April 3, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
NEW BOOKS
Ribbon Culture: Charity, Compassion, and Public Awareness
by Sarah E.H. Moore
This sociological study of the recent charity-ribbon trend examines the symbol’s meanings, transformation, and commodification, and explores the wearers’ reasons for publicly displaying their vaguely defined “awareness” of a particular cause.
Sarah E.H. Moore, a sociology research assistant at the University of Kent, in England, is highly critical of the ribbon’s use today. She argues that it has become an easy way for wearers to demonstrate compassion, kindness, and charity without actually having to understand or be actively engaged in the cause itself.
Ms. Moore looks at the ribbons’ history, who wears them and why, the symbolic uses of the ribbons, and how charities have used them as a marketing tool.
She discusses the red AIDS-awareness ribbon and the pink breast-cancer ribbon, both of which have become fashion accessories for many people and have been marketed by nonprofit groups working with a number of big companies such as Gap, Motorola, Revlon, Haagen-Dazs, and Volvo.
Such commercialization, she argues, “does little to actually increase understanding and knowledge about particular causes” and is more about the wearer than the cause itself.
“Charities in contemporary society have cashed in on the selling power of compassion,” she writes, “as have the numerous companies that sponsor ribbon campaigns. In so doing, they have transformed compassion itself into a commodity.”
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010; (888) 330-8477; fax (800) 672-2054; http://www.palgrave-usa.com; 190 pages; $74.95; ISBN 978-0-230-54921-0.
