Page 275 - Cultural Theory
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••• Nick Stevenson •••
For Bourdieu the social world is structured by different forms of capital which are
accumulated, gained and lost in a number of different social fields. While fields are
the sites of constant social struggle they are also the places that distribute and deter-
mine access to different kinds of capital. The economists and crude Marxists are mis-
taken in that they can only account for a narrow set of motivations that immediately
lead to the pursuit of money and wealth (economic capital). Such a definition of cap-
ital ultimately colludes with artists and intellectuals who have sought to mystify
their practices by presenting them as either the pure pursuit of art or knowledge.
Indeed, Bourdieu’s (1996) work traces through the historical emergence of a
bohemian view of art that opposed both the industrial bourgeoisie and so called
bourgeois art while developing an aristocratic attitude towards consumption and sex-
uality. The development of ‘art for arts sake’ as the authentic value of artistic and cul-
tural production helped develop a number of paradoxical attitudes towards the
production and consumption of culture. Firstly, the bohemians suspicion of imme-
diate market success meant that artistic success was secured through commercial fail-
ure. Further, the ideology of commercial disinterestedness favoured those who had
inherited economic capital. In other words, economistic analysis fails to understand
the ‘profit’, ‘capital’ and ‘status’ that were attributable to those who developed new
aesthetic lifestyles.
Cultural capital in Bourdieu’s (1986) analysis can exist within three forms. The first
form of cultural capital exists within an embodied state, or what Bourdieu also
describes as the habitus. The habitus is a set of cultural dispositions which are passed
on through the family and become literally second nature. These embodied disposi-
tions become a way of speaking, standing, walking, thinking and feeling. The habi-
tus is largely structured through the opposition of different cultural characteristics
found in different social classes. While the habitus can become transformed by enter-
ing into a different field, or more generally through social mobility, it molds the
body in ways that are largely unconscious but relatively durable. Yet by virtue of the
habitus individuals become predisposed towards certain cultural preferences and
tastes. Hence it makes a good deal of sense to talk of consumer lifestyles in terms of
both cultural and economic capital. That is, those who are able to define taste, vul-
garity and discernment impose these definitions on subordinate groups. For
Bourdieu (1984) it was the new petit bourgeoisie (school teachers, artists, academics
etc) whose aesthetic lifestyles meant that they became the new arbiters of good taste.
That is, those who are high in cultural rather than economic capital determine taste.
The new petit bourgeoisie were able to distinguish themselves from industrialists
(high in economic but low in cultural capital) and the working-class (low in both
economic and cultural capital) by seeking to expand the autonomy of the cultural
field. Whereas the transmission of cultural capital through the body is the most effi-
cient given its hereditary nature it can also be reproduced through material objects.
That is, cultural capital can exist in an objectified state through art collections, musi-
cal instruments, objects of art and jewellry. Finally, we can also talk of cultural capi-
tal in a third sense, that is, the institutional confirming of educational qualifications.
This confers on the holder a legally guaranteed amount of cultural respect and level
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