Recent Prestige Theory

[Bill Guinee]

I am working on a piece about prestige in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I find myself long on data and rather short on recent theory.  I have thought about using Bourdieu's notions of the various forms of capital, but the prestige in question cannot really be transformed into economic capital (though there are transformations between social capital and cultural capital).  Really, about the most useful thing I have found was a review essay by Elvin Hatch back in 1988.  I would really appreciate it if any of you could suggest some theoretical sources on the topic that are more recent.  Thanks.

[M Izabel]

mmmmmm... good topics are popping up like mushrooms these days.

Maybe you can check how they flaunt their chips, narrate their stories during meetings, and make themselves leaders and models. I suggest theories on ritual and performance are applicable.

[Bill Guinee]

I would really like to open this topic again.  What I really need are some specific references (citations) to recent social scientific works dealing with how people establish prestige and authority, how authority works in supposedly egalitarian societies, and so forth.  I would really appreciate any help with this.

[Martin Hermansky]

Have you been successful in finding any theoretical literature?

At the moment I am doing research on high school teenagers and need some theoretical background to the concept of prestige. Although Bourdieu's capitals are useful, they are not enough to understand and describe what's going on in my field.

I would really appreciate any suggestion.

Edit: It just come to my mind that it might be possible to use Thornton's concept of subcultural capital.

Take a look at Thornton, Sarah (1995): Club cultures: music, media and subcultural capital. Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN: 9780745614427.

[Paulo Augusto Franco]

Hi, Bill!

As a guide theory, I think you could work within Goffman in his "Interaction Ritual. Essays on face-to-face bahaviour" and also "Forms of talk". To think especific in prestige, I believe that these short bibliography could help you to start:

Peristiany, J. (1966) Honour and Shame, ed. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Herzfeld, Michael (1980) Honour and Shame: problems in the comparative analysis of moral systms. Man (NS) 15, 339-351.

Bauman, Richard (1986) Story, performance and event. Contextual studies of oral narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge university press.