Feigning Incompetence in the Field

A basic feature of professions is specialized competence. Indeed, expertise grants pro­fessions and their members privileged, prestigious, and protected statuses. Members of professions thus face interactional pressure to appear competent in encounters with colleagues, clients, and lay publics, demonstrating that they, indeed, have the particular competencies expected of and associat­ed with their position. For example, in a classic study of professionalization, Jack Haas and William Shaffir examine how medical students adopt a cloak of competence—presenting more-than-fully-able selves—in their training and work to convince gatekeepers, each other, and patients that they have the ability to do medicine. Similar competence-enhancing presentations are evident in other professions. However, a related dramaturgical phenomenon remains neglected: adopting a cloak of incompetence—presenting less-than-fully-able selves—in performing the professional role. Using the ethnographer’s work as an illustrative case, the following paper examines this other side of managing professional competence.