comments

[weiwei]

Bourdieu’s theory has received many criticisms from American scholars.
Holt (1998) attempted to support Bourdieu’s theory by arguing that
most works that criticize it only measure objectified cultural
capital. Although it is easy to get data by measuring objectified
cultural capital, it becomes less effective “since it depends on
cultural categories and genres for which necessary levels of cultural
competence are immanent and vary significantly”. Hence, he proposed
that in the contemporary United States, when exploring tastes and
consumption practices, embodied cultural capital should be measured
rather than objectified cultural capital (categories of consumption
objects). I agree with this proposal.

I also have a concern regarding Holt's study. According to Bourdieu's
theory, one's capital is a combination of economic and cultural
capital. However, in Holt's study, he does not mention the informants'
economic capital background, which, to some level, determines people's
taste too. He only distinguishes the taste of the informants between
low cultural capital and high cultural capital. Compared with this
article, I think "Toward A Theory of Status Consumption in Less
Industrialized Countries" by Holt and Usterner (2009) is more
convincing, because the authors give the details of their informants'
economic status--upper-middle class. They compare the tastes of people
with the same economic capital but different cultural capital. I
believe it is meaningful to use cultural capital to distinguish tastes
only when the people are of the same economic background.

[Sharon]

According to Bourdieu, cultural capital is expressed in the field of consumption through tastes and consumption practices. In a seemingly deterministic process, we are born into a certain class-fraction, develop a habitus that draws from the cultural capital of our class and of our personal trajectory, and that determines what and how we consume. The main question this description raises is how relevant it is for other countries and times in history. 

Since Holt's two groups of informants differ dramatically in their cultural and economic capital, and since the trajectories within each group are very similar (we don't see, for example, a university professor who comes from a working class family), all it yields is the conclusion that rich and highly educated people consume differently than poor uneducated one. It doesn't even fully support the (potentially interesting) conclusion that both groups consume the same things, only in a different manner.

But this doesn't really answer the question of Bourdieu's relevance to here and now, because it doesn't say anything about people's ability to change their habitus, to use tastes and ways of consumption in order to advance themselves socially. Is the process of generating the habitus and its expressions really as deterministic as Bourdieu describes it? Even in 21st century America?

"Toward A Theory of Status Consumption in Less Industrialized Countries" by Holt and Usterner is more interesting in that sense, and I think it ultimately supports Bourdieu's view - even those who try to travel far and adopt different practices and tastes end up feeling like they're failing the task, and their imitation never becomes second nature.

[Gemma]

“Cultural capital exists in three primary forms: implicit practical knowledges, skills, and dispositions; objectified in cultural objects and institutionalized in official degrees and diplomas that certify the existence of the embodied form”

The status of cultural elites in the United States depends on several factors beyond what Bourdieu mentions. There are major differences between what people view as a cultural elite depending on their location in the United States. For example, economic capital is weighted more heavily in certain areas of the country over cultural capital, such as in the Midwest, whereas in major cities with large artistic communities cultural capital is more highly valued. I am unsure why Holt chose a small city in rural central Pennsylvania to act as a representative body, indicative of the tastes of the respective social groups. The greatest flaws in his study were that he was much too conservative and had too few participants.

I agree with Holt’s statement that it is a “misnomer to equate materialism with status seeking” (20). Materialism is engrained in American culture as a whole, not necessarily as a specific characterization of HCC’s or LCC’s. In addition, I find Holt’s connection to HCC support for small, locally owned shops to decommodification very fascinating. It relates back to Bourddieu’s claim that the upper classes detest what is considered common and enjoyed by the masses, and also to the question why people are buying organic. Organic products can be viewed by the HCC as outside the mass market, authentic, and artisanal. Organics could even be compared to the natural fibres and fabrics from the Schneider article in that the response to these products is a “reflective reworking of priorities, conditioned by the formation of new social groups” (10).

Overall, I agree with Holt’s assessment that Distinction still holds some truth for American society, solely pertaining to the Western lifestyle, and it would be interesting to further apply this study to the current environmental movement and sustainability issues.

[Shan]

Although I do not feel competent to evaluate Holt's argument in the
ways that my colleagues have, I can say that, for a newcomer to the
study of consumption, the article is helpful in trying to deepen my
understanding of Bourdieu and in thinking about the ways that his work
might and might not be applicable in an American context in the 21st
century. Holt rehearses the basic outlines of what we've read in
Bourdieu and, in grappling with Bourdieu's critics, sets Bourdieu in a
wider frame of sociological conversation, providing a window onto the
issue of translating his theory into a different socio-cultural
context.

One of my primary questions this week has to do with Holt's (and,
perhaps, Bourdieu's) notion of the individual self. Holt talks about
HCCs' "pursuit of individuality through consumption" (13) and stresses
the importance of "self-actualizing experiences" for HCCs (17). He
further describes the development of one LCC's "subjective sense of
self" through her commitment to folk dancing (16) and makes additional
critical comments along these lines, mostly with regard to other HCCs.
Within the field of sociology, what does it mean to talk about the
individual, about subjectivity, about the self? I ask because I am
currently studying different ways the so-called subjective self is
constructed and practiced (from Kenneth Gergen's saturated self to
Charles Taylor's buffered self to James Holstein and Jaber Gubrium's
narrative self); thus, these waters are necessarily troubled for me.
How is the self typically understood in the sociological literature
(if there is such a thing as typical in your field), and how does it
fit with Holt's account of a self that seems to be the negotiation
site for competing for cultural capital?

[Drew Love]

Holt argues that Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital as an
indication of class affiliation holds true even though Bourdieu's
theory was based upon research of France in the 1960's-1970's. Despite
the different geographical, chronological, and cultural setting that
Holt analyzes, there appear to be few major disagreements with
Bourdieu's theory of often differentiates the lower classes from the
higher classes.

Among many the distinctions that separate HCCs from LCCs, Holt
identifies the lower class' affinity for what is local and immediately
tangible, versus the higher class' affinity for global concerns and
cerebral discussions (10). These distinctions hold true whether the
interviewer is discussing cuisine, movies, literature, or news.

My current understanding of environmental sustainability is that it is
largely an HCC value. While one could argue that tangible effects of
climate change and environmental collapse are occurring throughout the
world, it is often difficult to see a direct causal relationship
between environmental degradation and its consequences such as polar
ice cap melt, species extinction etc. Instead, sustainability is often
portrayed as a global concern, communicated through statistics and
other intellectual forms of communication, and most commonly voiced by
"liberal" news outlets that rarely speak to a specific community. In
other words, because sustainability is presented as a global and
mostly cerebral issue the HCC community is predisposed to caring about
it, while the LCC community is prejudiced to it. How does one present
an issue, or a value system, that transcends the boundaries that so
frequently separate HCC and LCC belief systems?

[Tom Laidley]

I agree with Drew's take. Environmentalism was successful over the decades, in my opinion, chiefly due to a confluence of two things: 1) It being mostly the purview of the white upper-middle class (at least in terms of activism and creating a discourse; the environmental justice movement is an exception, but relates to my second point...) 2) many of the goals of the environmental movement circa 1970- ~2000 [before climate change really came onto the scene in a substantial way] were concerned with *immediate* problems that threatened material security (localized air pollution, tainted water, toxic contamination, etc.). These problems were real, tangible, and they helped bring in poorer folks to the fold, who had to experience the problems moreso than others. This development was good; it made sure that we weren't just talking about a nature preserve or Audubon societies, but where we were siting incinerators, coal power plants, etc.

How is climate change different? Well, Beck provides one (of many) good answers next week. Risks are spread out globally. They are spatially and temporally distant (at least for the postindustrial north). They are abstract, and difficult to grasp. While people may connect 'weird' weather to the issue, they aren't reading Lancet (who's connecting this to public health issues, which are substantial), nor are they, at some point in the near future, watching their home wash away, like those in Bangladesh (you can argue some geographies- New Orleans, Amsterdam, etc.- don't fit this narrative...that's fair, but did most people articulate the failure of those levees to climate change, or to the ineptitude of the Army Corps. of Engineers and FEMA?). Is this to say people are dupes, or stupid? Of course not. But it's *one* (among many other) reasons why 1) we don't see climate change as motivating people, at least as much as some earlier environmental movements, and 2) how it can be connected to Bourdieu's theory.

How can this be counteracted? In my personal opinion, this is as much a problem of cultural capital as economic constraints, as real as I believe the latter are when we're talking CSA's (500.00 outlay for a season of produce), hybrid cars (5k premium; more if electric), etc. etc. Frankly, there's no easy answer here. Attempts to connect climate change to the 'here and now' are usually undertaken by, well, quite frankly, scare tactics. And those are, in my opinion, really bad ways to motivate people (not normatively, just pragmatically). I'm afraid I don't have any answer for that one, nor do I suspect many others would proffer one.

As to the determinism point- no, it's not rigidly deterministic. While I won't draw broad inferences from my own biography, the only people in my entire extended families to attend college (generationally prior) are two of my dad's brothers, who went to Northeastern when it was still a commuter school for criminology students and budding engineers. Now, their kid is in a Ph.D. program. Is it the rule? Absolutely not.

Then again, there are certain things that I can never mobilize away from. After a few beers, I'll always start dropping my R's...and that's as good a tell as any. This might seem glib or stupid, but to me it's a fair illustration of the freedoms and constraints of the habitus.

[Tom Laidley]

Sorry, I'm bad with trying to cull questions from this. I suppose my uncertainty in how to proceed vis-a-vis LCC/sustainability can be considered an open (and vexing) question.

[Gerone Lockhart]

[Note: I think this should go under the thread for the February 8
readings, but I'll follow the pattern already started.]

Holt queries, “But is it true that social class is no longer produced
through distinctive social patterns of consumption?” Is social class
as he uses it equivalent to self-styled “individual” identities (that
is, identities constructed within an “I am an individual” discourse)
that are none the less inexorably social and relational in their
production?

Holt focuses on the pursuit of individuality through consumption
(13-17). That may be a slightly different matter than understanding
how one's understanding of oneself as an individual affects the
meaning of consumption? For example, does the concept of "self as
individual" promote a depoliticized view of consumption? If so, under
what conditions?

[Margaret Lister]

Like Gemma, I was unsure why Holt chose to base his study in Happy Valley. Among fellow Pennsylvanians, State College and Central PA are regarded as areas of "low-culture"-- perhaps Holt was trying to show that HCC's do not necessarily have to be based on the coasts, or in cities? The issue of the geographic orientation of HCC's vs LCC's would be interesting to explore. 

I find Gerone's point of individuality through consumption particularly interesting in light of the Usterner/Holt article. Turkish elites (be it Western-minded HCCs or Turkish-Western LCCs) are intensely focused on "fitting in" and being in uniform with the rest of their social class. One woman described how every woman in her social set purchased the same designer handbag. Usterner/Holt also describe how intensely LCCs strive to fit in and appropriately follow trends, saying that LCCs "have no interest in improvising or improving on their own" (13) during vacations. While individuality remains important for HCCs, LCC's top priority is homogenization. As the authors point out, this runs counter to Bourdieu's socialized habitus, but operates "rather through a strategic by-the-book pursuit of tastes that have been explicity definied and circulate in the discourse" (29). As Turkey emerges socially and educationally, will this by-the-book mode of cultural capital continue to operate, or will Bourdieu's theories be applicable as well?

The overall message of consumption from the Holt/Usterner article was that people only do what is in style, and what other people (be it Turkish elites or Westerners) have already decided is fashionable and acceptable. How will this play into environmental issues-- will the trickle-down effect come in from the West, affect the HCC's, and move toward the LCC's? The global trickle-down effect has been previously argued against (2-4), but the emergence of a desperately Westernizing Turkish elite makes it seem more plausible. How will environmental issues reach prominence in less developed countries, and how will they alter their consumption patterns?

[Drew Love]

Hi All, 

I read this article a while ago and thought it was relevant to our class discussion. The premise is that globalization has created a new class of elites who are no longer bound by geographical barriers. Instead of having American elites, who differ from Russian elites, there is now a small class of uber elites who have more in common with each other due to economic capital and cultural capital than they would have in common with members of their own country. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/the-rise-of-the-new-global-elite/8343/

[John Petroff]

Throughout Holt's piece on American consumption, it was fairly easy to
distinguish that sustainable habits are more likely to come from HCCs.
HCCs tend to value idealism over materialism which has always been a
significant driving force behind environmentalism. Furthermore, HCCs
have a greater appreciation of a global perspective and thus would be
more likely to alter consumption habits based on reports of global
warming, and HCCs avoid mass-produced goods (though not necessarily in
the name of environmentalism) which is another step toward sustainable
consumption. The only constraint to HCCs regarding sustainable habits
seems to be economic capital (see Tom's reference to CSAs and hybrid
cars). After reading this piece, it was difficult to think of any
circumstance in which HCCs with high economic capital would not also
consider the environment in their consumption decisions.
After reaching this conclusion, it was shocking to see the HCCs of
Turkey base their consumption decisions on the unsustainable practices
of middle class America. Holt and Ustener explain this phenomenon by
noting that cultural capital in Turkey, and possibly other LICs, is
based on the perceived Western lifestyle. Does this mean that steps
towards global sustainability will not be possible until
environmentalism becomes mainstream in the West? Will environmentalism
have to be as synonymous with middle-class America as conspicuous
consumption currently is in order for environmentalism to catch on in
upper-middle class LIC society? While conspicuous consumption in LICs
may not have quite the environmental impact that it does in the West,
this possibility is still concerning.

> http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/the-rise-of-the-n...

[maria grinko]

Jane Schneider's article discussed the consequences of polyester's labeling as an "egalitarian" or "equalizing" fabric that made fashion "no longer a matter of one-upmanship." Her thesis is that the turn away from polyester to natural materials had less to do with 1. the "automatons" theory or 2. the "marketing manipulation theory," and more to do with the formation of new social strata. A while back we talked about the pros/cons of co-option in the organic food market.Schneider's article made me wonder: has the turn to eco-friendly products occurred because of or in spite of realignments in social groups due to globalization/technology/mass media/etc? Could the fabrics industry be a prophecy for organic food/products or other eco-friendly practices, in terms of gentrification?

[Hyemi]

Generally, tastes have been considered as insignificant outputs of
personal selection or as one’s natural and innate disposition.
Bourdieu, however, states that one's tastes are formed socially and
culturally. According to Bourdieu, class and ideological
characteristics underlie one’s personal taste. In other words,
Bourdieu sees taste as something created by the social conditions of
class and that one’s tastes are "distinctive signs of class". Hence,
cultural tastes strengthen class structures and perpetuate the
continuity of them.

Bourdieu also introduces the concept of “Habitus” in order to explain
how tastes work systematically. Habitus is a kind of collective taste
that, in large part, unconsciously organizes and structuralizes one's
practice. Depending on one's class, habitus and consequently one’s
tastes are formed. For example, the tastes of the upper class are
distinguishable from that of the lower class.

However, the differentiation of tastes goes beyond its classification
of tastes. The higher one’s social status and thus one’s tastes, the
more benefit one has. Bourdieu uses the concept of "capital" to refer
to these kinds of benefits collectively. The capital Bourdieu
describes includes cultural capital and social capital as well as
economic capital. By extending the concept of capital into three
dimensions, Bourdieu tries to show that there are a variety of
conflicts within cultural and social spheres as well as the economic
conflicts in society. These conflicts occur in different
'fields' (e.g. the market, education field, etc.) which has its own
rules. Within each field, there is fierce competition between the
classes fighting according to its own rules. On the other hand,
distinction represented through taste difference between differing
classes leads to conflicts and opposition. In this way, the
relationship between tastes, class and capital solidifies and becomes
strengthene in industrialized times.

Let us think of examples today. Organic consumption is a trend based
on a new socio-historical setting emerging in contemporary society.
Although organic consumption is emerging because of the need to secure
our environmental and well-being issues, given that organic
consumption is a money and time-consuming realm, the organic products
are likely to be accessible limitedly to the higher class. Even
environmental issues such as sustainability, which is a global problem
that should be untainted by ulterior motives and other intervening
interest, is seen to be governed by the rules of distinction between
the upper and lower class as we see the tastes of the upper class
manifested in its interest in sustainability and organic consumption.

[Monique]

- In critiquing Warner's approach to the study of status and
consumption, Holt (1998) argues that "to be empirically compelling, a
theory describing differences in consumption across groups must
explain these differences in terms of tastes, pleasures, and desires
rather than strategic action". It seems that an approach to the study
of consumption should include a strategic dimension. Could many of the
consumption choices made by both LCC and HCC consumers in Ustuner and
Holt's 2010 study be interpreted as deliberate attempts to gain status
or standing within the participants' respective social groups?

- Bourdieu argues that in an era of 'diploma inflation', there is a
discrepancy between expectations and actual opportunities associated
with obtaining educational credentials (p144). He wrote the following:
"The collective disillusionment which results from the structural
mismatch between aspirations and real probabilities, between the
social identity the school system seems to promise, or the one it
offers on a temporary basis, and the social identity that the labour
market in fact offers is the source of disaffection towards work, that
refusal of social finitude, which generates all the refusals and
negations of the adolescent counter-culture (p144)." How might the
relative 'diploma inflation' that is currently a characteristic of the
U.S. labor force create a space for the growth of some counter-
cultural values that would lead to more sustainable consumption
practices?

[Noel Munoz]

Holt argues that decommodification has become an important resource used in consumer societies to form class boundaries. After World War II  America truly became a consumerist society and as a consequence the "community" feeling that once was shared by many came to an end. Families that could afford to move out to the suburbs did so in order to create a physical class boundary. How much influence has increased consumption contributed to the lack of communication with in communities since World War II? Has mass production created more of a "egalitarian" society by going against those HCC's who strive to create the boundaries?

Holt also adds that, "the pursuit of individual style in the face of pervasive homogenizing forces is problematic only for HCC’s for whom originality and authenticity is highly valued mark of distinction in their social milieu."(p.21) This emphasis of being different and unique does seem to be an issue with HCC's. I totally agree with Holt with his statement about HCC's being the ones facing the issues of homogenizing forces, LCC's people are more concerned about practicality and seem to care much less about looking the same as others.     

[Emilie Dubois]

I also wondered logic behind producing an "environmental habitus" of
LCC consumption after reading Holt's piece. I was surprised to read
that LCCs (though, as a side note, I would like a clearer picture of
how he constructed these groups) seem to universally favor function
over form. If this truly is the case, then where is the place for
social mobility in this model? I'd still like to discuss some of the
questions I raised last week with reference to class production from
this week's reading:

If the commonly referenced term "ethical consumption" is problematic
precisely because it marks those unable to
buy into - both figuratively and literally - its goals, then where are
the practical sites of habitus creation for this narrow vision of
sustainable consumption located? If we could control for economic
feasibility, then what are the homogenous practices that enable the
consumer's capacity to feel as though he belongs and knows how to
function within the movement away from blind consumptive excess
towards a more sustainable alternative? By extension, what types of
social support or "homogeneous conditionings of dispositions" must
exist for him to perceive this alternative as "natural" and his
participation in it as inevitable? What type of project could trace
the contours of the sites and groups back through the bifurcation
process described by Bourdieu to identify mechanistic systems of
variables? Both Monique and Tom's projects point out that the
likelihood to consume with an eye towards sustainability or express
concern over climate change varies across different classes, but what
are the key variables whose presence significantly increases the
normalization a habitus of building sustainable lives? How could a
researcher isolate that system of variables to manipulate its yield
of
sustainable behavior across differently distinct groups?

On a more methodological note, I would like more information about
Holt's sampling technique in 'Cultural Capital and Consumption'. He
follows Warner's theoretical notion of community-based status
consumption and draws 20 participants at 'random' from Pennsylvania
communities. As far as I can see he features the comments of only two
men, John and Joseph, in his results section. Is the potential skew
of 90% women and 10% men problematic for the generalizability of his
findings? Maybe women are charged with the majority of status based
consumptive work and their over-representation is legitimate, but the
reader doesn't get more than a passing comment about this potentially
important difference ('more women agreed to be interviewed than
men'). What, if anything, does this kind of gender bias in
consumption research means as we think about ways to reform purchasing
patterns?

[L Carfagna]

I found Uestuener and Holt's work most compelling because by extending upon Bourdieu, they keenly illuminated some of the limits of his theory.  Most notably, there is the limit defined by the assumption that "the nation constitutes social boundaries of the field" (30).  I wonder, if we weren't trying to apply Bourdieu's theory in an era of such intense globalization (with language to define countries as core, semi-periphery, periphery), what would our theory of consumption look like?  I do agree that the trickle-down theory is not enough to capture the complexity of Western-influence, but what is cultural capital in semi-periphery countries when not grounded in Habitus?  Granted the purpose of the article was to assess cultural capital in Turkey, but the cyclical relationships between structure and agency seem to be problematized further when cultural capital seems to capture the variance of consumption but perhaps not the determinants of it?  I may have read incorrectly, but there were points where the authors seemed to fluctuate between arguments that economists could account for (rising incomes) and arguments the trickle-down theorists could account for.  Again, if taste is not grounded in the way that Bourdieu described (as conditionally bounded by the nation-state), are we even studying the same thing?  In an era where the boundaries of the nation-state are less defined and global power so heavily concentrated (thanks in part to the knowledge industries described by Schneider), is Bourdieu a good guide for studying consumption or is there an alternative (either currently present or not yet imagined)?