Almost Equal: Consumption under Fragmented Stigma

Abstract How do historically stigmatized social groups consume strategically when they have achieved greater recognition, status, and respectability in society? Based on a seven-year interpretive representations analysis of gay men Germany, the authors first show that dominant, stigmatizing such not ameliorate uniformly for all. Instead, fragment into oppressive, enabling, normalized societal different consumers encounter to degrees their everyday lives. In wake these shifts, group itself disintegrates five representational subgroups, referred as underground, discrete, hybrid, assimilated, post-stigma groups. These subgroups use consumption partly opposing strategic purposes, hiding denial, collective resistance, deconstruction differences. The synthesize findings conceptual model under fragmented stigma extends prior research dominant total configurations suggests ways which can only mitigate but also reinforce stigma. doing so, shed light complex lived experiences vulnerable has become almost equal.