GY200 LT WEEK 1 – DISTINCTION; THE POWER OF CULTURE
The role of ‘culture’ in addition to the economy in explaining advantage and disadvantage
Focus on how people employ place to their advantage
How people are placed within place – place and position
How people occupying the same place have different social positions (distinct from one another)
How important place is
o Previously, correlation between class and opportunities or position, now more related with place?
Bourdieu’s Cultural Turn
Attempts to avoid determinism
Occupational class is too crude (traditional Marxist thinking ties class with modes of production)
o But Bourdieu thinks of ‘class’ as field
More going on than just economy (as Weber thought)
People simply do not identify with class as they previously did
Growth of service economy, change in modes of production from large-scale manufacturing to intersecting work
Basic Schema
Habitus
Capitals – social, economic and cultural
Fields – class as a metafield, Doxa
Distinction
HABITUS: LIKE A HABERMASSIAN ‘LIFEWORLD’
A composite of experience expressed as preferences, a frame of mind that affects your behavior/actions
Like a cycle, perpetuates continuously to define who you are and how you see the world/how the world sees you
Non-natural, socially constructed, influenced by contexts
The individual is not really aware of it
Class but not just class, not simply born into and inevitably assigned to a class.
Inclinations and perspectives that are fairly permanent but malleable.
Degree of self-consciousness regarding habitus but not entirely open to change either.
Humans are not fixed products of their upbringing, notion of agency
? Structure as the context habitus develops from.
Bourdieu disagrees with this model, agency can break from this cycle, non-deterministic.
structure habitus Long-lasting but not permanent.
Can use capital to change habitus
The role of ‘culture’ in addition to the economy in explaining advantage and disadvantage
Focus on how people employ place to their advantage
How people are placed within place – place and position
How people occupying the same place have different social positions (distinct from one another)
How important place is
o Previously, correlation between class and opportunities or position, now more related with place?
Bourdieu’s Cultural Turn
Attempts to avoid determinism
Occupational class is too crude (traditional Marxist thinking ties class with modes of production)
o But Bourdieu thinks of ‘class’ as field
More going on than just economy (as Weber thought)
People simply do not identify with class as they previously did
Growth of service economy, change in modes of production from large-scale manufacturing to intersecting work
Basic Schema
Habitus
Capitals – social, economic and cultural
Fields – class as a metafield, Doxa
Distinction
HABITUS: LIKE A HABERMASSIAN ‘LIFEWORLD’
A composite of experience expressed as preferences, a frame of mind that affects your behavior/actions
Like a cycle, perpetuates continuously to define who you are and how you see the world/how the world sees you
Non-natural, socially constructed, influenced by contexts
The individual is not really aware of it
Class but not just class, not simply born into and inevitably assigned to a class.
Inclinations and perspectives that are fairly permanent but malleable.
Degree of self-consciousness regarding habitus but not entirely open to change either.
Humans are not fixed products of their upbringing, notion of agency
? Structure as the context habitus develops from.
Bourdieu disagrees with this model, agency can break from this cycle, non-deterministic.
structure habitus Long-lasting but not permanent.
Can use capital to change habitus
