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Two billion people around the world use Instagram, but so far social scientists have done little research on the platform. Despite Instagram's reputation for shallowness, the ongoing self-presentation it demands confronts users with profound dilemmas. Who are we? What do we want to show of ourselves? What do we aspire to be? On Display is a book about how people remake their worlds through social media. John D. Boy and Justus Uitermark provide an encompassing account of how a platform that is unfailingly polished and ruthlessly judgmental shapes us and our environments. They examine how personalities, relations, social movements, urban subcultures, and city streets change as they are represented on Instagram. Interviews and ethnographic vignettes render an intimate account of the desires and anxieties that animate the platform. Just as importantly, Boy and Uitermark reveal how Instagram is implicated in social inequalities. While previous accounts have argued that social media promote polarization, On Display shows that this is not the case for Instagram where users belong to large and diverse networks, compelling them to take many, often contradictory expectations into account. This means users shy away from producing statements or images that may cause offense as a way to preserve their public image and their social connections. Drawing on sociological theory, long-term qualitative inquiry in Amsterdam, and computational analyses, Boy and Uitermark argue that grasping the power of Instagram--and other social media platforms--requires seeing them not as digital networks of communication and sharing, but as a stage for the expression and affirmation of social status.

Disability is defined by hierarchy. Regardless of culture or context, persons with disabilities are almost always pushed to the bottom of the social hierarchy.With the advent of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), disability human rights seemingly provided a path forward for tearing down ableist social hierarchies and ensuring that all persons with disabilities everywhere were treated equally. Despite important progress, the disability human rights project not only remains incomplete, but has often created new hierarchies among persons with disabilities themselves or across the human rights it promotes. Certain groups of persons with disabilities have gained new voices while others remain silenced and certain rights are prioritized over others depending on what states, international organizations, or advocates want rather than what those on the ground need most.This volume was inspired both by the continued need to expose human rights violations against persons with disabilities, but to also explore the nuanced role that hierarchies play in the spread, implementation, and protection of disability human rights. The enjoyment of human rights is not equal nor is the recognition of specific individuals and groups'rights. In order to change this situation, inequalities across the disability human rights movement must be explored.Divided into five parts: Who counts as disabled? Political, social, and cultural context Which rights on top, whose rights on bottom? Pushed to the periphery in the disability rights movement Representations of disability and comprised of 34 newly-written chapters including case-studies from the Anglophone Caribbean, Bangladesh, Bosnia-Herzegovina, China, Ghana, Haiti, Hungary, India, Israel, Kenya, Latin America, Poland, Russia, Scotland, Serbia and South Africa, and other countries, this book will be of interest to all scholars and students of disability studies, sociology, human rights law and social policy.

This book discusses how human lives are equated with the material, and argues that pricing lives lies at the core of the political; in fact, as in Plato or Hobbes, and in the Weberian ethics of responsibility, measurement is considered to be one of its central features. Ariel Colonomos argues that this measure relies primarily on human lives and interests, and that the material equivalence to lives is twofold. The equivalence is a double equation, as we pay for lives and we pay with lives. This double equation constitutes the measurement upon which the political equilibrium of a society depends and is thus a key constitutive part of the political. The book adopts two approaches, both with an interdisciplinary perspective: one explanatory and the other normative. First, it explains the nexus between existential goods and material goods, drawing on a detailed analysis of several case studies from contemporary politics, both domestic and international. Second, it discusses normatively the material valuation of human lives and the human value of material goods. Value attribution and the question of the material equivalent to lives are of relevance not only for political theory and philosophy, but also for sociology, history, international relations, and legal studies.

How did rescue dogs become status symbols? Why are luxury brands losing their cachet? What's made F. Scott Fitzgerald's most famous observations obsolete? The answers are part of a new revolution that's radically reorganizing the way we view ourselves and others that “will be hard for pop-culture readers to put down” (Booklist).Status was once easy to identify—fast cars, fancy shoes, sprawling estates, elite brands. But in place of Louboutin's and Lamborghinis, the relevance of the rich, famous, and gauche is waning and a riveting revolution is underfoot. Chuck Thompson—dubbed “savagely funny” by The New York Times and “wickedly entertaining” by the San Francisco Chronicle—sets out to determine what “status” means today and learns that what was once considered the low life has become the high life. In Status Revolution, Thompson tours the new world of status from a small community in British Columbia where an indigenous artist uses wood carving to restore communal status; to a Washington, DC, meeting of the “Patriotic Millionaires,” a club of high-earners who are begging the government to tax them; to a luxury auto factory in the south of Italy where making beautiful cars is as much about bringing dignity to a low-earning region than it is about flash and indulgence; to a London lab where the neural secrets of status are being unlocked. “Chock-full of shocking revelations” (In Touch Weekly) and with his signature wit and irreverence, Thompson explains why everything we know about status is changing, upends centuries of conventional wisdom, and shows how the new status revolution reflects our place in contemporary society.

An important new collection on the nature and consequences of bullying School shootings and suicides by young victims of bullying have spurred a proliferation of anti-bullying programs, yet most of the research done on school bullying has been from psychologists. The Sociology of Bullying will be the first volume to present the leading ideas in sociology about bullying among adolescents that moves beyond an individualistic approach and instead offers ideas about how to address bullying as a byproduct of social systems, biases, and status hierarchies. Sociologists investigate the impact of social forces on bullying among adolescents, such as inequality, heteronormativity, militarized capitalism, racism, cancel culture, power, and competition. Contributors explore a wide range of key topics, such as how homophobia and gender normativity encourage bullying; how anti-bullying curricula can ultimately lead to more bullying; and how adolescents use bullying against their friends to improve their own social standing. By advancing sociological perspectives on bullying, this important volume aims to shift the national conversation from one that focuses on villainizing bullies to one that encourages an inward look at the aspects of our culture that foster bullying behavior among children.

This book is an unprecedented effort to compare representations and practices of social distinction worldwide and over the centuries. It is based on years of observation in many countries and on the consultation of more than 2 500 multi-disciplinary publications dealing directly or indirectly with this theme. In two previous theoretical volumes on the topic (The Sociology of Elite Distinction and Rethinking Social Distinction) welcomed as major breakthroughs, Jean-Pascal Daloz has established himself as the foremost scholar of symbolic social superiority from a comparative perspective. After having rigorously shown the limits of the main analytical frameworks available and outlined a much more inductive approach, his new empirical book continues this intellectual journey. Taking into consideration all sorts of cases and patterns of meaning, it offers an impressive synthesis demonstrating how diverse the expressions of high status can be. This comparative work is intended to be a crucial reference point and an important source of inspiration for researchers and students across many fields.

This book examines social status as a social mechanism and a social fact that strongly shapes how markets and organizations are regulated, managed, and preserved over time. The first part of this book identifies a number of organizational issues and managerial concerns that can be framed as being a matter of the cognitive perspectives of social actors, and better explained on the basis of such conditions. The second part demonstrates the analytical value of the concept of status in a variety of organizational settings and market contexts. In the three empirical settings, status does play a key role when resources such as legitimacy (in urban development projects), revenues from sales (in video game marketing), and access to venture capital (in life science companies) are distributed. This book summarizes and reviews the academic literature on status and organization studies, as well as providing valuable information for researchers conducting empirical testing. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of Organizations and Social Systems.

'Subtly altered how I see the world.'—Michelle Goldberg, New York Times“[Status and Culture] consistently posits theories I'd never previously considered that instantly feel obvious.” —Chuck Klosterman, author of The Nineties“Why are you the way that you are? Status and Culture explains nearly everything about the things you choose to be—and how the society we live in takes shape in the process.” —B.J. Novak, writer and actorSolving the long-standing mysteries of culture—from the origin of our tastes and identities, to the perpetual cycles of fashions and fads—through a careful exploration of the fundamental human desire for statusAll humans share a need to secure their social standing, and this universal motivation structures our behavior, forms our tastes, determines how we live, and ultimately shapes who we are. We can use status, then, to explain why some things become “cool,” how stylistic innovations arise, and why there are constant changes in clothing, music, food, sports, slang, travel, hairstyles, and even dog breeds.In Status and Culture, W. David Marx weaves together the wisdom from history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, philosophy, linguistics, semiotics, cultural theory, literary theory, art history, media studies, and neuroscience to demonstrate exactly how individual status seeking creates our cultural ecosystem. Marx examines three fundamental questions: Why do individuals cluster around arbitrary behaviors and take deep meaning from them? How do distinct styles, conventions, and sensibilities emerge? Why do we change behaviors over time and why do some behaviors stick around? The answers then provide new perspectives for understanding the seeming “weightlessness” of internet culture. Status and Culture is a book that will appeal to business people, students, creators, and anyone who has ever wondered why things become popular, why their own preferences change over time, and how identity plays out in contemporary society. Readers of this book will walk away with deep and lasting knowledge of the often secret rules of how culture really works.

Dieses Open-Access-Buch untersucht vor dem Hintergrund der kulturell hegemonialen Rolle der Mittelschichten in westlichen Gesellschaften sowie angesichts zeitdiagnostischer Behauptungen, dass „die Mitte'zunehmenden Verunsicherungen und Gefährdungen ausgesetzt sei, die biographischen Orientierungen und Praktiken, die die Lebensführung der Mittelschichten in Deutschland ausmachen.

White privilege damages and distorts societies around the world, not just in the United States. This book exposes its pervasive global reach and creates a new space for discourse on worldwide racial equality.As Chandran Nair shows in this uncompromising new book, a belief in the innate superiority of White people and Western culture, once the driving force behind imperialism, is now woven into the very fabric of globalization. It is so insidious that, as Nair points out, even many non-White people have internalized it, judging themselves by an alien standard. It has no rival in terms of longevity, global reach, harm done, and continuing subversion of other cultures and societies. Nair takes a comprehensive look at the destructive influence of global White privilege. He examines its impact on geopolitics, the reframing of world history, and international business practices. In the soft-power spheres of White privilege—entertainment, the news media, sports, and fashion—he offers example after example of how White cultural products remain the aspirational standard. Even environmentalism has been corrupted, dominated by a White savior mentality whereby technologies and practices built in the West will save the supposedly underdeveloped, poorly governed, and polluted non-Western world. For all these areas, Nair gives specific suggestions for breaking the power of White privilege. It must be dismantled—not just because it is an injustice but also because we will be creating a post-Western world that has less conflict, is more united, and is better able to respond to the existential challenges facing all of us.

This eye-opening book brilliantly explores the true roots of over-parenting, and makes a case for the vital importance of family life.Parents naturally worry about the future. They want to prepare their children to compete in an uncertain world. But often, argues political philosopher and father of three Matt Feeney, today's worried parents surrender their family's autonomy to gain a leg up in this competition.In the American ideal, family life is a sacred and private sphere, distinct from the outside world. But in our hypercompetitive times, Feeney shows, parents have become increasingly willing to let the inner life of the family be colonized by outside forces that promise better futures for their kids: prestigious preschools,'educational'technologies, youth sports leagues, a multitude of enrichment activities, and -- most of all -- college. A provocative, eye-opening book for any parent who suspects their kids'stuffed schedules are not serving their best interests, Little Platoons calls us to rediscover the distinctive, profound solidarity of family life.

This volume addresses current concerns about the climate and environmental sustainability by exploring one of the key drivers of contemporary environmental problems: the role of status competition in generating what we consume, and what we throw away, to the detriment of the planet. Across time and space, humans have pursued social status in many different ways - through ritual purity, singing or dancing, child-bearing, bodily deformation, even headhunting. In many of the world's most consumptive societies, however, consumption has become closely tied to how individuals build and communicate status. Given this tight link, people will be reluctant to reduce consumption levels – and environmental impact -- and forego their ability to communicate or improve their social standing. Drawing on cross-cultural and archaeological evidence, this book asks how a stronger understanding of the links between status and consumption across time, space, and culture might bend the curve towards a more sustainable future.

Rewire your brain to avoid the trap of comparison and status-seeking to achieve more contentment and satisfaction from life People care about status despite their best intentions because our brains are inherited from animals who cared about status. The survival value of status in the state of nature helps us understand our intense emotions about status today. Beneath your verbal brain, you have the brain common to all mammals. It rewards you with pleasure hormones when you see yourself in a position of strength, and it alarms you with stress hormones when you see yourself in a position of weakness. But constant striving for status can be anxiety-provoking and joy-stealing. Nothing feels like enough to our mammal brain. It releases those stress chemicals when you think others are ahead of you. Here, Loretta Breuning shines a light on the brain processes that encourage us to seek higher status. She teaches us how to rewire those connections for more contentment and less stress. No more worrying about keeping up with the Joneses. Your new way of thinking will blaze new trails to your happy hormones and you will RELAX.