Mapping the study: Some guiding Principles
4.3 Theoretical framework
4.3.2 Bourdieu‟s social practice theory
4.3.2.2 Capital
Bourdieu (1971) argues that agents employ different strategies to either stay in the game, or transform the field by changing the rules of the game. According to Bourdieu (1992), rules can be changed only when values associated with the type of valued capital are changed. Sometimes, those who do not have much investment work to undermine the capital of the dominant group and employ unorthodox strategies. Thus different groups compete in self-interest irrespective of their social class or status. Each competes for capital and does so in ways that are not obvious or explicit.
Bourdieu (1990b) suggests that power refers to a form of worth associated with culturally legitimated and authenticated practices, tastes, dispositions, characteristics and competencies deemed valuable or worthy in a field. According to Bourdieu, capital offers access to power in a field during specified periods of time. As Cheal (2005, p. 156) suggests, capital refers to “a possession that gives individuals that ability to do certain things, such as exercising domination over others”. People who have capital in the field have the power to validate and distinguish worthy practices. Therefore possessing capital means controlling other people‟s futures as well as one‟s own (Postone et al., 1993).
According to Bourdieu (1984), capital functions to structure society. The unequal distribution of social, cultural, and economic capital makes this possible. Bourdieu &
Wacquant, (1992, p. 119) argue that social capital is:
...the sum of resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relations of mutual acquaintance and recognition...
Social capital is acquired through interactions and associations with other people who have social, cultural, and economic capital. Thus associating with those who possess economic or cultural capital increases one‟s own social capital (Bourdieu, 1984).
Social capital therefore is impacted on by group membership or social networks. The mutual benefits provide sustenance for social relationships because they invoke feelings of gratitude, respect and friendship (Cheal, 2005). This interrelationship requires active participation by members within the network. Exchanges of benefits within social networks require resources. Cheal (2005) and Swartz (1997) argue that the more resources at one‟s disposal mean one‟s social capital is more viable. Therefore, those with economic capital have a better chance of acquiring social capital especially if their economic standing is coupled with social competencies and knowledge of “social relations” (Cheal, 2005, p. 158). A person has economic capital when she has access to financial resources that are easily translatable into money. Those with economic power are most of the time high on the hierarchical social ladder because economic capital is a key indicator used as the unit for class differentiation (Bourdieu, 1984).
Cultural capital, on the other hand, is “the knowledge and tastes that are transmitted within families and schools, and that mark those who possess them as socially superior to those who do not” (Cheal, 2005, p. 158). For Bourdieu, cultural capital is an identifier of social class. Bourdieu argues that rather than promoting social change, educational institutions such as schools tend to reproduce existing social relations and inequalities.
This is also supported by Connell (1993), who has considered how ruling class values have informed schooling within Australia. Webb et al (2002, p. 113) also talk about the
“hegemonic view of schooling; a theory which suggests that the role of schools is to make students believe that the existing social relations are just and natural and in their interests.” This theory encourages low achieving students to believe that they are just not
„cut out‟ for school and that they can compensate their lack of academic prowess by pursuing opportunities in other areas, such as sport. For Bourdieu, home and family life play a significant role in social reproduction, because the success of the child in acquiring
the values, dispositions and cultural capital that characterise the school depends on the degree to which the habitus of the school fits that of the child‟s family.
Bourdieu (1984) offers an elaborate explanation of how knowledge and tastes are acquired and mediated through socialization and education in Distinction. Families maintain class membership through making available to their offspring the means to continuing education and through a development of a taste of the finer aspects of life.
Cultural capital is appropriated only by understanding the meanings associated with, for example, mathematical equations or literacy texts (Swartz & Solberg, 2004, p. 41).
Acquiring dispositions and tastes is a lengthy process that requires investment of time.
Cultural capital is also dynamic and requires interactions mediated by power relations in the cultural field.
Additionally, Bourdieu refers to symbolic capital as the “power of constructing reality”
(1991, p. 166). Symbolic capital is defined as the “capacity to construct beliefs about the world and make them seem real” (Cheal, 2005, p. 159). In other words, symbolic capital is the embodiment of the other three capitals even though it is not dependent on any of them for its maintenance. In some instances, symbolic capital can take the form of reputation, prestige or fame and at other times it can be trust and respect associated with these symbols.
Bourdieu (2000) also explains how struggle for capital operates in a field. Those in the field modify their expectations of what capital could be available to them. They make assumptions based on what he calls “subjective hope and objective chances” regarding whether or not the action is worth the risk. Postone et al (1999) have observed that people adjust their expectations basing themselves on how they are positioned in the field and how likely they think they are to change that position. If the profit might be low, chances that they will participate in the game are also low. According to these scholars, agents base their expectations and the likelihood of change on their social and family background, status and class. Therefore those with the least capital are less ambitious and less likely to participate in competing for capital in the field. They become more
submissive and sometimes even fatalistic about their position (Bourdieu, 2000; Postone et al., 1997; Webb et al., 2002).
Despite this, agents with the least capital do compete in the field. In some cases, they experience a level of success or win, thereby increasing their value and affecting a change in their status. Bourdieu, however, suggests that the likelihood of such transformations occurring is low because children are already predisposed by their habitus. The habitus is expressed as the way individuals, through the influence of their experiences and contexts, engage in social practices (Webb et al., 2002). Thus habitus exemplifies how actions and structures relate and how the individual and society interact (Postone et al., 1999) in that agents recognize beforehand their lack of competence to play the game and consequently expect failure as the inevitable outcome.
Bourdieu (1977, p. 72) further argues that habitus is the “product of structures, producer of practices, and reproducer of structures.” In addition, Swartz (1997, p. 102) states that habitus is a “structured structure” deriving from the class-specific experiences of socialisation. According to Swartz (1997), an agent‟s habitus results from one‟s early socialisation experiences through which external structures and limitations are internalised. In other words, habitus generates desires and practices that correspond to the structures of earlier socialisation while at the same time setting the limits for action.
Bourdieu (1977) observes that aspirations and practices of individuals and groups correspond to the formative conditions of their respective habitus. Thus habitus reproduces the attitudes and actions that are in line with the structures within which the habitus itself was produced. Habitus, therefore, is “necessity made into virtue”
(Bourdieu, 1977, p. 95). Bourdieu also suggests that early experience is central in shaping later behaviour and values. To him, these early experiences mould an agent into a state that is difficult to change. However, Cheal (2005) argues that people can act inappropriately in the field if they have not modified their habitus through practice. This implies that for habitus to take root an agent has to practise those activities that constitute it.
Additionally, Swartz (1997) posits that through habitus, individual action is shaped such that particular opportunity structures are maintained. In other words, it represents the generating of self-fulfilling prophecies in accordance with different classes. Swartz (1997) also argues that actors‟ dispositions of habitus force them into practices in which they are likely to succeed or fail depending on their past experiences and resources. Thus people‟s aspirations and prospects are adjusted in relation to the chances of success or failure attributed to members of the particular class for a specific behaviour (Bourdieu, 1991; Cheal, 2005; Swartz, 1997). In other words, this implies that our habitus directs our actions in accordance with the consequences that we anticipate. The argument raised by Bourdieu (1991) is that people‟s habitus legitimates social and economic inequality through people‟s unquestioned acceptance of the conditions of their existence. He argues that social games or life games are not fair.
Bourdieu believes that symbolic power is experienced when agents “voluntarily give up power, because they believe that the particular person has the power to do things” (Cheal, 2005, p. 161). Symbolic power is maintained in the form of perceived benefit for others and for the general good. In essence Bourdieu suggests that the distribution and redistribution of capital is regulated by symbolic capital. Because people believe that those who have symbolic capital have power, they give over their own power voluntarily.
Symbolic power, therefore, exists “because the person who submits to it believes that it exists” (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 192). Despite these arguments, Bourdieu agrees with Nietzsche (1966) in pointing out that people always act out of self-interest in any circumstance. He argues that every act is interest driven and that people have a „will to power‟ (Nietzsche, 1966). All activities are informed by self-interest and are governed by the rules of the specific field in which the activity takes place, as well as the agent‟s place within that field.
Another manifestation of symbolic power is through what Bourdieu (1990b) calls symbolic violence. Misrecognition is fundamental to understanding symbolic violence.
Violence in Bourdieu‟s terms is understood as enforcing power in ways that cannot be explained in justifiable terms. This enforcement, however, is not forceful but rather
operates through complicity. To Bourdieu, an agent is subjected to symbolic violence with her complicity. Thus agents can be given subordinate positions, denied access to certain public positions and spaces without them recognising this as violence. They take this as the way life should be.
The relationship between misrecognition and symbolic violence can be seen in the way gender relations have been traditionally defined in terms of male domination. According to Webb et al (2002, p. 25), “patriarchy cannot be understood simply in terms of women‟s coercion by men”. They posit that “gender domination takes place because women misrecognise the symbolic violence to which they are subjected as something natural.” As a consequence, women become complicit in producing the very performances that work to mark their domination. They implicitly recognize the existence of hierarchy in the field but rationalise this as the way the world is, as natural (Cheal, 2005; Webb et al., 2002).