Prestige Concept Reconsidered: Hybridity of Prestige in Post-Socialist Biomedical Profession

Abstract

This article re-considers the applicability of the concept of prestige by focusing on a post-socialist context as the site of particularly rapid social change and re-negotiation of social relationships. I argue against the assumption that the biomedical profession in post-socialist societies is not prestigious. My ethnographic data suggest that the search for the economic capital reflects not only desire of physical comfort, but just as importantly, desire for re-negotiated social status in the context where relationships between social classes change. The concept of prestige emerges as a nuanced process rather than static notion, underlying the multiple factors influencing post-socialist physicians’ status.