Prestigious Consumption and Gift-Giving Practices in Student Community

Abstract

The article presents results of the sociological research which purpose was studying of a phenomenon of prestigious behavior and gift exchange among students. In this case author proposed a definition for the concept of prestigious behavior which based on theories of conspicuous, status and symbolical consumption. This definition includes the universal markers symbolizing prestigious consumption. Also the author proposes the classification of motives of the prestigious consumption studied on the example of gift exchange during the empirical analysis of data. So this results can be used for studying of aspiration to prestige in other cases. As a method of data analysis used the methodology of the grounded theory with direct, axial and selective coding of sixteen semi-structured interviews with students in St. Petersburg. The results of the study described the specifics of prestigious consumption in the context of gift exchange. The strategy of qualitative case-study allows us to draw a conclusion about specifics of prestigious consumption in the context of gift exchange. The results of the study describe the specifics includes significance of symbolic value of an image of a gift for the participants of gift exchange. This fact gives grounds to assume that desire for prestige in the exchange of gifts and the symbolic image of the gift is a means of maintaining social relationships.