this monastery and elsewhere (Ebaugh, 1977) – which legitimised the totalising trends fulfilling a twofold function: ‘closing the work of art off against the surrounding world and holding it together’ (Simmel, 1997: 141).

These materially expressed boundaries were formally regulated by the abbess, who restricted contact and relationships with the outside. The articulation of a distance from society also had its roots in the interpretation of the vow of obedience. In Weberian terms (1994 [1905]), once professed the nun became part of the ‘monastic spiritual aristocracy’ that socially represented monastic members as situated outside and beyond the secular world. This implied ascetic behaviour to perform a ‘holy’ life and maintain distance from everything related to worldly morality, even within the monastery. This living in accordance with a transcendental will was conceived in terms of ‘blind obedience’, as expressed through the abandoning of any type of agency and subjecting themselves entirely to the abbess, who embodied the transcendent will of God. A ‘pastoral structure of power’ operated in the monastery involving renunciation of the will and submission to the abbess (Foucault, 2007 [1978]: 207–208). The nuns had to comply with all orders without criticism or question because obedience to the abbess was like responding to a commandment from God, proof of their devotion to the monastic vocation.

This power configuration translated into a form of regulating the enclosure. Visits to the monastery were highly restricted in terms of temporal duration, and who could move through the entryway. The monastic constitutions dictated which areas were reserved for nuns and regulated the role of the abbess by specifying the precautions that she had to take when allowing the entry of medical services, for instance. This formal regulation also applied to excursions outside the monastery. Nuns lost control over their ‘personal economy of action’ and had to ask permission for any movement, which was heavily scrutinised (Goffman, 1961: 38). An older nun exclaimed how she had to request permission from the bishop for any daily activity and all nuns were forbidden to be left alone. The requirements were rigid in all instances, such as obtaining permission to go to the dentist. All of the interviewees among the older generational cohort recalled that there were prohibitions against attending funerals of relatives, visiting family members with health problems or attending family celebrations.

This rule was also implemented in the regulation of all communicative correspondence and information. Letters written to and by nuns had to be delivered first to the abbess, who opened and read them at her discretion. The nuns were also not allowed to answer the telephone themselves when their families called, and the management of outside information was strictly controlled by the abbess. As one older nun attested, ‘there was a radio, there were newspapers, and those were only in the hands of the abbess and she only informed us of what she thought she had to’. Nonetheless, the physical and sensory distance materialised by the monastic enclosure was paradoxically embedded within a profound proximity to society, as older nuns recounted that the way they lived as women both inside and outside the cloister was very much the same.

The Problematisation of Boundaries

The monastic enclosure articulated in Goffman’s original definition of material obstacles was called into question as a result of societal and ecclesial transformations during the 1960s. The Second Vatican Council (1961–1965) introduced important interpretative changes that challenged the conceptual distinction that legitimated the hermetic coercive boundaries. A new ‘official’ definition of the social reality within the Church emerged and situated religious life in the world. This forced a revision of the conception and form of the enclosure despite the resistance and controversy that the Second Vatican Council sparked. Monasteries were also affected by the impact of broader sociocultural changes since the late 1960s, particularly the social critiques against confined establishments such as prisons and mental institutions and, in the case of female monasteries, the massive influx of women into the workplace, new opportunities for higher education and the so-called ‘sexual revolution’ jeopardised religious life as it was formerly understood and practised (Ebaugh, 1977).

In the case of the monastery studied, the changes brought by the Second Vatican Council problematised the boundaries that configured enclosed space. Between 1967 and 1968, the community started a process of revision of monastic principles and practices in order to introduce new conciliar guidelines. The monastic enclosure was one of the central aspects discussed. The Council’s positive redefinition of secular reality led to a gradual shift from understanding outside society in traditional terms of contamination, temptations and sin to a world that is a ‘source of enrichment’. Monastic life abandoned its suprahuman character and redefined itself in terms of differentiation rather than in opposition to society. The new religious language, exemplified by the well-known conciliar expression of ‘opening windows’, challenged the antagonistic relationship between the material enclosure of monastic communities and the society by which religious life formerly defined and separated itself.

The Second Vatican Council thus gave rise to a process of changing the enclosure by allowing the possibility for removing physical barriers such as the bars installed at the entrance gates of the monastery. One interviewee of the older generation explained:

One day, a Council document came out that said that if there was one entrance for the people and another for the nuns, the bars could be removed. At 10 o’clock that night, when the abbess arrived from Barcelona with the document, there was a priest and he helped us remove the bars.

This episode, which evinces a subsoil of latent agencies and resistances to material obstacles that defined the monastery as a total institution, was justified by a re-reading of the Benedictine tradition. As another interviewee from the older generation underlined:

The idea of bars is not ours; the Rule has never said that. This idea is from the 13th century and, with the Council of Trent, it was fixed, but this separation is from the contemplative orders such as the Carmelites and not the Benedictines.

However, though eliminating the bars was quite rapid in the case of the monastery studied, visible and controlled spatial demarcations of a physically enclosed space persisted. The new constitutions written in 1984 were produced as a result of the Second Vatican Council’s adjustments and redefined the monastery’s public role as ‘apostolic’, appealing to the Benedictine tradition of hospitality, but maintained a distinct temporal and spatial logic. The distance to society was redefined yet preserved through the adoption of a ‘constitutional enclosure’, which was detailed as, ‘the need for an environment of recollection and silence that favours dedication to things; God is the fundamental reason for the enclosure of the monastery’ (Statements in the Rule, 1967–1968). Instead of the male clergy, it was the abbess’ duty to manage the enclosure in terms of a persistent, distanced relationship to society, since ‘the more [she] ensured the separation of the world, the more [she would] adapt [the enclosure] to the nature and the purpose of the Order’ (Statements in the Rule, 1967–1968).

The habit and the veil were combined into a simple form in order to facilitate contact with society, yet they were maintained in everyday activities as a sign of commitment to monastic life. The new constitutions also became less restrictive in regulating boundaries, but a ‘pastoral practice of obedience’ (Foucault, 2007 [1978]: 206) was preserved and all departures required the abbess’ permission, although they took into account the case of families, particularly those experiencing illness or the death of a relative. Gradually, the abbess also began to permit occasional exits from the monastery for cultural and religious training to adapt monastic labour. A strict physical separation of spaces reserved for community life was also maintained and a control of the visits under the ‘hierarchical observation’ of the abbess that guarded nuns’ movements (Foucault, 1975: 363). Information about and communication with the outside world were further allowed, but the control and permission of the abbess was still preserved, showing the persistence of authoritarian power configuration. The community incorporated the guidelines and new language of the Second Vatican Council into the monastery’s constitutions, but these formal changes had limited practical consequences, for they were actually only visible in certain aspects. The distanced relationship to society, although in terms of differentiation and removed barriers, nurtured the preservation of spatial and formally regulated boundaries.

The Transformation of Boundaries

The interrelated processes of democratisation and secularisation that began with the Spanish transition to democracy in 1975 were still in play when a new abbess was elected in 1995. New societal and political conditions that fostered an avoidance of aggressive interventionism towards individuality progressively undermined the articulation of the boundaries described. This problematisation increased with the admission of a new generation of postulants whose profiles crystallised these wide-ranging social changes, as narrated in the experience of an older nun who emphasised the fear that her generational cohort felt towards transformations brought in by the new:

Unthinkable that a person who comes from a very different life, you think ‘she will hardly adapt’, but of course it is about adapting more. There are older nuns who might suffer from it, because you think, to what extent we are deviating, or we are following a monastic life.

Berger and Luckmann (1966) have noted that when the degree of change in institutions and sociocultural conditions is significantly different, problems of legitimation tend to emerge. Consequently, the transmission of the institutional order is in jeopardy. Since the mid-1990s, a process of ‘institutional reflexivity’ (Giddens, 1991) has led to a broader revision of monastic principles and practices, including the monastic enclosure understood as a coercively prescribed physical isolation, to make plausible monasticism to the societal conditions embodied by new generations.

A further positive definition of social reality, as inherited from the Second Vatican Council, transformed the elements of distance from society towards a ‘performance of proximity’ in the way nuns stressed a continuity rather than contrast between the monastic and lay life (Irvine, 2017: 192). As one young nun attested:

Now the windows are open so that the air can enter, which is good; what does the incarnation of Christ mean? That He is in everything, you cannot put limits on the incarnation of God that is outside and on the suffering of others, and on what others need.

This assertion of the secular world had direct consequences on how monasticism was understood. On the one hand, monastic life was repositioned as a ‘this-worldly’ lifestyle, at the margins of the mainstream society but comparable to many other alternative lifestyles. On the other hand, a related revaluation of the individual and her autonomy under liberal democratic premises led to a recognition of the nun’s agency, as well as a redefinition of her relationship with wider society and her capacity for intervention. As a young nun explained, ‘it is not only about facing the poor, but also opening the possibility of acting. It is fine to pray for the world, but if you can do something, then do it.’

The rebalancing of distance from and proximity to society has transformed the expression of boundaries. A sensory proximity built upon the figurative construction of an ‘open’ monastery has gradually supressed traditional secrecy as previously observed. For example, a documentary about monastic life was made by the community in 1997, or more recently, a website that has rendered the monastery more accessible to the public. A social proximity has also developed in nuns’ relationships with the outside, as evidenced in the group of lay people who attend weekly Mass on Sunday and with whom nuns maintain regular exchange and friendship. This proximity has also been spatially translated into the growing porousness of the monastery’s outer limits, as illustrated by current activities organised by nuns. Since the beginning of the 2000s, the community has increased the offering of workshops and seminars for lay people. Many of these activities usually take place within what used to be strictly traditional reserved monastery facilities, such as the capitular room, the pottery studio or the garden. Nonetheless, this use is restricted to specific occasions and excludes the nuns’ cells showing that the interaction with the outside has increased, but still with spatial separations and limits, as marked by monastic rituals of access and schedules.

Similar transformations in embodied demarcations are observed, as further changes of the habit exemplify. During the mid-1990s, it was agreed that the wearing of the veil within the monastery was not compulsory. Some years later, dressing in street clothes was allowed, including the wearing of trousers and not wearing the veil, though a certain degree of discretion was still exercised. Nowadays, some nuns continue to wear the veil and habit, especially the older generation, while others reserve monastic clothing for liturgical celebrations and solemn acts. This illustrates that the boundaries that define the community have become more symbolic. As the abbess underlined, belonging is something that should not only be seen, but felt; it is a way of life, rather than a mere uniform. However, while the secular clothes and uncovered hair have enabled the nuns’ contact with the outside, there still remain subtle but materially perceptible delimitations in their choice of dark coloured and austere forms of clothing, as well as discrete hairstyles that distinguish them as nuns.

This redefinition of the monastery’s relationship to society and the related revalorisation of the individual has also impacted the regulation of boundaries, revealing reconfigurations of institutional power. As interviewees of different generations explained, the enclosure was initially conceived as providing a perspective on life, embodying a need to move away from the world to live spiritually. However, this soon became a barrier to freedom. Today, as a younger nun affirmed, the Rule of St Benedict is invoked to claim an enclosure based on individual autonomy:

There is a beautiful story of St Benedict that tells of when he saw a hermit, a monk, who, in order to maintain the enclosure, had attached an iron chain to a stone so as not to leave. St Benedict told him that if he really wanted to be a monk, the chain of love had to bind him, not the iron one.

A form of ‘consensual discipline’ has replaced coercive, standardised regulations in the way nuns must be willing to remain in the cloister (Foucault, 1984: 380). In the spirit of the Second Vatican Council, the vow of obedience has been further interpreted as an ‘act of freedom’ being individual autonomy its foundation (Clot-Garrell, 2017). This understanding of the nun as the active and responsible agent has had consequences for the governance of the monastery. The figure of the abbess has been redefined in symbolic terms as a sign of unity, and her power has become ‘autonomising’ in the sense of seeking to govern through constructing a regulated autonomy for nuns (Rose, 1996). Nowadays, it is not about following general rules and avoiding crossing certain spatial limits but demonstrating ability and responsibility in recognising and managing more flexible boundaries, as reflected in the modifications of the excursions outside the monastery.

Interviewees of different generations emphasised an increase in the allowance of leave from the monastery. Since the early 2000s, they can stay with their families during Christmas for one day or they may leave the monastery regularly to take care of elderly family members with health problems. Nuns can also study or work outside the monastery. Expressive aspects have also been considered, as one older nun explained: ‘[Leave] granted simply “because I need it” was unthinkable [in the past]! This is the most significant innovation, the incorporation of psychological needs.’ Attending public events or occasionally going to a concert by invitation of a relative or a close friend have also become possible. Nonetheless, nuns have to be responsible about their decisions, as the abbess underlined: ‘It’s my judgement, to say no, I don’t want caprices, I can avoid them, if I want. My freedom and my conscience.’ The abbess supervises and eventually discusses individual decisions, but nuns are the ones who have to navigate boundaries by way of an ‘ascetic responsibilisation’ to administer these limits according to the voluntary acceptance of the duties involved in their religious vocation (Sundberg, 2019b: 400). Although the monastic enclosure is redefined as a spiritual option autonomously regulated, the community still requires the physical presence of nuns in the monastery for domestic tasks and specific rituals. Therefore, nuns have to limit their departures and individually accept such restrictions. The community also plays a key role in control, since nuns have to point daily to an agenda at the front desk of the monastery and inform the community of their leaving, particularly if it entails skipping monastic commitments such as prayers or meals. As an older nun explained, there is a mutual surveillance in the way they guard one another to have control of absences.

The access to world news and information, particularly the internet, also illustrates this ascetic responsibilisation and controlled flexibility. For more than a few years, print newspapers and watching the news on television no longer require special permission. Listening to the radio, watching a concert or films without any criterion other than the quality of the piece, are common practices today. Furthermore, all nuns have access to the internet and almost all have a laptop in their personal cells. Mobile phones have also become normalised working tools and a regular means of contact. Some even have a personal account on social media. The use of all these tools is not prescribed, but they require individual responsibility in the way nuns have to administer them according to their monastic commitment and must avoid allowing it to negatively impact their collective duties under the soft yet attentive surveillance of the community and the abbess.

Discussion and Conclusion

This article has examined transformations of the monastery’s bounded spatial structure in order to see whether or not it persists as a total institution under late-modern conditions. In revisiting the monastic enclosure, I have analysed the reconfiguration of the boundaries that originally shaped the monastery’s enclosed space in context, as well as historically examined the societal conditions under which these limits assume certain characteristics (Lamont and Molnár, 2002). The results reveal that the physical and sensory distance that traditionally characterised the monastery’s relation with the broader society has shortened. However, this greater closeness with the outside world must be understood as a form of ‘distanced proximity’, since a degree of separation does remain. The outer limits have become more permeable as in other traditional total sites such as mental hospitals, but the monastery has not become a ‘permeable institution’ either (Quirk et al., 2006). While interaction with the outside world has expanded, the monastic enclosure that physically bounds the cloister has been maintained, albeit redefined. Accordingly, the expression of boundaries has shifted towards more subtle and symbolic forms that are compatible with society’s rejection of aggressive forms of enclosure. Nevertheless, material and spatial boundaries that define, delimit and distinguish the monastic institution have proven enduring, though physically modified.

Related shifts in the regulation of monastic boundaries reveal reconfigurations of institutional power that closely parallel changes observed in the exercise of power in liberal democratic western societies. As Foucault noted, contemporary struggles ‘against the submission of subjectivity’ (Foucault, 1982: 782) have become of vital importance for understanding the replacement of coercive power with new forms based on freedom. The monastery is still administrated under a single authority – the abbess – and nuns still promise obedience, albeit on the basis of different premises. Late-modern conditions that emphasise individuality have influenced the monastery with the establishment of a particular ‘regime of the self’ (Rose, 1996: 16–17) that revalorises, rather than mortifies, the individual (Jonveaux, 2018). This re-evaluation of autonomy in modes of governing the monastery has entailed greater agency and flexibility among nuns in managing boundaries, as well as new forms of control to regulate physical enclosure. Nuns still submit to the institution, but standardised regulations have shifted towards reflexive forms of self-control and mutual surveillance implicated in the enforcement of outer limits akin to those of new ‘reinventive institutions’ (Scott, 2011). The results indicate a transformation, rather than a diminishment, of total commitment. As Sundberg notes, ‘total institutions are by definition totalitarian, but not necessarily authoritarian’ (Sundberg, 2020: 103).

The activation of the monastic tradition from the standpoint and needs of the present has played a central role in these adaptative modifications of boundaries as a source of innovation and preservation of the institution. My findings illustrate how the legacy of the Benedictine tradition was not only used to legitimise a particular way of understanding the enclosure, but has been employed to justify changes to the contrary through varying interpretations of the same past (Jonveaux, 2011; Morris, 1996). What is significant is that any and all institutional changes necessarily involve this reference to tradition, so as to remain justifiable. Although certain forms of rupture occur, they are always framed as exhibiting continuity with the past (Hervieu-Léger, 2000).

The results highlight how the monastery retains core features of a total institution, yet these characteristics have modified their expression over the years reflecting and refracting the changing tendencies of the environing society to retain social legitimacy. Since total institutions exist in dynamic relationship with the society that supports or limits them (Goffman, 1961: 119), their total character can evolve accordingly. My analysis has illustrated this relational dynamism, indicating that certain institutions can exhibit specific adaptative modifications in the form of their totality, while still maintaining its structure and function. This approach to permeability thus opens up a fruitful path for interrogating the conditions by which totality can not only reduce intensity with respect to Goffman’s original model, but be reconfigured in response to contemporary societal pressures. While the case studied has brought about the transformations examined close to other monasteries in Spain and elsewhere (Vilariño, 2004), some monasteries continue to exhibit earlier forms of physical confinement. Likewise, other contemporary non-voluntary total institutions such as high-security prisons, migration detention centres and refugee camps also exemplify the persistence of more classic forms of totality. These cases indicate that the relational dynamics between total institutions and wider society is neither uniform nor linear towards a crisis of confinement. Future research might shed light on the ongoing production and maintenance of bounded sites that run counter to the ideals of liberal democratic societies, as well as the conditions underlying their development at present.