Bourdieu: from Class to Culture

Abstract

WILL TRY to establish two things: first the continuing use but outdated nature of the model of working-class culture found in Distinction; second, the relationship between that model and the work which is reported in The Weight of the World. 1 I hope it need not be said that critique is the most serious form of high regard. Remnants of NecessitarianismThe empirical work upon which Distinction was based is now more than 20 years old. Characterizations of the working class in terms of their unreflexive 'choice of the necessary', and of the cultured upper class as unreflexive in their beliefs in the timeless and asocial qualities of truth, beauty and progress, of which they are guardians, however, remain with us. They are no longer to be found so clearly in Bourdieu's later work. He called upon intellectuals (despite their cosmopolitan privileges underlined in the hidden contrapuntalism of The Weight of the World) to take a stand against the false unanimity of dominant discourse, to swap the illusio of autonomous aesthetics for the (much-to-be-preferred, and self-admittedly normative) illusio of Realpolitik and the preservation of the values and achievements of the cultural and scientific fields (Bourdieu, 1992(Bourdieu, : 348, 1998. It is also the case that he developed confidence in the possibility of reflexive awareness, not only for intellectuals but also for the seriously disadvantaged. Speaking of the sociological enlightenment of those formerly characterized in terms of their necessitarianism, he later said, 'you may be upset by what you are, but you have instruments to understand and to accept it and that is the main problem of life ' (cited in Swain, 2000). Just as it was 20 years ago when Bourdieu, in practice, accepted the condition of the working class but launched a critique of the illusio of the aristocracy of culture, so it was at the beginning of the 21st century with his calling for

Imagining Personhood Differently: Person Value and Autonomist Working-Class Value Practices

“…Putting aside Bourdieu's problematic analysis of gender for a moment, 5 what Bourdieu cannot explain is the formation of any sort of personhood with value for those who are the source of labour, the non‐propelling‐future accruing subject with the wrong capitals, those who cannot access the fields of exchange to convert, accrue or generate value for themselves. For Bourdieu (2000), these subjects appear with negative capital, as lack, deficit, a void of value (Boyne, 2002), but often suffering (for instance, as they are represented in Weight of the World ), as sentimental repositories for the difficulties of necessity (McRobbie, 2002). Their value is their suffering, their habitus is produced out of necessity in cramped spaces.…”

Struggles for value: value practices, injustice, judgment, affect and the idea of class

“…However, what he cannot explain is the formation of personhood for those who cannot publicly legitimate themselves as ‘subjects of value’, the non‐propelling, non‐future accruing subject; those who are purposefully excluded from and cannot access the ‘right resources, convert, exchange or accrue value for themselves. For Bourdieu, these subjects appear as lack, deficit, a void of value (Boyne ), but often suffering as a result of their proximity to necessity (for instance, as they are represented in Weight of the World as sentimental repositories (McRobbie )). Instead here we want to propose a more general model of ‘person‐value’ which may include the capitals described by Bourdieu but also thinks beyond an accrual‐acquisition property model to include the excluded and their social values, action and affect (the circulation of feelings).…”

Reflexivity: Freedom Or Habit of Gender?

“…One of the most influential ideas in contemporary social theory is that a range of aspects of social life are both characterized by and increasingly require reflexive forms of conduct. Indeed the claim that contemporary social life demands reflexive forms of action has been and continues to be strongly debated in the social sciences (Alexander, 1996; Boyne, 2002; Lichtblau, 1999; Pellizzoni, 1999) and is the centrepiece of a thoroughgoing framework for understanding late modern societies, that of reflexive modernization or reflexive modernity (Beck, Lash and Giddens, 1994). Beck neatly sums up the thrust of this framework when he writes ‘the more societies are modernized, the more agents (subjects) acquire the ability to reflect on the social conditions of their existence and to change them accordingly’ (Beck, 1994:174).…”