Pages of miscellaneous links, quotes, photos, and videos vaguely related to sociological theory. For those with sociologically-related queries: ask away.
The institution of an identity, which can be a title of nobility or a stigma (‘you’re nothing but a…’), is the imposition of a name, i.e. of a social essence. To institute, to assign an essence, a competence, is to impose a right to be that is an obligation of being so (or to be so). It is to signify to someone what he is and how he should conduct himself as a consequence.
Pierre Bourdieu - Language and Symbolic Power (via faintestglance)
