Cultural Capital
From Geography
If we want to understand the concept of cultural capital we must know the origin of it. The founder of the concept cultural capital is Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist who was born in Paris in 1930 and died in 2002.
Pierre Bourdieu thought that the acts from individuals aren’t just determined by something as abstract as society (structure), but he also disagrees with the idea that human activity by individuals can completely emerge by itself (agency). He thinks it’s a combination of it and therefore tries to find a compromise by saying that human activity is partly determined by structures and partly by choice.
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Power
Pierre Bourdieu develops his line of thought by raising the issue of power. There are a lot of different fields in society in which a continues power struggle is going on. For instance: politics, arts and science. In each field specific rules apply to which everyone has to comply. Pierre Bourdieu is inspired by the German sociologist Max Weber who invented the stratification theory.
Cultural capital
If you want to have influence (power) in a particular field you need capital. According to Pierre Bourdieu capital corresponds to structural principes that appear if there is interaction in many social spaces between different actors. This also describes which abilities the actors obtain from the structural conditions in their situations.
According to Pierre Bourdieu there are multiple forms of capital. The most important forms are economic capital, social capital and cultural capital. The forms of capital ... are only partly interchangeable among one another (Lippuner & Werlen, 2009, p. 47).
Cultural capital contains knowledge and skills, that are linked to each other by education . It beholds the practices where people can wield power and status because of their educational credentials, general cultural awareness and aesthetic preferences (Macionis & Plummer, 2008, p.139). Furthermore it contains all sorts of competences of dealing with semantic and signs. These skills together provide us with the ability to participate in different language games and to fulfill the corresponding expectations. The cultural capital does create class distinctions. It provides categories in the sense of what peopele are, what they have done, where they have gone, who knows about what and so on. This cultural capital is unevenly distributed in societies. But it helps people distinct them from others. Actors in each field develop a habitus, a sort of thinking and acting through which they can maintain their position in the field. This habitus is shaped by the interplay of individuals and then structured in order to gain more influence through the action of the actor.
Three forms of cultural capital
Cultural capital exists in three different forms: the embodied form, the objectified form and the institutionalized form. The embodied form of cultural capita means that there is a competence that is attached to the actor who is holding it, also know as the bearer. The objectified form of cultural means that objects can also be a form of cultural capital by themselves if they function as an embodied form of cultural capital. The institutionalized form of cultural capital means thaht cultural development appears in a formal way.
References:
- Campbell, T. (1981) Seven Theories of Human Society. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Chapter 8: Max Weber: An Action Theory. pp. 169-189.
- Lippuner, R., Werlen, B. (2009). Structuration Theory. In: International Encyclopedia for Human Geography. Elsevier.
- Weininger, E., Lareau, A. N.D. http://www.brockport.edu/sociology/faculty/Cultural_Capital.pdf
- Werlen, B. (2009) Everyday Regionalizations. In: International Encyclopedia for Human Geography. Elsevier.
- Macionis, J. & Plummer, K. (2008). Sociology. A global introduction. 4th edition, Pearson Education LTD.
Contributors
- Page Published by Ingram Smit & Henkjan van Maanen
- Page enhanced by Lieke Vogels - 19 october 2012
- Page edited by Michiel van Rijn - 25 October 2012
