PS 5005 & PS 5002

CLASS, DIFFERENCE AND CONSUMER CULTURE

CIGDEM ESIN

2014

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING ARE YOU MOST LIKELY TO BUY WHEN THIRSTY?

LEARNING OUTCOMESTo identify and describe the ways in which social class constitute differences in consumer cultureTo analyse consumption as a marker of social class by using analytical categories such as ‘social capital’, ‘cultural capital’, ‘symbolic capital’, ‘taste’, ‘lifestyle’

SOCIAL CLASS – WHAT DEFINE ONE’S CLASS POSITION?

Material possessions Position in power and authorityOccupationAccess to education, healthcare and leisure Social Network

BOURDIEU (1930 – 2002)DISTINCTION: A CRITIQUE OF JUDGEMENT OF TASTE

Interested in How we use material culture to reproduce our distinction from other classes

How our consumption of material and cultural goods can be a marker of our class position

Class

lifestyle

taste

consumption

habitus

Kate Fox, Watching the English (2005)What class are you?

THE M&S TEST: a quick assessment of an Englishwoman’s social class

Ask her what she does and doesn’t buy at Marks & Spencer. The upper-middle classes - buy food and basics, but not party dresses or shoes, no furnitureThe middle- classes - buy food, but not home basics. Buy clothesLower-middle classes - buy as a special treat, buy clothes: ‘Not cheap, mind you, but good quality’.

DISTINCTION, TASTE, DIFFERENCE• Distinction – a concept of class difference that

emphasize the social and cultural aspects of class-based inequalities

• How individuals choose to present their social space to the world — one's aesthetic dispositions — depict their status through symbolic markers, and distance themselves from lower groups.

• Everyday life choice/preferences –between what is pleasing what is ugly

• Taste is not pure! It is shaped by social class & marker of social classes and difference

• Choice reflects a symbolic hierarchy that is determined and maintained by the socially dominant class in order to enforce their distance or distinction from other classes of society.

BOURDIEU: HABITUS• A set of classifying principles

that shape one’s ‘taste’ and ‘lifestyle’

• A relatively flexible framework for making sense of social experience

• A system of the classificatory schemes and taken-for-granted preferences that shape social structures and practices, and perceptions of what is appropriate and valid in relation one’s social class.

WHAT IS HABITUS MADE UP OF? Resources or ‘capitals’ – an extension of Marxist notion of capital into the symbolic realm of culture

1.Economic – Financial 2.Cultural – Knowledge 3.Social – Networks 4.Symbolic – Prestige/acceptability

CULTURAL CAPITAL• The collection of symbolic elements such as skills, tastes, posture, clothing, mannerisms, material belongings, credentials, etc. that one acquires through being part of a particular social class

• Education - a significant factor in shaping cultural capital

Not only textbook learning – through an educational culture – an appreciation for high culture is fosteredFor example, Bourdieu highlights that knowledge of the names of film directors correlates with cultural capital more than with cinema going.• Subtle cultural skills being learned in the home (and thus linked to the class standing of the parents), i.e. table manners, posture, conversation skills, and pronunciation.  

SOCIAL CAPITAL‘Social capital is the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition’ (Bourdieu, 1992: 119)Network of social connections that deepen the social in equalitiesIt is not what you know, it is who you know!Elite jobs go to the rich men who went to the exclusive schools - Eton Boys Clique in government

SYMBOLIC CAPITAL‘A degree of accumulated prestige, celebrity or honour and is founded on a dialectic of knowledge and recognition’ (Bourdieu, 1993, p. 7). ‘The acquisition of a reputation for competence and an image of respectability and honourability…’ (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 291). Veblen’s notion of ‘conspicuous consumption’ (1994) Consumption of luxury goods in order to attain the highest profits in terms of symbolic capital. A response to the requirements of dominant values, perceptions of taste and lifestyle.

LIFESTYLESymbolic and aesthetic dimension of struggle between social classesIndividuals consume goods (clothes, furnishings, car, holidays, music, art) in ways that indicate a class taste or sense of style – example, Positional Consumption A set of habits, behaviours, manners and skills that shape our everyday life. Cultural capital and taste are 2 components.

TASTE IN PIERRE BOURDIEU 1984, DISTINCTION . A SOCIAL CRITIQUE OF THE JUDGEMENT OF TASTE, LONDON KEGAN PAUL: ROUTLEDGE.

Taste pertains to status. Bourdieu describes tastes as "manifested preferences” shaped by habitusOur taste is "the practical affirmation of an inevitable difference” (56). Groups put forth considerable effort to maintain and reinforce their differences, Groups work to naturalize their distinctive tastes.Taste and consumer desire is the result of struggles between different social class groups.

CLASS – TASTE - CONSUMPTIONIn the best possible taste - Grayson PerryThe middle classhttp://www.channel4.com/programmes/in-the-best-possible-taste-grayson-perry/videos/all/s1-ep2-the-middle-class

TASTE - A WEAPON TO DEFINE AND PRESERVE CLASS DISTINCTION

A ‘social weapon’ that defines and marks off the high from the low, the sacred from the profane, and the "legitimate" from the "illegitimate" in matters ranging from food and drink, cosmetics, and newspapers; on the one hand, to art, music, and literature on the other.Effects: HierarchalisationDifferentiation (Pierre Bourdieu 1984)Exclusion

SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE – A FORM OF VIOLENCE TO MAINTAIN DISTINCTIONA form of violence operating symbolically, in the form of discriminatory meanings, actions or implications.It is “the violence which is exercised upon a social agent with his or her complicity” (Bourdieu and Wacquant 2002) Examples Class relations in which both working-class and middle-class people agree that the middle classes are more intelligent, more capable of running the country, more deserving of higher pay. In consumer culture, symbolic violence works through defining goods, tastes, lifestyles as better than others and as accruing rightly to those who deserve them. ...Judgement as a tool – How do we judge people on their habits, taste, lifestyle?

NEW FORMS OF SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE – CASE OF ‘CHAVS’

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones

Increasing inequality, which has led British society to become ever more segregated by class, income and neighbourhood

Deepened gap between classes – leading to hate discourse

• Chav- used to label "underclass”

‘Council Housed and Violent’ -CHAV

‘Thick. Violent. Criminal.’

• Mass media - mediator in demonization‘Chav Fighting’

‘Chav-Free Activity Holidays’

Bourdieu’s class theory in consumer culture

• New middle classes and consumption (Featherstone)

-New heroes of consumer culture –making lifestyle a life project – i.e. lifestyle television shows

-alertness to new popular styles -flexible consumption patterns -breaking down the previous distinctions btw. High and popular culture, the old and the new etc.

• They consume more to acquire cultural and symbolic capital

What and how should I eat?

How should I decorate my home to make it stylish?