Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 21:01:01 -0500 (EST) From: Marc Deneire <mdeneire-AT-mtu.edu> Subject: Re: Bourdieu and class in the US framework On Mon, 27 Nov 1995, DENISE ALBANESE wrote: > Although I can't claim to be all that familiar with Bourdieu's work apart > from sections of *Distinction,* I'm interested in the questions raised > thus far about the presumed "universality" of class wrt cultural capital. > > I'd argue that the understanding of "class" as it appears in *Distinction* > is deeply and locally French, and that Bourdieu has to be modified with > caution to fit the US framework. For one thing, in the largely > anti-intellectual US it is by no means clear that the acquisition of > cultural capital (a form of wealth I take to be secondary, even > compensatory, to the extent that it is mimetic of monetary capital) has > the same capacity to elevate social status as it might elsewhere. Surely > it still might in certain (metropolitan? European-identified?) locations > in the US, and surely it at least used to within academia. But on the > latter point, recent efforts to assimilate university structures and > operations to the corporate model (elimination of tenure, downsizing, > increased "productivity" [= processing more students cheaply] etc.) > suggest a whole lot of things--among them, I'd say, the effective > de-privileging of pockets of "cultural capital" as described by > Bourdieu. This may also be a function of the historical (as well as > geographical) distance separating us from Bourdieu: new forms of cultural > capital are on the ascendant. > The concept of class in Bourdieu needs to be complemented with that of status (from a Weberian perspective). While applications of this concept by Bourdieu is, no doubt, culture-specific, I see no great difficulties in applying to other contexts. The application of the concept to the US and a comparison between its application in the American and French contexts can be found in Michele Lamont's brilliant book "M..., Money, and Manners" (sorry, I don't remember the first word of the title), a book which has just been translated into French .
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005