File spoon-archives/bourdieu.archive/bourdieu_1996/96-01-02.102, message 71


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 .



   

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