Ribbon Culture

This book explores the history, meaning, and sociological implications of awareness campaigns, seeing them as personal displays of compassion in a culture where empathy is a by-word for authenticity. It also highlights how charities use awareness campaigns to reach their audience, and the transformation of charity into a commercial enterprise.

Joint Winner of the British Sociological Association Philip Abrams Memorial Prize 2009

'This is an easy-to-read book that is well signposted and that offers interesting data to support the key points. It will appeal to many subdisciplines within sociology and I will be adding it to my reading lists for undergraduate students.' - Sue Child, Times Higher Education Supplement

' this is an interesting and well-written book on a topic of current interest, that adds both to the sociological literature on compassion and, in its own way, to that on material culture.' Alan Radley, British Journal of Sociology

'Ribbon Culture analyses in detail the cultural phenomenon of the awareness ribbon (and the related phenomenon of empathy wristbands) and draws some very interesting conclusions, not the least of which is that such adornments, while seeming to express solidarity, may actually end up undermining it.' - Australian Literary Review

'...a brilliant little book...Moore does a great job of exposing the orthodoxy of 'awareness' for what it really is; challenging the sickness of our ribbon culture requires that we think beyond the pink to care about something less selfish instead.' - Spiked Review of Books

'...a fascinating, exceedingly well-researched new book by British scholar Sarah E.H. Moore...We all want to support worthy causes, but after reading Ribbon Culture, you may conclude that discretion looks like the better part of virtue as well as of valor.' - www.veryshortlist.com

'This is a brilliant example of how the sociological imagination helps us understand how culture works. Ribbon Culture forces us to rethink what we know about the act of 'raising awareness'. - Frank Furedi, Professor of Sociology, University of Kent, UK

SARAH E.H. MOORE is Research Assistant at the Department of Sociology, University of Kent, UK. Her research interests lie in the sociology of compassion, risk culture and health.