Free Take Home Midterm Essay Sample

Bourdieu argues in his framework for understanding taste and hierarchy that judgments of taste are influenced by one’s social position. He puts forward his argument by combining social theory and information gathered from quantitative surveys, interviews and photos. He attempts to bring together difficulties like how one can understand the subject within structures that are objective. Bourdieu attempted to reconcile the impact of external social structures and subjective experience of a person.
According to Bourdieu, further states that habitus is not a result of either free will and is not determined by structures. It is created by a form of interplay between the two over certain duration. He argues that habitus is created and reproduced unconsciously. It happens without any conscious concentration or deliberate pursuit of coherence.
Bourdieu further talks about capital, which he sees to be beyond the notion of physical assets to capital that can either be cultural, social or symbolic. These forms of capital are equally important and can be acquired and transferred from one platform to another. Cultural capital and the means by which it is created or transferred from different forms of capital play an important role in societal power relations. This provides a medium for a non-economic way of domination and hierarchy, as classes differentiate themselves through taste. The change from symbolic and cultural forms of capital is the greatest factor hiding causes of inequality.
In Bourdieu’s classic study of society in France, he explains how social order is systematically inscribed in the minds of people. Cultural products that aid in instilling social mindset include education systems, judgments, language, and methods of classification, values and day to day activities. This may lead to someone unconsciously accepting the social hierarchies and differences in relation to one’s position and to behaviors of self-exclusion.
Another concept that is crucial in Bourdieu’s theory is the notion of ‘fields’ which are the various institutional and social arenas in which people express and reproduce their dispositions. It is in this places that they also compete for the distribution of different forms of capital. A field is a structure, network, set, or field of relationships that may be religious, intellectual, cultural, and educational. People have different experiences of power depending on the field they are in at a certain moment. Therefore, environment and context are major influences on habits.
Bourdieu explains the tensions and contradictions that emerge when people encounter various challenging contexts. Bourdieu’s theory can be used to explain how a person can resist domination and power in one field and be complicit in another. He says that fields help in explaining the differential power women experience in private or public. Moncrieffe demonstrates the existence of differential power in her interview with a woman MP from Uganda who has public authority but at home is submissive to her husband. This has been widely observed by researchers and feminist activists. It shows that, in some societies, men and women are required to behave differently in private, public and intimate arenas of power.
Another important concept in Bourdieu’s explanation of power is that of ‘doxa’. This is the combination of both heterodox and orthodox norms and beliefs- those that are unstated, assumptions taken-for-granted or common sense behinds the distinctions that we make. We forget the limits that have led to unequal divisions within the society. It is adhering to relations of order which are accepted as self-evident because they structure inseparably in both the thought world and the real world.
He also uses the term “misrecognition,” which is similar to Marxian ideas of ‘False consciousness. It works at a deeper level that goes beyond any intention at conscious manipulation by any group. However, unlike the Marxian view, it sees “misrecognition” more culturally than as an ideological phenomenon. This is because it embodies a set of active social processes that support taken-for-granted assumption into the realm of social life. More importantly, they are born within a culture. All kinds of power need legitimacy and culture is the war ground where this conformity is disputed and finally materializes amongst agents, thereby leading to unequal structure and social differences.
A good example is that in the 1950’s national television targeted the sophisticated, intellectually oriented, college educated and implicitly white minority who protested the television’s cultural mediocrity. It also engaged its aspirants who are upwardly mobile disciplinary and frequently pedagogic relations. During this time, ETV concentrated on attracting viewers who were considered to be more learned and educated. However, through the intervention of president John F. Kennedy that ETV became the cultural ambassador to the country’s homes.
According to Newman and Levine, in the mid-twentieth century, television was most influential medium for communication of entertainment and information. The three main networks in the US had a following of about 90 percent of prime time viewers and audiences. The cultural significance of the television revolved around its status as a commercial medium experienced in most homes. This contributed to several negative associations that were based o perceived gender and class identities of mass audience.