University of Washington, Seattle - ANTH 360Bourdieu Distinction-simpler summary

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PIERRE BOURDIEU — In plainer language DISTINCTION: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (PART I) 2012-07-21 · by Lui · in Study Notes. · https://spacedruiddotcom.wordpress.com/2012/07/2... 1/pierre-bourdieu-distinctionpart-i/ In this book Bourdieu argues that cultural choice, or taste, is closely related to social position. The thesis is built on a series of surveys and interviews conducted in France in 1963 and 1967-68, but as I read it, everything still feels relevant to the 2012 Anglosphere. Firstly, a definition of terms. Bourdieu puts all domains of culture on a spectrum, from the “legitimate” to the “personal”. The legitimate domains relate to art and what we usually call “high culture”. The personal domains involve decisions which have a functional element, and are usually more closely related to domestic life, such as food, furnishings, and clothing. I’ve plotted these domains on a rainbow graph, to demonstrate that there is some element of progression between them, but there are qualitative and structural differences between the different domains. On the y-axis I’ve included a simple lower-to-higher continuum relating to status and class, although this should be taken as an initial postulation. As we see later the reality is far more nuanced (specifically, the tastes of the avant-garde top rung on the cultural ladder tend to correlate with the disenfranchised bottom rung) [Show More]

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