Bourdieu's Capital and New Media

In seeking to understand the nature of mobile phone literacy practices as the activities of those involved in social practice, I have turned to the wider sociological theories of Pierre Bourdieu. His theoretical approach proves useful in the context for it is concerned with the activities of everyday social life and how these are linked to established cultural, social, symbolic and economic forces. The force that organises social interaction is configured as a process of exchange and the unit of exchange is capital.

Bourdieu's use of the term 'capital' to describe social interaction and reproductions has resulted in accusations of 'economic determinism' being leveled at his work, configuring it as another branch of Marxism. However, as Swartz points out, Bourdieu distances himself from Marxism (and to a degree, economic determinism) in three distinct ways:
- "The first way Bourdieu distances himself from Marxism is by extending the notion of economic interest to ostensibly noneconomic goods and services." (1997, 66)
- "A second way that Bourdieu distances himself from Marxism is by extending the idea of capital to all forms of power, whether they be material, cultural, social or symbolic." (73)
- "A third way that Bourdieu distances himself from Marxism is by emphasizing the role of symbolic forms and processes in the reproduction of social inequality." (82)
In essence, Bourdieu's concept of capital moves distinctly away from a strictly system, to act as a system of exchange that functions as a part of everyday social life (in both formal and informal fields). The different manifestations of capital are by no means discrete and easy to seperate: they continually interrelate in social practice

Carrington and Luke (1997) offer a succinct breakdown of the four different types of capital:
"Symbolic Capital: Institutionally recognised and legitimated authority and entitlement requisite for the exchange and conversion of Cultural, Economic and Social Capital.
Cultural Capital [manifests in three forms, as follows]
- Embodied Capital: Knowledges, skills, dispostions, linguistic practices and representational resources of the bodily habitus;
- Objectified Capital: Cultural goods, text, material objects and media physically transmissable to others;
- Institutional Capital - Academic qualifications, awards, professional certificates and credentials;
Economic Capital: Material goods and resources directly convertible into money;
Social Capital - Access to cultural and subcultural institutions, social relations and practices." (102)

The relationship between these various types of capital is a complex one, linked to habitus and fields through the central nexus of symbolic captial. As a system of exchange, capital linked to the process of labour (Swartz, 1997, 74). This work is not always conscious, as the nature of symbolic capital and symbolic work indicates: symbolic power is a system of exchange which legitimates to capacity of an individual to deploy other forms of capital within symbolic systems. Through 'symbolic violence', "symbolic power is a legitimating power that elicits the consent of both the dominant and the dominated." (Swartz, 1997, 89) Symbolic capital is therefore important in the establishment of 'distinction' as the 'natural order of things' through the establishment and naturalisation of 'paired oppositions' (84-85). Symbolic capital, is thus the nexus through which other forms of capital gain strength and validity.

Bourdieu himself points out only three types of capital: "...capital can present itself in three fundamental guises: as economic capital...as cultural capital...and as social capital...." (1986, 243). This is not to suggest that capital only works across these domains, and indeed the picture is a lot more complicated that this, with a fourth form of capital - symbolic capital - as a necessary feature "...for the exchange and conversion of Cultural, Economic and Social Capital." (Carrington & Luke, 1997, 102). This is not to imply simply that one form of capital can be easily converted to another, and vice versa, as despite the economic connotations to 'capital', the conversion of types of capital into other forms of capital is not always possible.
"How the various capitals interconvert also poses a problem. One contribution by Bourdieu to the sociological study of power relations is the forceful demonstration that cultural capital, social capital, and economic capital can be interchangeable. Yet the interchange is not equally possible in all directions. Social capital and cultural capital are more closely related to each other than to economic capital." (Swartz, 1997, 80).

The relationship of capital to social life is connected to the inculcation of habitus, the structure of fields in which they are deployed and the legitimation of such capital through the establishment of distinction through 'symbolic violence'. Literacy and language clearly links into this process as a symbolic system, as does bodily hexis (Bourdieu, 1991). Both act as forms of exchange in human society, dominated by semiotic practices of meaning-making. The extent to which individuals are able to realise different forms of capital is determined at both an unconscious level (habitus) and conscious level (attaining educational qualifications), though this does not necessarily mean that such power can be realised in economic terms. Rather, capital should be understood as the fabric of exchange behind social activity, whereby individuals seek to derive some form of 'profit'; be it symbolic, cultural, social or economic.

As the relationship between capital as configured by Bourdieu and the use of mobile technolgies in everyday life is an evolving theoretical landscape, we are left with ever more questions and few answers. How are dispositions towards literacy practices configured as different forms of capital across multiple fields? As mobile technologies increasingly make inroads into 'established' discourses of literacy, how will the landscape of symbolic and cultural capital that surround them change? If mobile phones (for instance) are increasingly used to strengthen established social relationships, what is the impact for social captial? How can social captial be expanded using the increasing convergence of technologies and capabilities, in mobile technologies? How will the increasing use of mobile technologies at an everyday level have an effect on the types of distinction that emerge? As mobile technologies disappear through ubiquity into the fabric of our everyday lives, will we be able to draw a distinction between capital realised in mobile fields and those realised in traditional contexts? And even if we can, what purpose will it serve, if any?


References

Bourdieu, P. (1986). "The Forms of Capital." In J.G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp.241-258). New York: Greenwood Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Carrington, V. & Luke, A. (1997). "Literacy and Bourdieu's Sociological Theory: A Reframing." Language and Education, 11(2), 96-112.

Moore, R. (2004). "Cultural capital: objective probability and the cultural arbitrary." British Journal of Sociology of Education, 25(4), 445-456.

Swartz, D. (1997). Culture and Power: The sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Webb, J., Schirato, T. & Danaher, G. (2002). Understanding Bourdieu. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin.