Pierre Bourdieu(1930-2002), the most sophisticated theorist of cultural value was a

French sociologist who wrote extensively on the relationship between consumption

and cultural capital. He is really a theorist of taste. He stated that good taste in food was
an expression of different lifestyles and positions within a hierarchical class system.
Bourdieu rejects the traditional notion that “taste” is developed through innate and
individual choices. Instead, he says that taste is socially conditioned and used as a
“social weapon” to create distance between different classes of society. Cultural capital
with regard to food could refer to knowledge of a healthy diet or ethical food practices.
According to Bourdieu, social class shapes food preferences and practices through
access to resources like time and money to eat and prepare food in a particular
manner.

His basic argument in his major work Distinction (1984), is as follows: modern society
is divided into different and hierarchized taste communities whose particular
tastes, interests, knowledges and skills are not acquired contingently. (He
reduces the differences in culture to three: ‘legitimate’, ‘middle-brow’ and ‘popular’). The
gradated taste differences have a particular social function: they help reproduce those
class divisions that they map onto. For Bourdieu, tastes are a key constituent of
cultural capital, and everyone has more or less cultural capital.

The most important forms of capital are economic and cultural capital. The former
corresponds to the individual’s economic resources while the latter includes such
factors as: 1.) cultural knowledge, skills, experiences, abilities; 2.) linguistic
competence, modes of speech, vocabulary, and 3.) modesof thought, factual
knowledge, world views, etc. The most important fact about cultural capital is that it
is generally acquired unreflectively via socialization in one’s family, social class,
neighbourhood, sub-culture, etc. Moreover, it is reinforced by the institutional forces
(e.g., schools, churches, welfare systems, etc) that one is exposed to as a result of the
localional accident of one’s birth.

Tastes also exists within and organize what he calls a ‘habitus’, that is, the set of
dispositions, preferences and classifications that people are not necessarily
aware of holding and often seem ‘natural’, but which are continually acted upon
and acted out, even, for instance, in the way we move and care for our bodies. A
habitus is the way that cultural capital is regulated and lived, and it bridges the
material conditions of existence (class difference in terms of work and money) and the
signs and practices through which different groups place themselves within the social
hierarchy (ie culture).

Individuals from the dominant class inherit more cultural capital than those from the
dominated class, just as they do more economic capital. They learn to appreciate and
contextualize high culture. And they learn the rules and discourses that regulate and
legitimate it. In particular, they acquire the skills to recognize the aesthetic domain
aesthetic rather than simply as entertainment or as technical accomplishment. They
learn to take a disinterested and mediated attitude to art: appreciating it as an end in
itself. Such cultural capitalcan be transferred to economic capital in various ways, but it
is especially important for those Bourdieu calls the ‘dominated fraction’ of the dominated
class, who make up for their relative lack of money and status by acquiring relatively
more cultural capital.

Another concept that is important in Bourdieu’s theory is the idea of ‘fields’, which are
the various social and institutional arenas in which people express and reproduce their
dispositions, and where they compete for the distribution of different kinds of capital. A
field is a network, structure or set of relationships which may be intellectual,
religious, educational, cultural, etc. People often experience power differently
depending which field they are in at a given moment, so context and environment are
key influences on habitus:

‘Bourdieu’s accounts for the tensions and contradictions that arise when people
encounter and are challenged by different contexts. His theory can be used to explain
how people can resist power and domination in one [field] and express complicity in
another’

Fields help explain the differential power, for example, that women experience in public
or private, as Moncrieffe shows in her interview with a Ugandan woman MP who has
public authority but is submissive to her husband when at home .This has been widely
observed by feminist activists and researchers, and is another way of saying that
women and men are socialised to behave differently in ‘public, private and intimate’
arenas of power

A final important concept in Bourdieu’s understanding of power is that of ‘doxa’, which is

the combination of both orthodox and heterodox norms and beliefs – the unstated,
taken-for-granted assumptions or ‘common sense’ behind the distinctions we make.
Doxa happens when we ‘forget the limits’ that have given rise to unequal divisions in
society: it is ‘an adherence to relations of order which, because they structure
inseparably both the real world and the thought world, are accepted as self-evident’

Bourdieu proposed a differentiation between a “taste of necessity” and a “taste of

luxury”. The upper classes would indulge in food that reflected a refined palette. Such
highly exclusive foods would be marked by low supply and high demand. Bourdieu
reflected that food was like any luxury product that denoted a sense of class and
distinctions to its consumers. For example, foie grass might be viewed as a luxury food
in the United States. On the other hand, lower-class groups would indulge in readily
available foods that are marked by high supply and low demand. For example,
potatoes, pasta and corn are viewed as popular food items for the lower classes.
Following Bourdieu, it can be argued that consumer preferences in food are
deeply rooted in a class-based hierarchy that is promoted by hegemonic cultural
trends.

Quick Revision

Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002)

French sociologist ,Public intellectual
Bourdieu on Kinds of Capital
Economic capital (what you have)
Cultural capital (what you know)
Social capital (who you know)

Cultural Capital

Bourdieu (1977): “Instruments for the

appropriation of symbolic wealth socially
designated as worthy of being sought and
possessed”

ie: Knowledge, education, and skills which give

social advantages/higher status in society, passed
down by parents/schools/social groups

• Educational capital: educational credentials and

experiences

• Social background: socialization (including

knowledge or skills) from parents or group

• Cultural tastes themselves

◦ Food and our practices around food consumption

Social Capital

Bourdieu (1986): “The aggregate of the actual or potential resources which

are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less
institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition – or in
other words, to membership in a group – which provides each of its
members with the backing of the collectivity-owned capital, a ‘credential’
which entitles them to credit, in the various senses of the word”
 possession of a network of relationships –
memberships– which provides each of its
members with a ‘credential’

• family,

• class,

• school,

• political party, etc.

Habitus

“Habitus is a system of dispositions, that is of permanent manners of being, seeing,

acting and thinking. Or a system of long-lasting (rather than permanent) schemes or
schemata or structures of perception, conception and action” (Bourdieu )

“Systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to

function as structuring structures, that is, as principles which generate and organize
practices and representations that can be objectively adapted to their outcomes
without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the
operations necessary in order to attain them” (Bourdieu).

Habitus

It’s the built-in, subconscious way that we perceive and categorize things in the
world, because of how we were raised, without knowing that we’re doing it, that
structures our tastes and actions.

(Distinction, Intro)

“Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Social subjects, classified by their
classifications, distinguish themselves by the distinctions they make, between the
beautiful and the ugly, the distinguished and the vulgar, in which their position in the
objective classifications is expressed or betrayed. And statistical analysis does indeed
show that oppositions similar in structure to those found in cultural practices also
appear in eating habits.”

Bourdieu’s claim: Everyday tastes are not arbitrary, but based on power and
social status
“esthetic stances … in cosmetics, clothing or home decoration are opportunities to
experience or assert ones’ position in social space, as a rank to be upheld, or a
distance to be kept”

Bourdieu on 1960s food preferences in France

Working class:

◦ “the working class meal is characterized by plenty … and freedom”

◦ Impression of abundance, especially for men ◦ Plates are filled twice

◦ Abundant dishes brought to the table

◦ Soups, pastas, potatoes, served with a ladle or spoon

Bourgeoisie:

◦ Strict form: sequencing of the courses

◦ Fish, meat, cheese, dessert

◦ Healthy, less fatty

Working class:

◦ Preferences for charcuterie, pork, pot-au-feu, cassoulet,

Industrial and Commercial Employers, Foreman, Craftsman, Grocers

◦ Similar tastes as working class but more money

◦ More wine, fois gras, pastry

Professionals and Executives

◦ More meat, fresh vegetables, less fat,

Clerks, teachers,

◦ Exoticism: Italian, Chinese cooking, health food, curry

Bourdieu’s position

"Curry” and "light meats" like beef are "legitimized"

Cassoulet and stews and “non-light meats” like pork are not

This is an arbitrary distinction ,designed to assert/confirm status/power