Aesthetics and Power

Objective: Describe Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, capital, and symbolic violence

Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002), a French social theorist and public intellectual

Key Concerns

• dynamics of power
• how power is transferred and maintained across generations
• the subtle and diffusive nature of power

Key Concepts

• Social field
• Capital
• Habitus
• Doxa
• Symbolic violence

Social field: concept of a social space or group where individuals occupy certain social positions. Each field has a particular set of rules that, together with the individual's habitus and capital, influence action.

Habitus refers to a system of embodied dispositions ----normally shared amongst a group of the same social class, religion, nationality, race, ethnicity, education level, etc. ----that influence how individuals perceive and react to the social world around them.

Examples

• Going to happy hour after work
• Walking in heels
• Speaking a dialect

Doxa refers to the learned, unconscious beliefs and values, often perceived as self-evident universals, that inform an individual's actions and thoughts within a particular social field.

In other words, individuals follow the rules of the field in which they are embedded, internalize corresponding habitus, and adopt corresponding doxa.

Types of capital (resources)

• economic (money)
• cultural (social assets i.e. education, intellect, style of speech and dress, etc.)
• social (network of social relationships i.e. who you know)
• symbolic (prestige, honor, attention, etc.)

When a holder of symbolic capital uses that capital against someone with less, and seeks to change their actions, they exercise symbolic violence. This can be as seemingly trivial as exercising judgement about someone else's habitus (their mannerisms and tendencies, way they talk or dress, etc.)

Example: When parents disapprove of their daughter's boyfriend and exhibit mannerisms when he is over for dinner that shows disapproval (i.e. asking about his job/education, frowning at the way he speaks or dresses, etc.).

Think Pair Share Activity: think of some form of habitus that you or your friends/family embody and share it with a partner. Each of you will then share to the class what your partner came up with.