Exploring and applying Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of taste, class and classification to modern day subcultures, and examining such results.
The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu was one of the earliest theorists to examine the question of symbolic consumption, outlining in particular the ways in which consumption, s an everyday practice, is implicated in ideology and capitalist hierarchies. (Lewis, J, 2008. P220)
Pierre Bourdieu, born and raised in France was a sociologist, anthropologist and philosopher. He was well educated and came from a modest social background. While working as a teacher he was deployed to Algeria during its War of Independence. After serving his time in Algeria, he stayed there and wrote his first book, Sociologie de l’Algeria. It was an instant hit.
Once he returned he worked in many Universities eventually taking over the Centre de Sociologie Européenne, which he directed until his death.
His work emphasized the social dynamics and the frameworks in which society was constructed. Bourdieu pioneered investigative terminologies such as the cultural, social and symbolic capital as well as the concepts of the habitus.
He looked to fellow theorists such as Karl Marx, Max Weber and Ludwig Wittenstein in his work. He also rejected the idea of the ‘total intellectual’ as embodied by Jean-Paul Sartre. (Wikipedia, 2014)
He is best known for his book, In Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Bourdieu, P, 1984).
This book outlines the various ways in which people conduct their lives in reflection to one another and social institutions.
Bourdieu establishes his belief in how taste functions as a type of social structure, a guideline to society’s orientation in education, social ...
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...2nd ed. London: SAGE Publications. p3-20.
Lewis, J (2008). Cultural Studies The Basics. 2nd ed. London: SAGE Publications. P220-222
Lewis, J (2008). Cultural Studies The Basics. 2nd ed. London: SAGE Publications. P395-403
Alfrey, L,M. 2010, The Search for Authenticity: How Hipsters Transformed from a
Local Subculture to a Global Consumption Collective', MA thesis, Georgetown University, Washington DC, viewed 10 April 2014,
Shenkman, M. (2011). Bourdieu’s Theory and the Hipster in Society . Available: https://www.academia.edu/2007795/Bourdieus_Theory_and_the_Hipster_in_Society. Last accessed 12 April 2014.
Wikipedia. (2014). Cultural hegemony. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony. Last accessed 12 April 2014.
Wikipedia. (2014). Pierre Bourdieu. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Bourdieu. Last accessed 1st March 2014.
In Justin Pearson's memoir, From the Graveyard of the arousal Industry, he recounts the events that occured from his early years of adolesence to the latter years of his adulthood telling the story of his unforgiving and candid life. Set in the late 1970s "Punk" rock era, From the Graveyard of the Arousal Industry offers a valuable perspective about the role culture takes in our lives, how we interact with it and how it differs from ideology.
Yet, Ewen’s trends, fashions and styles that could be appropriately deemed traditions, are not explored from the perspective of tradition. Upon comparing the issues of identity crises suggested in A Bugs Life with those in Stewart Ewen’s The Chosen People, the sources and characteristics of identity crises in Ewen’s essay are found incomplete. Ewen limits his exploration of the sources and characteristics of identity crises of the middle class to consumerism and materialism as well as the obsession with image, style and fashion. By restricting his analysis to these issues, Ewen overlooks the perspectives of identity crises in relationship to tradition, the positive aspects of conformity and gender roles.
Calder’s Thesis for this book follows the development of American consumer culture from its unorganized infancy around the 1890’s to about the 1940’s. There are several references to credit and debt outside this range as a reference to where we started and w...
In Highbrow, Lowbrow, Levine argues that a distinction between high and low culture that did not exist in the first half of the 19th century emerged by the turn of the century and solidified during the 20th century, and that despite a move in the last few decades toward a more ecumenical interpretation of “culture,” the distinction between high art and popular entertainment and the revering of a canon of sacred, inalterable cultural works persists. In the prologue Levine states that one of his central arguments is that concepts of cultural boundaries have changed over the period he treats. Throughout Highbrow, Lowbrow, Levine defines culture as a process rather than a fixed entity, and as a product of interactions between the past and the present.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction- A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984)
Every French citizen is falling into the clutches of consumerism and conformity. We are turning into a trinket society, worshipping of a mammon, and witnessing to the death of our beloved culture. I shed a tear to think we are turning into a materialistic society like that of America where as whose society is dynamic and derived from consumer-driven economic growth. In falling into consumerism we are generating an endless increase of desires that can not b satisfied by the means that which we live in France. This lifestyle alienates the consumer to form bondage around them; it does not free them. The society in America is of destruction, not to b...
Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist. The place in France where he came from was a place where their language and way of speaking was a source of pride. Bourdieu was actually brought up in Bourgois and Schonfelds work. His idea of symbolic capital was incorporated into their work. Symbolic capital is basically a type of wealth that provides a person with a sort of social power. Everyone has some sort of symbolic capital even if they themselves do not realize it. With symbolic capital the one with higher symbolic capital has a dominance over those with lower symbolic capitals. This can be found in linguistic and cultural anthropology as well as in
Strinati, D. (2004). An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture (pp. 52-79). New York, NY USA: Taylor & Francis.
Jameson, Fredric. "Postmodernism and Consumer Society". The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticis. 2001. Reprint. New York: Norton & Company, 2010. 1846-1860. Print.
This cultural theorist and analyst was born in Cherbourg, a port-city northwest of Paris. His parents were Louis Barthes, a naval officer, and Henriette Binger. His father died in 1916, during combat in the North Sea. In 1924, Barthes and his mother moved to Paris, where he attended (1924-30) the Lycee Montaigne. Unfortunately, he spent long periods of his youth in sanatoriums, undergoing treatment for TB. When he recovered, he studied (1935-39) French and the classics at the University of Paris. He was exempted from military service during WW II (he was ill with TB during the period 1941-47). Later, when he wasn't undergoing treatment for TB, he taught at a variety of schools, including the Lycees Voltaire and Carnot. He taught at universities in Rumania (1948-49) and Egypt (1949-50) before he joined (in 1952) the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, where he devoted his time to sociology and lexicology.
Algeria, causing him to lose his job and he moved to Paris. Albert Camus also
Bourdieu’s theory of distinction, judgement, and taste are rooted in education and then secondly, familial economic class. Through exposure and experiences we develop culture capital, which is all about being in the know. The more exposure an individual has, the more they know about the world and therefore, the more culture capital they consume. As a result of having culture capital one has the ability to decipher different symbolic codes because they are aware of more context. A hipster has a very specific culture capital that diverges from the mainstream and is ever evolving because they constantly have to be in the know and consume the latest trends before it becomes popular. Then only people with certain cultural
In order to study and understand pop culture we must first and foremost confront the
At only 16, Auguste attended the Lycee Joffre and the University of Montpellier (Crossman). He later was admitted to Ecole Polytechnique, which was located in Paris (Wikipedia). The school later closed in 1816 and in 1817 Auguste made his home in Paris (Crossman). Auguste had no way to support himself. He later earned a living teaching mathematics and journalism (Crossman). Auguste was a brilliant
Max Weber was opposed to Marx and believed that his theory was an oversimplification of history. He thought Marx’s view of history was too focused on economics and was not considering the role of ideas and values as causes. Weber felt that scientific, historical, and philosophical causation was so connected with economic development that they can not be