ANTH 303 Anthropological Theory Fall 2018
I acknowledge that St FX is in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People.
Oct.
31: READ: Bourdieu, Pierre (1973) “Cultural Reproduction and
Social Reproduction.” available on Scribd and at
http://edu301s2011.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/cultural-
reproduction-and-social-reproduction.pdf
The
following questions will help guide our discussion as we try to make
sense of this, and other, theories. In addition, we will apply the
theory to the video shown in the first day of class.
How can this theory be seen as a product of the historical period in which it was created?
What questions does this theory ask?
What information does this theory see as important?
What are other relevant assumptions made by the theory?
How does the theory analyse this information to answer the questions it sees as important?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of this approach?
Some key concepts from Bourdieu:
- influence of Weber, Marx (among others)
- habitus: a generative disposition arising from conditions of existence
- social, cultural, financial capital
-
class/ class fraction – more Weber than Marx, but is interested in how
one’s economic position relates to how one experiences society
- field: a social realm with its own distinct rules, norms, etc.
- distinction: how does taste relate to class position? (Note his examples come from 1960s France)
- culture: high culture, low culture
- photographs as reflective of the dispositions of the
photographer, and read by the viewer in terms of the viewer’s
disposition
- in this article, challenges a Durkheimian
functionalist analysis of what might seem to be wide societal
harmonious acquiescence about culture, merit, arguing instead that we
need to examine the mechanisms by which class based dispositions
underlie what seem to be merit based hierarchies.
- how do different classes relate to higher education? How do the
ideas, preferences, cultural knowledge, etc. taught to children of
certain classes inform their attitudes, interest and probability
of success in higher education?
- social reproduction as distinct from cultural reproduction
- symbolic violence
Applying Bourdieu to the video:
- how does the video reflect and convey class-based dispositions about jobs, how to conduct job interviews?
- how do the different people’s bodily habitus reflect and convey
a class-based set of ideas about how people of their class position
should look, move, etc.?