The double edge of hybrid legitimation

Using a case study of an American hybrid dish, Jell-O Salad, I develop a model to explain how a well-accepted hybrid becomes delegitimized through the mechanism that legitimizes the hybrid in the first place. Drawing on institutional research on legitimacy while integrating ideas from category literature and cultural consumption studies, I conduct a historical process analysis of 228 Jell-O cookbooks and recipe booklets from 1902 to 2005. The analysis reveals a mechanism, status evocation, which brings a desired status to the mind of the immediate audience. Whereas the mechanism helps a hybrid become widely accepted, it gradually dissociates the hybrid from higher status with which the hybrid is apparently associated. When this dissociation is publicly known, detachment from the hybrid is the way to evoke one’s desired status. Consequently, the once-popular hybrid is no longer accepted. Based on these findings, I develop an alternative model of legitimation suggesting that the legitimation of a hybrid carries within it the seeds of its own delegitimation.