Class, Culture and Politics: On the Relevance of a Bourdieusian Concept of Class in Political Sociology

2017

In this article we use qualitative interviews to examine how Norwegians possessing low volumes of cultural and economic capital demarcate themselves symbolically from the lifestyles of those above and below them in social space. In downward boundary drawing, a range of types of people are regarded as inferior because of perceived moral and aesthetic deficiencies. In upward boundary drawing, anti-elitist sentiments are strong: people practising resource-demanding lifestyles are viewed as harbouring 'snobbish' and 'elitist' attitudes. However, our analysis suggests that contemporary forms of anti-elitism are far from absolute, as symbolic expressions of privilege are markedly less challenged if they are parcelled in a 'down-to-earth' attitude. Previous studies have shown attempts by the privileged to downplay differences in cross-class encounters, accompanied by displays of openness and down-to-earthness. Our findings suggest that there is in fact a symbolic 'market' for such performances in the lower region of social space. This cross-class sympathy, we argue, helps naturalize, and thereby legitimize, class inequalities. The implications of this finding are outlined with reference to current scholarly debates about politics and populism, status and recognition and intersections between class and gender in the structuring of social inequalities. The article also contributes key methodological insights into the mapping of symbolic boundaries. Challenging Lamont's influential framework, we demonstrate that there is a need for a more complex analytical strategy rather than simply measuring the 'relative salience' of various boundaries in terms of their occurrence in qualitative interview data. In distinguishing analytically between usurpationary and exclusionary boundary strategies, we show that moral boundaries in particular can take on qualitatively different forms and that subtypes of boundaries are sometimes so tightly intertwined that separating them to measure their relative salience would neglect the complex ways in which they combine to engender both aversion to and sympathies for others.

show abstract

Section: Concluding Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A struggle on two fronts: boundary drawing in the lower region of the social space and the symbolic market for ‘down‐to‐earthness’

2017

show abstract

“…However, it is striking that very few studies of class and lifestyle have found this same opposition. While it cannot be ruled out that national particularities lie behind this, we would also point to the fact that studies which actually model a social space, such as the one we have performed here, are few and far between (though see Cvetičanin and Popescu ; Flemmen et al ; Harrits ; Prieur, Rosenlund and Skjott‐Larsen ; Rosenlund ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 79%

Class and status: on the misconstrual of the conceptual distinction and a neo‐Bourdieusian alternative

Rosenlund

2018

In this article, we address the classical debate about the relationship between the economic and cultural aspects of social stratification, typically cast in terms of Weber’s distinction between class and status. We discuss in particular Chan and Goldthorpe’s influential, yet largely unchallenged, attempt to reinstate a strict version of the class‐status distinction, mounted as an attack on ‘Bourdieusian’ accounts. We argue that this is unconvincing in two respects: There are fundamental problems with their conceptualization of status, producing a peculiar account where one expression of status honour explains the other; in addition, their portrayal of the Bourdieusian approach as one‐dimensional is highly questionable. In contradiction of a reading of Bourdieu as discarding the class‐status distinction, we develop an alternative, neo‐Bourdieusian account that recognizes class and status as distinct aspects of stratification, thereby allowing for a subtle analysis of their empirical entwinement. The fruitfulness of this approach is demonstrated by analysing the homology between the space of lifestyles and the social space through Multiple Correspondence Analysis of unusually rich data about lifestyles. Importantly, we highlight the relative autonomy of these spaces: Although they exhibit a similar structure, they do not overlap completely.

show abstract

“…This problem is related to the broader question of how the association between cultural tastes and political attitudes can be made sense of. One interpretation that has emerged in recent work (see, e.g., De Keere ; Harrits ) is that political attitudes are not only indicative of matters directly related to politics in the narrow sense; they can also be seen as a political taste that is socially and symbolically defined vis‐à‐vis other political tastes. This would mean that the association between ‘omnivorousness’ and liberal politics reflects the fact that political taste constitutes a dimension of lifestyle that is expected of status‐group members, in much the same way as cultural taste does.…”

Section: Are Liberals Open and Tolerant?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Omnivorousness and openness: comments to Tak Wing Chan

Rosenlund

2019