by DK
Expressing ourselves Everything we buy, from “designer” jeans to branded cappuccinos, says something about our inner person.
finding ourselves
In his book The Shopping Experience (1997), British sociologist Colin Campbell explains that shopping, far from being frivolous, is as much about acquiring an understanding of ourselves as it is about acquiring goods. The sorting through, selecting, and making final decisions to buy certain items helps us to arrive at a clearer sense of our self-identity.
Statistics show that young people vote for shopping as their favourite pastime.
See also: What is my IDENTITY? | What’s my TRIBE? | What is my IDENTITY? | Wealth and STATUS | What is CULTURE? | ZYGMUNT BAUMAN | Culture and the media
Hip hop or opera? books or ball games? the ideas, activities, arts, and behaviour that people loosely refer to as culture are usually seen as a matter of personal taste. we believe that our choices are freely made, and SAY SOMETHING ABOUT who we are. BUT OUR LIKES AND DISLIKES are the result of subtle social INFLUENCES.
The “habitus”
The way culture shapes people’s minds and bodies was central to the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. He invented the term “habitus” to refer to the lifestyle and cultural tastes characteristic of a specific social class. People born into a particular group become socialized into its habitus. In part, this is consciously directed by group members. For example, parents and friends are likely to promote and share their preferences for, say, sport or music. But for the most part, being absorbed into the habitus takes place at an unconscious level. This is a key idea for Bourdieu – that the habitus shapes how we think and act in ways we rarely stop to think about. The relationship of an individual to the habitus is one Bourdieu described as akin to a “second nature”. It just seems natural and self-evident that we like certain styles and activities and dislike others.
Choices
When people say they prefer one thing to another (perhaps listening to soul rather than folk rock, or eating an avocado rather than a pizza) they think that their cultural tastes are an expression of who they are. According to Bourdieu, nothing could be further from the truth. He acknowledged that we do actively make choices all the time about the lifestyles and consumer goods we like and dislike. What we do not choose, he said, are the social influences and cultural patterns that shape our values. It is the habitus of the group to which we belong that determines our choices, rather than our own individually acquired tastes.
Group input As we grow up, we unconsciously absorb many cultural ideas from the social group in which we live. This early input is influential in shaping our future tastes and preferences.
Class and culture
To demonstrate his ideas, in 1979 Bourdieu carried out a large-scale study, which he called “Distinction”. This examined the cultural tastes and preferences of a large cross-section of the French people. Drawing on a broad range of data taken from statistical methods, interviews, and participant observation, Bourdieu found that the cultural preferences and tastes of individuals were strongly shaped by their class. On the whole, individuals with an upper-middle-class habitus tended to prefer certain cultural forms and pursuits, such as classical music, ballet, and fine art. At the same time, this group expressed a strong dislike for other types of culture such as rock concerts and football matches. By contrast, individuals with a lower-class habitus tended to express a dislike for ballet and opera, preferring to socialize in pubs and go to the cinema.
Predictable preferences
Bourdieu’s work is intended to demonstrate the highly predictable nature of cultural preferences. The “Distinction” study makes it clear that our individual tastes are not an expression of self-identity but of social class. Bourdieu does not say that some cultural pursuits are superior to or more sophisticated than others. Rather, he wanted to make the point that what we understand as the most intimate expressions of self – our cultural likes and dislikes – are in fact directly determined by a range of factors such as class, gender, and ethnic origin. For the most part, we remain unaware of these influences.
Cultural omnivores
In 1992, US sociologist Richard Peterson introduced the idea of the “cultural omnivore”. He showed how tastes change when differences between class-based cultures blur. Cultures once widely assumed to be “upper-class”, such as art and theatre, and “lower-class” activities, such as football, are now likely to be enjoyed equally by people from all types of social group.
Worldwide, the seven Harry Potter books have sold 400,000 million copies in 68 languages.
See also: What is my IDENTITY? | Are we all MIDDLE CLASS now? | A sense of COMMUNITY | PIERRE BOURDIEU | LEISURE time
French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu began his academic career as a philosopher before becoming interested in sociology. During his career, he wrote more than 30 books and 300 articles on a wide range of subjects including art history, education, and literary criticism. His best-known book Distinction (1979) explored the role of social class in modern society. A harsh critic of social inequality, Bourdieu was an active social and political campaigner.
CLIMBING the LADDER
Bourdieu was born into a working-class family in rural France. His father was a postal worker, who encouraged him to work hard at school. A brilliant student, he went on to study philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Throughout his career, Bourdieu was conscious that his modest upbringing was very different to the privileged backgrounds of his colleagues. It was this awareness that shaped his lifelong interest in social equality and justice.
A SENSE of BELONGING
Bourdieu is most famous for his ideas on “habitus”. He used this term to describe a “sense of belonging” to a certain social group or class. Bourdieu recognized that people of the same social class develop similar views on life from an early age. They learn to speak and act in a similar way to their family and friends and tend to share the same kinds of interests and values.
CAPITAL GAINS
Bourdieu claimed that each person’s habitus is made up of different amounts of “capital”. Economic capital, for example, refers to money and wealth. Cultural capital includes speech, education, and manners or a person’s taste in music or art. Social capital refers to a person’s network of friends or colleagues. For Bourdieu, the amount of capital people have determines how successful they will be in life.
ENTERING the FIELD
According to Bourdieu, social inequality exists because different social groups have different amounts of capital. He developed the idea that society is divided into “fields” – such as business, law, or education – each with its own set of rules. To enter a particular field, people need different types of capital. Bourdieu argued that people with capital such as wealth, academic qualifications, or social connections find it easier to enter certain fields.
While teaching at the University of Algeria, Bourdieu carried out fieldwork on the people of the Kabylia region, which led to his first book The Sociology of Algeria (1958).
most people agree that time off is a good thing and we don’t have enough. Yet we have many more free hours than earlier generations could ever have imagined, and a vast leisure industry to help us fill them up. The leisure activities we choose can make a difference to our health, our sense of identity, and even our careers.
More time off
Going away on holiday or simply taking days out of school or work, is something we all look forward to. Leisure time is “me-time”, away from the stresses and strains of everyday life. The idea of leisure has changed dramatically in the last century. At one time, the term “leisured class” meant members of the “upper classes” or the very wealthy, people with plenty of money and not much to do. To most people of earlier generations, leisure first and foremost simply meant not having to work. It was time used to recover from the daily grind and concentrate on easier, family-centred activities. Leisure had little to do with cultivating wider i
nterests or pursuing sports and adventures.
Since the turn of the 20th century, legal and political reforms have led to shorter working hours. With a greater understanding of the effects of overwork on health, we now recognize that everyone needs time off. We may never seem to have enough leisure, but we do have far more spare time than the workers of a century ago.
Choosing an activity What we choose to do in our leisure time can reflect our identity. Sometimes, a physically or mentally demanding activity can create a new and stronger identity.
The leisure culture
An important part of increased leisure time is the growth of a consumer culture that makes a significant contribution to the national economy. According to sociologist Chris Rojek, modern society is unique in that it has given rise to a vast industry based around leisure activities. For many people – such as hotel staff, multiplex cinema workers, and airline pilots – leisure is a source of employment. For others, time off work is an opportunity for spending money on goods and services. Foreign holidays (and shopping for the clothes and accessories to go with them), outings to theme parks, and trips to the theatre are examples of pursuits around which the commercial leisure industry has grown up, generating sums of money that would have been unimaginable to working people just a few decades ago.
Positive or negative effects?
People often put as much time and energy into saving for, planning, and engaging in leisure pursuits as they do into their jobs. However, similar to the inqualities in pay between the sexes, women tend to receive less leisure time than men. This may be because more men work full time and so accrue more time off.
Today, leisure is less likely to mean inactivity than doing and seeing things that stretch us physically and broaden our knowledge. What we do in our time off is of increasing interest to our employers. For example, pursuits involving physical exercise or team sports are understood as positively feeding back into our working lives, perhaps developing our capacity to work as part of a group as well as keeping us fit and healthy. Mention of such pursuits could add interest to a curriculum vitae. On the other hand, spending leisure time in excessive socializing, or doing nothing, might be viewed negatively as apathy or lack of initiative. How we spend our leisure time is increasingly regarded as an expression of our identity, no less than the jobs we do and the professional roles we occupy.
new sport, new identity
New Zealand sociologist Holly Thorpe’s research (2011) looks at how the increasing popularity of snowboarding drew many women to a once exclusively male sport. Thorpe shows that women start to feel differently about themselves as they become an accepted part of the snowboarding scene. They acquire new confidence and a passion that feeds into other areas of their lives, particularly work.
In the UK, the leisure industry generates an estimated £1.15 billion for the economy.
See also: WOMEN and work | What’s my TRIBE? | Why do we WORK? | Wealth and STATUS | ZYGMUNT BAUMAN | Do you live ONLINE?
life in our modern world is fast-paced, uncertain, and constantly changing. It has been described as a “liquid” time. we may experience this flow as exhilarating and occasionally overwhelming. products and people travel around the globe taking beliefs and values with them, bringing disparate things together and forming new situations and experiences.
A liquid world
Polish sociologist, Zygmunt Bauman, described life in our fast-moving world as like living in “liquid” times. Bauman is trying to capture the fluidity and formlessness of human experience in the global capitalist society. In this liquid world, people, goods, and cultural beliefs flow across the world more freely than ever before, giving rise to new ideas and experiences. Supermarkets stock exotic foodstuffs from all over the world, all-year round. A routine knee operation in a UK hospital may involve being cared for by a nurse from Poland and a surgeon from Dubai, using surgical instruments made in Germany. Our everyday lives depend on the flow of people and knowledge around the world. Many people we interact with and rely on are unknown to us and yet we have little option but to trust them. Bauman sees this as both terrifying and exhilarating.
On solid ground
For a generation of young people in the developed world, this is just how life is. But life was not always like this. As recently as thirty years ago, lifestyles were more fixed. Bauman describes the period from the end of World War II to the 1990s as “heavy modernity”. During this time, social life was more predictable and ordered. People grew up and lived in the same geographical area where they were born. They often worked in the same job until they retired. Their identity was rooted in the jobs they did, the class they came from, and the communities and nation they belonged to. Relationships were more enduring too. Marriage rates were higher, divorce rates lower, and friendships were rooted in the community.
Swept along Being in the fast-moving “liquid” flow of modern life can feel like being caught up in a river, carried along by something that we cannot control.
Flowing and merging
By contrast, liquid modern life is uncertain, unpredictable, and fast-moving. Bauman identifies the rise of the internet, the economic and political power of transnational corporations (see Is GLOBALIZATION a good thing?), and low-cost air travel as driving the transition from heavy to liquid modernity.
In a liquid modern world, all that was fixed and solid becomes changeable and fluid. Flows of people from all over the world cross national boundaries in search of new and better lives. Environmental disasters and wars force people to relocate and rebuild their lives in locations far away from where they were born.
The flow of consumer goods and services allows us to put together our own identity, buying items from around the world and creating a look and character we desire, if we can afford it. Fashion and lifestyles from different cultures come into contact and merge with one another, giving rise to new hybrid fashions and cultural trends. Human relationships can be more readily formed but are more fleeting. People from all over the globe come into contact, either face-to-face, or virtually, as they become part of online communities and networks, before moving on and making new connections with others.
Moving too fast
Though often exhilarating, Bauman sees the pace of liquid life, for most of us, as unsettling. Liquid life moves too fast for all but well-off members of a transnational elite. Like global tourists, these people are able to make the most of the opportunities that the liquid life offers. By contrast, the majority of people experience the speed of social, political, and economic change as overwhelming and anxiety provoking.
change and anxiety
The speed of social and economic change in a global world has led to rising levels of fear and unease among the members of modern societies. Official statistics showed that in the US in 1980, 4% of people suffered from a mental disorder connected with anxiety. By 2016 almost half of US citizens did. The statistics demonstrate the relationship between psychological states and fast-paced social change.
In a survey, US citizens were found to be the least likely to choose to find work overseas.
See also: Is GLOBALIZATION a good thing? | GLOCALIZATION | ZYGMUNT BAUMAN
Born in Poland into a Jewish family, Zygmunt Bauman was regarded as one of the most influential sociologists of the 20th century. Expelled from Poland in 1968, he moved first to Israel, then settled in England in 1971, where he became a professor of sociology at Leeds University. He published more than 50 books on a wide range of issues including consumerism, globalization, and the uncertain nature of modern society.
PERSECUTION and EXILE
Bauman was born into a poor family in Poznan, west Poland. When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, Bauman fled with his family to Russia, where he later fought against the Nazis with a Polish regiment. In 1968, he was exiled a second time, when the Polish Communist Party expelled thousands of Jewish intellectuals. He eventually found refuge in England, where he remained for the rest of his career.
the
HOLOCAUST
In his controversial work Modernity and the Holocaust (1989) Bauman examines how it was possible for the Holocaust to happen. He argues that the mass murder of Jewish people, and others, was not simply an extreme case of barbaric behaviour, specific to Germany. In Bauman’s view, it was the rational and organized nature of modern society that made the Holocaust possible.
LIQUID modernity