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Class, identity and culture 65

but despite this issue there can be renewed attention to the fluidity of class
identities.
Second, in approaches influenced by Bourdieu, identity is relational and
identity claims affect the nature of a field or fields: ‘Becoming conscious of
one’s position in a field actually can make the stakes of that field more com-
pelling and powerful so actually reinforcing the legitimacy of the field itself’
(Devine and Savage 2005: 14). Furthermore, ‘claims to recognition are claims
by subordinate groups to be taken as agents within a field, and can have the
paradoxical effect of validating the rules of the game as a whole’ (p. 14). Thus,
identity is relational in important ways (as well as relatively fluid) and ‘moves’
to claim particular identities can have the effect of reinforcing the ‘rules of the
game’ that may be defining those making the move in ways that reinforce their
subordination.
Third, Bourdieu’s approach suggests fluidity in a different way. He works
with a variety of fields, ‘with no clear pre-determined relationship between
them, with the result that his account is more fluid and attentive to change
and the power of agency. Insofar as fields are inter-related, this depends on the
activities of dominant classes who are able to traverse different fields more
easily than those whose stakes are confined to fewer fields’ (p. 15).
Fourth, Bourdieu suggests a different kind of reflexivity: ‘As people move
between fields they become aware of the different kinds of stakes that exist in
diverse fields, and hence can become more reflexive about the kinds of tactics
they can pursue’ (p. 15). While this may suggest that people become free to
change their identities and develop them on the basis of this sort of process,
there is a very significant rider, in that some people are freer in this than
others.

The ability to move between fields is itself variable and dependent on
particular kinds of habitus that support mobile personality character-
istics, personal flexibility, and so on. It is those with stakes in many
fields, namely male members of dominant social classes, who thereby
find it easier to develop various kinds of reflexivity (Devine and Savage
2005: 15).
Bourdieu’s account is therefore important in that it facilitates a more
complex understanding of the fluidity, relational nature and reflexivity
of identities, but with an emphasis on the point that this is not something
that all people are free to engage in to the same extent. Such ‘freedom’ or
lack of it will be affected by a contingent interplay between habitus,
capital and field. Importantly, there are particular activities, fields and
habituses that are more legitimate than others. While this suggests itself as a
powerful agenda there are some problems. Savage and Devine raise four in
particular:
First, it may be that Bourdieu’s account allows less fluidity than some
writers in this new class agenda would suggest. In the end, it may be that the
objective power of structural forces means that people in the end submit.
For Savage and Devine, the work of Skeggs (1997) on the culture and iden-
tifications of a group of working-class women has a tendency to ‘read popular
culture as a form of false consciousness’ (p. 16), which implies that there