Bourdieu conceptualises most aspects of social life in terms of
fields,
which constitute sites of struggle over a central stake. The resources
which are used in these struggles, and whose appropriation is at stake,
are defined as types of capital: economic, cultural, social and
symbolic.
Each field involves a set of players, of agents who are engaged in practices
and strategies on the basis of an habitus. It is contended in
this article that
such an approach can be usefully mobilised to develop a sociological
analysis of welfare. The model has to be slightly altered to make it more
adequate for the study of the welfare field. First, what Bourdieu calls
political
capital is given a more prominent place. Secondly, the focus is more
definitely set on the rates at which types of capital are converted in
the
welfare field. It is argued that such a model satisfies the central requirements
of a sociology of welfare, in that it places welfare activities within
the wider social context while grasping their internal dynamic. It provides
an effective framework for addressing the main questions which are
raised by a sociology of welfare.
Charles Tilly has portrayed collective protests, from the middle of the nineteenth century on, as shows of strength and clashes of might. More recently it is contended that new forms of collective action have developed and, according to Alberto Melucci, they operate more and more as signs. This article looks at the strategies through which such protests are constituted, or constitute themselves, as signs. Five main strategies are identified: famous occasions or people are associated with the protest; visualisation; symbolisation; dramatisation and reliance on quirkiness. The paper also addresses the question of the message these protests communicate, mainly in terms of the issues they raise and the people they target. The systematic recording of collective protests in Ireland, from 1995 to 1998, provides the empirical basis for testing, in the Irish context, some of Melucci's ideas about the transformation of protests into signs.
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