Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital and its influence on consumer culture

This article discusses Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital and its influence on consumer culture. It also explores how Instagram can challenge gender stereotypes, the impact of privilege or disadvantage on unemployment, and the relationship between emotional labor and gender identity.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
SOCIOLOGY
Name of student:
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1. Briefly describe Bourdieu’s theory of ‘cultural capital’ and discuss how it might
influence our experience of consumer culture.
Ans.) The term cultural capital by Pierre Bordieu connotes the collection of symbolic
elements includes the tastes, skills, clothing, posture, mannerisms, credentials and material
belongings that are acquired by a person through being part of a particular social class.
Sharing of similar forms of cultural capital and the same taste and preferences define the
social class. The concept of cultural capital is influenced by the Marx’s view of class
struggle. Bordieu extended the argument of Marx’s economic value associated with capital
and supplemented it with the symbolic value. According to Bordieu cultural capital exists in
three primary forms-implicit practical knowledge, skills and disposition, objectified in the
cultural objects and institutionalized in the educational credentials, official degrees that exists
in an embodied form (Denniss 2018). Cultural capital is strengthened in an overdetermined
way in the social milieu of the elites. This can be observed in the education of the parents
whose occupations demands the cultivation of cultural skills , upbringing in the families, high
level of formal education in the families and institutions that attract the cultural elites who
are studying in domain that encourage abstract thinking. These diverse, redundant yet
connected dispositions of the cultural elites subjectively becomes embodied as ways of
thinking, feeling and acting through the generative social structure (Featherstone 1987). The
term consumer culture refers to the material culture in which a specific relationship is
created between the product and the consumer. In the advanced capitalist countries there has
been found there is class patterning of consumption. Materialism is one important aspect
through the social identities are constructed. For the economic elites pursuing the newest
fashions and opting for technologies that are sophisticated, trendy and reflects luxury. People
with small and relatively low income are more concerned with the material satisfaction of the

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product rather than the aesthetic appeal of the product (Dumais 2002). This can be attributed
to the material deprivation in their life that shape and structure their taste of products.
2. How might a technology like Instagram be used to challenge gender stereotypes?
Ans.) In the age of digitization social media platforms have been condemned by scholars for
creating false consciousness about relationships and have been accused of contributing to the
distorted reality. Despite the criticism that revolves around the discourse of social media,
social media platforms have become spaces for challenging the norms by providing platform
to the people who believe in flouting the gender norms. One such illustration is that of Petra
Collins who is a prominent photographer has teamed up with Instagram to work on the
#MyStory campaign that began with Collins that feature the work of 28 Instagram women
whose accounts have come to the limelight for challenging the gender stereotypes and
promoting the value of inclusivity (Correa, Hinsley and De Zuniga 2010). The motivation for
creating the #MyStory creating the images for women or the female-identifying people that
would be more realistic and inclusive. Media images of women can be quite unrealistic as it
premises on the patriarchal notions of a woman’s body. A woman is expected to be
presentable manifesting all the feminine qualities. /the media representation of female bodies
set unrealistic standards that when emulated by the young adolescents leads to unfathomable
repercussions. In this context, such initiatives emerging from gender consciousness. As
argued by Baudrillard that we live in a world where there are more and more images and less
and less meanings. Social media platforms are saturated with images of people of different
genders and sexualities. However, instagram can challenge the gender norms by providing
space to people post body-positive images and create a consciousness through the followers
of influential people who would promote such values (Schwartz et al. 2013). Another
phenomenon that has observed on Instagram is the rise of men who enjoy doing makeup and
believes in embracing their feminine side without any reluctance. The phenomenon of

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defeminisation of makeup has led to men who are fond of makeup ensconcing their position
through the demonstration of their makeup skills.
3. Privilege and disadvantage were recurring themes in this course. Briefly explain what
these terms mean and discuss how one of them (either privilege or disadvantage) can
influence our experience of unemployment.
Ans.) A recent report on migration and unemployment found that the unemployment rate
among the immigrants have rose like never before and it is the Middle Eastern immigrants
who face extremely difficulty in employment. It has been found that the immigrants from the
African subcontinents and Middle East are three times more likely compared to their
European and Asian counterparts to be out of work in the first five years of their settlement. It
has been reported that 33 per cent jobless rate has rose higher and is currently six times than
the national average. According to scholars who expertise on Islamic migration, this
obnoxious rate of unemployment in Australia can be attributed to the discriminatory and
bigoted attitude of the white, colonial employers towards employees with the name
“Mohammad” and women who are garbed in hijab. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has
found that the Islamic immigrants find it extremely difficult to find the job. Among the
Middle-Eastern jobseekers employment rate is 17.5 per cent whereas for the Southeast Asian
migrants the rate is 3.6 per cent and 1.9 per cent for those who belong the eastern and
southern Europe (Barraket 2007). The Department of Social Services is of the opinion that
one of the challenges faced by the immigrants is language difficulty and therefore, they
would require additional training compared to the English speakers in seeking job. It has been
found that in the Australian context refugees and migrants are subjected to systematic social
barriers in securing meaningful employment. These barriers include non-recognition of the

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qualifications that have been attained outside Australia, explicit discrimination and the
embedded racism that is operative during the recruitment of the employees and in the
determination of workplace behaviour. According to Growe and Zwi forced immigration can
be understood through the discourse of othering that is manifested in constructing the
immigrants alien to the mainstream dominant culture. This power dimension of the dominant
culture ensures that the immigrants remain marginalized within the broader populace.
4. How does the idea of “emotional labour” relate to gender identity?
Ans.) Emotional labour as a concept was proposed by Arlie Hochschild (1983) propounds
that emotional labour involves the suppression or induction of the personal feeling of an
individual with the aim of projecting an outward appearance to create a sense of being cared
among others (Brook 2009). Emotional labour constitutes of three dimensions- firstly it is
concerned with the face-to-face or voice contact with the public. Secondly, it demands that
the worker would produce emotional state in another person and thirdly, it would enable the
employer to regulate and control the emotional state of the employee through supervision and
training. Emotional labour demands that the individual would train himself or herself in
suppressing their emotions with the aim of being more professional towards duties (Borjas
1986). This is particularly evident in the healthcare organization in case of the nurses.
Emotional labour has been largely associated as the rightful domain of women and is
manifested in the affective role played by women in the private sphere. This affective role
and performance of emotional labour is expected from them when they participate in the
public sphere. The professional socialization of a nurse entails that she needs to be caring,
benevolent, exhibit maternal attitude and remain subordinate to the more patriarchal
profession of medicine (Burdess 2011). The patient community as well as the public
construct the nurses as angels of mercy and expecting them to conform to the image set by

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Florence Nightingale. The projection of emotional care an inherent attribute of women
invisibilizes the veracity of emotional labour performed by the nurses in the performance of
their duties. It has been found that emotional labour is devalued compared to physical labour.
However, it is emotional labour that makes the patient and nurse relationship easier and it
acts as an invisible bond that connects the nurse with the patient ( Gray 2010). It has been
argued that intimacy can lead to the healing of the patients and help in managing the
disclosures of the emotional nature that facilitates in the sharing of information and patient-
centred practise.

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References
Barraket, J., 2007. Pathways to employment for migrants and refugees? The case of social
enterprise. In Proceedings of the Australian Sociological Association (TASA) and the
Sociological Association of Aotearoa New Zealand (SAANZ) Joint Conference, 2007 (pp. 1-
8). The Sociological Association of Australia (TASA).
Borjas, G.J., 1986. The self-employment experience of immigrants.
Brook, P., 2009. In critical defence of ‘emotional labour’ refuting Bolton’s critique of
Hochschild’s concept. Work, employment and society, 23(3), pp.531-548.
Burdess, N., 2011. The social basis of health and illness. Public sociology: an introduction to
Australian sociology, pp.330-348.
Correa, T., Hinsley, A.W. and De Zuniga, H.G., 2010. Who interacts on the Web?: The
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Denniss, R., 2018. From lawn to lattes~ The cult (ure) of consumption. AQ: Australian
Quarterly, 89(2), pp.10-42.
Dumais, S.A., 2002. Cultural capital, gender, and school success: The role of
habitus. Sociology of education, pp.44-68.
Featherstone, M., 1987. Lifestyle and consumer culture. Theory, Culture & Society, 4(1),
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