Place and Status Recategorization

Abstract

This paper contributes to the emerging literature on status recategorization by analysing the extreme case of reinforced concrete from 1885 to 1930. Status recategorization refers to the change in a category’s status within a social hierarchy. It occurs when new—more appealing—associations form around a low status category. We find that, over the period studied, buildings encoded, emotionalized, and energized new associations around reinforced concrete, leading architects to assign the material a higher status. Drawing on these findings, we conceptualize an embodied mode of status recategorization in which the ability of audiences to process new associations around a category is a function of bodily experience. We make two contributions to the category literature. First, we distinguish between discursive associations and associations encoded in the physical environment. Second, we show that emotions and emotional energy mediate audiences’ interpretations of new associations that are encoded in the physical environment. Negative emotional responses to new associations trigger status maintenance, while positive emotional responses and emotional energy trigger status change.