Affluenza Anonymous: Theorizing Social Restoration among Affluent Youth in a Therapeutic Boarding School

• In Event: 4340 - Children, Youth and Institutions

Abstract

In the past few decades, a multi-billion dollar “therapeutic boarding school” industry has emerged largely for America’s troubled upper-class youth. This article examines the experiences of privileged youth in a therapeutic boarding school to advance social restoration as a new form of social reproduction. Drawing on interviews and fieldwork inside a Western therapeutic boarding school for substance abuse, I explore how students leverage a stigmatized, addict identity in ways that restore privilege. Findings suggest that students engage in social restoration by constructing an overarching restorative narrative that works through three mechanisms: 1) experiential reframing, 2) appropriated therapeutic discourse, and 3) boundary maintenance through “othering.” Using these narrative strategies, students are able to transform a stigma into a symbolic marker of character that they use to reclaim privileged positions and dominant roles. This process of social restoration illuminates previously unexamined issues at the intersections of power and privilege, stigma, and inequality.

Author

• Jessica Ann Pfaffendorf, University of Arizona