FILTROS ANTIGRASA

Within cultures and subcultures, the accumulation and consumption of capital, of goods and knowledge, as discussed earlier, are a very important part of the social class stratification. The concept of accumulation of goods, which Veblen (1899) clearly associated with social class, was further developed by Bourdieu (1987, pp.99-244). In order to understand the potential applicability of Bourdieu's theories in this study, it is necessary to first understand the constructs underlying the theories. Key terms in Bourdieu’s sociological thought are ‘social field’, ‘habitus’ and ‘capital’, which I will outline in some detail. Then I will move on to more recent literature which built on Bourdieu’s concepts, and which give different views of subculture, such as Thornton, Muggleton and Hodkinson.

Bourdieu's (1987) model of society and social relations has its roots in Marxist theories of class and conflict. Bourdieu (1987) characterizes social relations in the context of what he calls the ‘field’, defined as a competitive system of social relations functioning according to its own specific logic or rules. All human actions take place within social

fields, which are arenas for the struggle for resources. Individuals, institutions, and other agents try to distinguish themselves from others, and acquire capital which is useful or valuable on the arena. The field is the site of struggle for power between the dominant and subordinate classes. It is within the field that legitimacy--a key aspect defining the dominant class--is conferred or withdrawn. That legitimacy is conferred in the form of ‘symbolic capital’, discussed below. Moi (1991) quotes Bourdieu as defining the field in this way: ‘A space in which a game takes place, a field of objective relations between individuals or institutions who are competing for the same stake’ (p.1021). That stake is the amassing of capital, in order to ensure the reproduction of the individual's or institution's class.

Rather than using his concept of field as a substitute for the traditional concept of culture, Bourdieu (1987) sees everyday life as consisting of not one but a conglomeration of fields, including leisure, family patterns, consumption, work, artistic practices and others. The dominant class in each of these fields may vary in its composition, but the process of struggle for capital, and through the amassing capital for dominance, is consistent in each.

Another key concept in Bourdieu's theories is the concept of ‘habitus’ which was inspired by Mauss’s (1937) work. Mauss (1937) defined habitus as those aspects of culture that are anchored in the body or in the daily practices of individuals which reflect the norms of groups. He described 'techniques of the body' as highly developed body actions that embody aspects of a given culture. Techniques may also be divided by gender and class in such ways which include eating, washing, sitting, swimming, running, climbing, swimming, child-rearing, and so on. The techniques are adapted to situations, such as aboriginal squatting where no seats are available. Techniques are thus a 'craft' (Latin:

habilis) that is learned. The teaching of these methods is what embeds the methods and the

teaching is embedded within cultures and schools of teaching. A pupil who becomes a teacher will likely teach what they are taught.

Elias (1978; 1982) and Bourdieu (1987) developed the idea of habitus further. Elias (1978; 1982) in ‘The Civilising Process’, describes ‘habitus’ as the habits and structures created by social structures, in particular how European etiquette around eating, sexual behaviour, and so on developed outwards from royal courts, policed through a system of shaming. Habitus is in the non-discursive aspects of culture that bind people into groups, in habituality, including unspoken habits and patterns of behaviour as well as styles and skill

in body techniques (ibid). This study explores how cultural and social capital are produced and processed and therefore the idea of habitus needs to be delved into since the accumulation of capital does not happen in a vacuum but it relies on opportunities possible within one’s habitus.

Bourdieu (1987, pp.169-174) defined habitus as the ‘system of acquired dispositions functioning on the practical level as categories of perception and assessment or as classificatory principles as well as being the organizing principles of action’ (Bourdieu, 1987; 1990). Bourdieu extended Elias’ habitus to include beliefs and preferences, identifying how objective social structures are incorporated into subjective mental experiences of agents. In this way, objective and subjective are combined, thus resolving the dilemma of a person being either or both an object and a subject. Habitus is adopted through upbringing and education. Bourdieu argues that the struggle for social distinction is a fundamental dimension of all social life. Bourdieu’s view of conspicuous consumption come near Veblen’s but Bourdieu argued that distinction has another meaning. It refers to social space and is bound up with the system of dispositions (habitus). Social space has a very concrete meaning when Bourdieu presents graphically the space of social positions and the space of lifestyles. His diagram in ‘Distinction’ (1986, pp.128-129) shows, that spatial distances are equivalent to social distances. The very title ‘Distinction’ in itself highlights that a certain quality of bearing and manners, which is usually considered as innate and referred to as distinction, is nothing other than difference, a distinctive feature, a relational property existing only in and through its relation with other properties.

The habitus is an individually operationalized set of expectations and understandings based on the collection of experiences an individual encounters that shape his or her sense of the rules of the game. It is what regulates interactions within a field in an observable, ‘objective’ manner, affecting not only the individual but all those who interact with that individual. In his discussions of both field and habitus, Bourdieu rejects the sociological concept of functionalism, arguing that social forms are not generally determined by needs for survival or integration. The field and the habitus can (and do) vary substantially over time and geographic boundaries; while the processes of class struggle and symbolic action may remain consistent, the forms that these activities take varies not on functional determinants, but on seemingly arbitrary social constructions.

While the field and habitus describe, respectively, the environment and rules within which class struggles take place, the concept of symbolic capital defines the tools used by individuals and institutions within a field to gain dominance and thus to reproduce themselves over time. It is in this area that Bourdieu (1987) both draws most strongly from Marxist ideas of class and conflict, and also breaks most clearly from the classical Marxist constructions. Rather than defining capital purely in Marx's economic terms, Bourdieu defines two primary types of capital: ‘economic capital’ and ‘cultural capital’. Both describe endowments that individuals bring with them into the field and attempt to augment. Economic capital is equivalent to the capital familiar to students of Marxist theories including both monetary and property assets. Thus position and power are determined by money and property and the capital one commands. Cultural capital or symbolic capital, however, is a concept unique to Bourdieu's (1987) theoretical model. This is where Bourdieu's (1987) use of the narrower definition of culture comes into play. Culture is also a source of domination, in which intellectuals are in the key role as specialists of cultural production and creators of symbolic power. Cultural capital can also be described as cultural competence. Like economic capital, it conveys legitimacy, and a legitimacy regulated by institutions within the society. In the case of cultural capital, that legitimacy is regulated not by the government but by educational and artistic institutions (Lawley, 1994). Choices are formed consciously or subconsciously through our baggage of experience with the aim of achieving and sustaining social and cultural capital. In ‘Distinction’ (1986), based on empirical material gathered in the 1960s, Bourdieu argued that taste, an acquired ‘cultural competence’, is used to legitimise social differences. The habitus of the dominant class can be discerned in the notion that 'taste' is a gift from nature. Taste functions to make social ‘distinctions’.

Cultural capital can be converted into economic capital, just as economic capital can be converted into cultural capital. However, these conversions happen at different rates of exchange. Economic capital is more liquid, and more easily transferable from generation to generation, making it particularly useful in continuing the process of reproducing class legitimacy and domination over time. Cultural capital, however, also functions as a major factor in class definition. In order to maintain the legitimacy of cultural capital, and to ensure both its convertibility and its ability to reproduce itself, the educational system creates a market in cultural capital with certificates substituting currency (Garnham & Williams, 1990, pp.70-88).

Bourdieu’s (1987) theoretical framework includes a third category of capital: social capital which involves who you know and not what you know. This implies that who knows you is important as well. Thus friends, relatives and acquaintances bestow a status on us. Social groups such as aristocracy and privileged social groups have always given considerable weight to social capital.

The real significance of capital in Bourdieu's theoretical model is the role that it plays in the continuing struggle between the dominating and the dominated classes. This study explores how young Maltese women give meaning to the music they listen to and how this music is instrumental in the shaping of their identity. The music people listen to many times is associated with particular subcultures or the mainstream culture. Forming part of the dominating classes or the dominated classes as well as the accumulation of capital through the music people engage in are important factors which will be looked at in this study. It is through the acquisition of capital, and the use of symbolic capital to perpetrate symbolic violence, that classes ensure their own legitimacy and reproduction. Like Marx, Bourdieu believes that the more this process of symbolic violence is hidden from sight and left unchallenged, the more powerful it is in reproducing class dominance.