Page 75 - Cultural Change and Ordinary Life

66 Cultural change and ordinary life

is some ‘true consciousness’ to be found. I will consider some more recent
arguments from Skeggs in this light later, especially in the context of
the points that I have made about the work of Butler in the examination of the
idea of performativity. However, a further aspect of this point is also significant
as it means being ‘more attentive to the positive virtues of working-class
cultural forms’ (p. 16). This is significant, but it can be extended to consider
the virtues of a range of ‘devalued’ cultural practices, not just those that rather
narrowly might be seen to be associated with the working class. Thus, in
Chapter 9, I consider the idea of enthusing, partly to continue this attention
to forms of culture that tend to be devalued. Moreover, it is important
to remember that what it is to be working class is defined culturally in a
number of ways. It is not just that certain forms of culture are associated with
this group.
Second, for Devine and Savage, ‘the relationship between discursive and
more practical forms of awareness remains unclear’ (2005: 16). They ask a
pertinent question of ‘how do people’s actual elaborate identities relate to the
complexities of their everyday lives, and how is it possible for these identities
to take more critical forms?’ (p. 16). Can only social scientists really see
through the forest of everyday (or ordinary) life to see exploitative relations
and ways out of them? This is a perennial issue that involves, I would
argue, paying detailed attention to the complexities of ordinary life in the way
theorized here.
Third, it may be argued that Devine and Savage suggest that Bourdieu’s
theory retains ideas of society as bounded especially in national terms, in ways
that much contemporary sociology has questioned. These approaches
emphasize the interconnections between global flows and the mobilities of
people and objects as well as identities. However, one argument is that it
is possible to consider the way in which identity is both mobile and attached
to place, as the consideration of ‘elective belonging’ earlier in this book
suggested. I also pick up this point further later. While Devine and Savage seem
rather agnostic on the benefits of Bourdieu’s approach in this context, I would
suggest that they are being unduly pessimistic.
Fourth, there is a methodological point. As they point out, ‘Bourdieu’s
own research practice has been subject to criticism, for instance in its
naïve use of personal testimonies in The Weight of the World [1999b]’ (p. 17).
As they suggest, the new forms of class analysis are working with a variety
of methods. This has in my view much to recommend it. However, Devine
and Savage strike again a somewhat pessimistic or defensive note when
they say that, ‘whilst we now have a clear sense of the limitations of
the “employment aggregate approach”, it is unclear how to develop an
alternative’ (p. 17). In my view it is not necessary to seek to develop one
alternative, and class (and other modes of analysis) will actually be
the stronger for the use of different methods with respect to different modes
of analysis. It may be that such methods show up different processes and
that these then require further consideration and debate. Thus, as will
be considered at greater length in Chapter 8, the idea of the cultural
omnivore can be examined in quantitative and qualitative ways to
illuminating effect.