Fighting Friends: Mitigated Stigma in the Religious Society of Friends

Abstract

In this study of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in the United States, I use interview and observational data to demonstrate that ‘non-peaceful’ or ‘fighting’ Friends experience mitigated stigma within the group. I argue that the use of a variety of meanings of important symbols in the group helps to produce mitigated stigma. At the theoretical level, mitigated stigma is differentiated from full stigma by its often contested nature, its focus on concealable heterodoxy or hetero-praxis, the ambivalence people feel towards it and the group’s attenuated power to enforce it.