Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 06:21:54 -0500
From: Deborah W Kilgore <dkilgore-AT-iastate.edu>
Subject: RE: Bugging me: where is the excluded?


I think Distinction - The rules of art, will give you some clues about how 
B. would see the phenomenon of rap.  I have not studied rap/hip hop, but 
have thought a little bit about it:  look to those who brought rap to the 
public eye.  They were not rapping in isolation of the larger field of 
power.  For instance, Chuck D. of Public Enemy was a college radio DJ to 
start with, and has maintained ties to the intellectual field ever since, 
with lectures, books, etc.  Tupac Shakur went to a school for the 
Performing Arts.  The Beastie Boys (white) are revered as if they are old 
sages.  Eminem is white and won an Oscar last year.  A lot of the big 
rappers have made the crossover to film, also.  Some of the medium rappers 
have crossed over to "white" music:  Sean "Puffy" Combs was on stage with 
Jimmy Page; Run DMC on stage with Aerosmith.

The point in Distinction is not that the field doesn't change, but that 
those who change it hold special "dominated dominant" positions.  They have 
both the power and the will to change the field.  Rap didn't come out of 
nowhere, and it sure isn't the art of the underclass anymore.

Anyway, these are just a few notes...

Regards, Deborah Kilgore

(thanks for the links, Glen)







At 04:44 PM 5/12/2003 +1000, you wrote:
>Hey Pam/All,
>
>My interest is in those that do not simply lay down and think, "Shucks,
>I don't have the required knowledge of the 'correct' cultural field to
>participate with any authority. I will a little nap."
>
>A 'permanent underclass,' as you describe, is only permanent for as long
>as the 'under' (below or 'beside' the dominant) and 'class' (as a
>grouping) is constantly enacted and performed. It seems a bit odd that
>practice (of which discourse is only one example) is referenced against
>beholders of symbolic capital (a dominant) which privileges a few, many
>more think that it privileges them (but may not), and yet another small
>group realise that they will never be subject to such privilege. How
>does this group react? By happily remaining subservient to some foreign
>dominant? Or by working to construct their own forms of symbolic capital
>(a separate hierarchy)? Like two big cogs (well, a little one and a
>really big one) that just happen to continually meet each other as they
>turn.
>
>I need to read the Bourdieu-Eagleton piece, but I hardly think that the
>'rap enthusiasts' would privilege what Bourdieu may have described as
>the dominant symbolic in that (Bourdieuian conception of the rap or
>popular music) field over their own conceptions of what has symbolic
>capital.
>
>My point is that so called 'popular cultural forms' (if popular cultural
>forms are defined in someway as insufficient relative to some dominant
>dominant) don't need to change anything, if they can be described as
>popular cultural forms, then the change has _already_ happened. Doesn't
>the social topography that Bourdieu sketched radically change if it not
>taken from some bourgeois POV (where the 'dominant' is dominant)?
>
>Some interesting feminist readings of Bourdieu touch on what I am
>talking about, here:
>http://les1.man.ac.uk/sociology/conference/table.htm
>
>In particular this one:
>http://les1.man.ac.uk/sociology/conference/skeggs.pdf
>
>And to a lesser extent, this one:
>http://les1.man.ac.uk/sociology/conference/rulesofengagement.pdf
>
>Ciao,
>Glen.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>[mailto:owner-bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu] On Behalf Of Pam
>Stello
>
>In response to Glen's post:
>
> >what happens with those who are
> > excluded from accruing various capitals because of race, ethnicity,
> >age,  class, or gender.
>
>Bourdieu argued (in a conversation with Eagleton, 1992: 119) that
>because legitimate knowledge in the different fields is determined in
>relation to the dominant conception at any moment in the field of
>cultural production (which is dominated by symbolic capital), on average
>it is unlikely that popular culture can change the structure of the
>dominant culture. Bourdieu and Eagleton discuss Rap specifically in this
>conversation. I think it is the dominant position of the field of
>cultural production over all the other fields in terms of symbolic
>capital that makes it unlikely that popular cultural forms can gain the
>symbolic profits it needs to create change. From reading this, I think
>that for Bourdieu, people who are excluded from accruing certain
>capital, as you write, become a permanent underclass. I am curious if
>others know of places in his work where this is not the case?
>
>
>
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Deborah Kilgore, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership & Policy Studies
Iowa State University
N232 Lagomarcino Hall
Ames, IA  50011-3195
(515) 294-9121, dkilgore-AT-iastate.edu



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