Author: Holubek-Schaum, Stefan, Grimm, Natalie, Sachweh, Patrick
Abstract: Against the backdrop of current debates on the role of social status for political attitudes, this article presents a qualitative interview study that examines the diversity, functions and consequences of the biographical interpretation pattern of “feeling left behind”. The focus is on the importance of biographical stratifications of experience and long-term social trajectories – so-called status trajectories – for the current positioning of one’s own social status and the experience of status. Based on 90 biographical-narrative interviews and using three key cases, the article shows how economic and cultural degradation experiences are subjectively experienced and interpreted depending on status trajectories and resources. It also sheds light on the reflexive social self-positioning of the interviewees with regard to the status groups that disparage them and to the hegemonic culture. A post-, an anti- and a non-hegemonic pattern of interpretation and processing of feeling left behind can be identified, which in each case is accompanied by either more conservative, conflictual or alternative-distanced socio-political orientations. The results show that a mapping of social status conflicts should pay more attention conceptually and empirically to biographical status trajectories and their subjective interpretation.
Year of Publication: 2024
Journal Title: Berliner Journal für Soziologie
doi: 10.1007/s11609-024-00524
Date of Publication: 15.05.2024
More Information: Link (Date: 16.05.2024)
