Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 15:48:22 -0800 (PST)
From: Charles Bazerman <bazerman-AT-humanitas.ucsb.edu>
Subject: Re: cultural capital: skill or signifier?


Jeremy,
	I think the simple answer to your question is that cultural 
capital in Bourdieu's world consists of things like your category 
a--skills, dispositions, internalized evaluative criteria, perceptual 
discrimination, refinement and orientation of production, etc.  Your 
category b is more what Bourdieu would call symbolic capital, including 
not only marks of belonging but also specific attributions of an 
individual's or a group's or an institution's merit, value, power, wisdom, 
leadership, prowess, etc.
	
Chuck Bazerman

On Mon, 11 Dec 1995, Jeremy Straughn wrote:

> Dear Bourdieu afficionados,
> 
> At the risk of displaying my lack of Bourdieu credentials, may I solicit
> opinions as to what B. means by cultural capital?  As I try to think back
> on what I've read in the past, I find two possibly competing notions:
> (a) cultural capital is a set of skills in making aesthetic and symbolic
> distinctions (e.g. wine tasting, telling Reggae from Ska), and (b)
> symbolic attributes or signfiers associated with a person which mark
> him/her as belonging to or being excluded from a group (e.g. a credential,
> which may or may not correspond to possession of a set of skills connoted
> by it).
> 
> Which is it? Or is it neither?  Or both (a skill or set of skills often
> has, of course, symbolic value--e.g. being able to play golf, discuss
> Tonie Morrison, name several microbrewed beers).
> 
> Obliged,
> 
> Jeremy Straughn
> University of Chicago
> 
>