Pierre Bourdieu and Cultural Capital and Cultural Relativism

It is a melancholy hearing about the issue of homelessness worldwide. There are countless homeless people on the streets of these large cities. So we ask ourselves; why are people still without homes when new jobs are being created everyday or when unemployment still has not reached zero? This seems to be an ever haunting problem even though it would be so easy to erase it. I think we have reached our limits of dealing with thousands of homeless people blocking doorsteps and sidewalks disturbing us with their begging hands. While most claim to use the money we provide them to buy food or shelter, most will use it feed their addictions. Do you want your money being spent on cigarettes and alcohol? Why should we have to give

“Being WEIRD: How Culture Shapes the Mind,” by Ethan Watters, is a compelling article that challenges the reader’s perception on culture and cognition. Instead of cognition affecting culture, our culture affects our cognition. It’s interesting to conceptualize, and it makes one have to introspect their culture, beliefs, attitudes, and actions. Why do we do behave the way that we do? Are our thoughts our own? How much of us is influenced by our environment? This effect of culture can be rooted in our childhoods. We are taught societal norms and how to view, categorize, and perceive the world through the lens of the environment surrounding us. A prime example of this comes from the games we played growing up.

Righteous Dopefiend examines the everyday lives of approximately one dozen homeless addicts living on the streets of San Francisco. Based on 12 years of research; Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg highlight the highs and lows of homelessness, addiction, poverty, and relationships in Urban America. “We can understand the Edgewater homeless as forming a community of addicted bodies that is held together by a moral economy of sharing (Bourgois 1998b, 6)”. Through a combination of photography and ethnography, Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg are able to respectfully portray the rollercoaster lives of these individuals instead of making it into a spectacle.

In the United States the homeless population continues to grow rapidly. Homelessness has been a public health issue for many decades. Often times these individuals feel as though society has turned a blind eye to them. This at risk population is seen by society as lazy or chose to live a life on the streets, but if one would examine this population closely would see that there is more to this at risk population than what society has labeled them as. The forces, which affect homelessness, are multifaceted. Social forces such as family breakdown, addictions, and mental illnesses are in combined with structural forces such as lack of low-cost housing, insufficient health services, and poor economic conditions. Many would

Today's world is filled with both great tragedy and abundant joy. In a densely populated metropolis like New York City, on a quick walk down a street you encounter homeless people walking among the most prosperous. Unfortunately, nine times out of ten the prosperous person will trudge straight past the one in need without a second thought. A serious problem arises when this happens continually. The problem worsens when you enter a different neighborhood and the well-to-do are far from sight. Many neighborhoods are inhabited only by the most hopeless of poverty - ridden people while others downtown or across the park do not care, or are glad to be separated from them. Such is the problem in New York City today and in Mott Haven in Jonathan

The Homeless are a vulnerable population. Homelessness is a social issue that anyone can almost be subjected to despite his or her age, race, ethnicity or geographical background. Kornblum (2012) defined homelessness as… “as a social condition in which people do not have regular housing and are forced to sleep in public places, public shelters, or facilities designed for homeless individuals and families” (p.280). The homeless population faces several adversaries in their lifetime of being homeless. Their adversaries are a lack physical and emotional disabilities, and possibly drug abuse. Grant some are homeless by choice, whereas most are homeless by mishaps, but nevertheless, they are humans deserving to be treated with fairness, dignity,

The social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age (WHO, 2016). This current event relates to the social determinants of health because homelessness has a huge impact on someone’s overall health and quality of life. People who experience homelessness do not have the resources to maintain their health. This can lead to stress, depression, substance abuse, and a number of problems. They are exposed to communicable diseases, malnutrition and many other health issues. Over 500,000 Americans are homeless every night (Kertesz, 2016). This is why we have Health Care for the Homeless programs. The majority of federally funded organizations for the homeless are operated properly. But, there are some

The one category that most people assume all homeless fall into is the undeserving homeless, or “bums”. These are usually men in their 40s or 50s who sit around all day and do nothing. They don’t try and help themselves or others. They lie and cheat and honestly deserve nothing because they could never give anything if they were forced to. They make up a very small group in fact, about four percent of all homeless. Drugs are everywhere on the streets. It is estimated that twenty percent of all people living on the streets use hard drugs daily. Such drugs as cocaine, heroin, and morphine plague certain areas. AIDS often spreads like wildfire among people who share un-sterilized needles, and once a person contracts the HIV virus, they become

The public rarely pays close attention to homeless people on the streets. There is one kind of homelessness that have dedicated their lives to heroin; these people call themselves “righteous dopefiends”. Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg became part of the daily lives of these homeless heroin injectors for a 10-year period in Edgewater Boulevard. Through various interviews with the addicts, we came to find out their shocking personal histories that led to their addiction and homelessness. These Edgewater homeless came from different ethnic backgrounds, however, they shared two common things; all of them were homeless and were addicted to heroin. They lived in dead-end alleyways, storage lots, vacant factories, defective cars, and highway embankments (4). The reason they labelled themselves as righteous dopefiends was because believed they were worthy in society, despite their actions. Going through ceaseless pain and anxiety of hunger, exposure, infectious diseases was reasonable to them because of their commitment to heroin (5). Throughout my paper, it will show that medication has an important implication in the lives of the homeless heroin injectors.

“There is nothing righteous about dopefiends. They’re assholes’ they’ll screw you. There is nothing enjoyable about this life” (Bourgosis & Schonberg, 2009, p. 1). The book Righteous Dopefiend is a powerful anthropological and photographic study of the growing epidemic of homelessness and substance abuse. This study immersed the reader into the life of the homeless and substance abusers with real encounters of more than a dozen people living on the streets. The lens of this book is focused on the concept of addiction. Author’s Bourgosis & Schonberg take their readers through the journey of understanding addiction by looking at the contributors or evolution of the participants substance use. They also provide a look into the daily chore of

Every year approximately 2.3 to 3.5 million people go homeless in the United States of America. Twelve million adults in the US were homeless in the year 2001, or are still currently without a permanent home (“Homelessness in the U.S.”). How does this happen in “the land of opportunity?” We think of ourselves as one of the greatest nations in the world, yet citizens are living a life of poverty, often without food, clothing, and shelter. When most people think of fighting homelessness, they think of providing medical assistance, showers, and counseling services for those who suffer mental illness, trauma, and substance abuse. Although these necessities are imperative in helping a significant

Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital has been extremely influential, and has garnered a great deal of literature, both theoretical and empirical. Like Marx, Bourdieu posited that capital was the foundation of social life and dictated people’s position within the social hierarchy (Bourdieu 1986). According to Bourdieu, the more capital one possesses, the more prestigious a position one occupies in social life (Bourdieu 1986). In addition to that, Bourdieu extended Marx’s idea of capital beyond the economic and into cultural symbolism (Bourdieu 1986). Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital that refers to the collection of symbolic elements (e.g. skills, tastes, clothing) one acquires through being part of a particular social niche and his concept of habitus that refers to the physical manifestation of cultural capital owned by individuals due to life experiences are his major influential concepts that are very useful in deconstructing power in development and social change processes. However it must be recognized that these concepts also propagate social inequalities at the same time. This essay will closely examine his concepts of capital that comes in three forms - embodied, objectified, and institutionalised, and habitus in the fields of education and stratification have made of it. Bourdieu’s work will be analysed in the context both of the debate on class inequalities in educational attainment and of class reproduction in advanced capitalist societies.

Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital relates to the symbolic characteristics namely skills, tastes and preferences, mannerisms, material goods, credentials etc. that a person gains by virtue of his or her membership of a particular social class. Bourdieu emphasizes on the importance of cultural capital as a major source of social inequality. Rooted in the Bourdieu concept of cultural capital is the aspect of social environment which he called the ’habitus’. According to him, one’s habitus will allow or not allow him or her to progress in life (Bourdieu, 1986). As regards this concept of habitus, it can be said that one’s social identity/nationality may or may not offer him or her opportunities in life. The concept of habitus can be likened to the concept of social capital (Portes, 1998:6) which refers to the ability of

That is another good point to address when dealing with the issue of poverty and homelessness. Most can be found either literally living on the streets like we most commonly see. Others have small shacks or rundown houses that they drudge through day to day. The rest are usually in shelters provided by the city or the U.S. government. These shelters typically consist of a large room such as a gym at a community center, or a YMCA. What about those who don’t have or can’t get access to a shelter? These are the unfortunate ones. Those who cannot seek shelter, food, or some sort of income will ultimately die if nothing is done to change their situation.

Pierre Bourdieu is a French Theorist. Bourdieu’s theory is to emphasize constructivist structuralism and he was influenced by Karl Marx by cultural capital. Bourdieu presents the question of class. Bourdieu claimed that capital forms the foundation of social life. Bourdieu thinks the more capital a person have, the more powerful they will be, and Marx had the same view as well. Bourdieu went on to claim that it had something to do with the symbolic realm of culture. When Bourdieu brings culture into it he means the peoples attribute to the world, structured by inequality and culture structures of inequality, also states that is a big part of social inequality. Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital is skills, tastes, posture, clothing, mannerisms, material belongings, credentials, etc. You usually receive them through a social class. Bourdieu divides capital into three forms embodied, objectified, and institutionalized. He gives an example of embodied cultural capital, while a luxury car is an example of cultural capital in its objectified state. In its institutionalized state cultural capital would be credentials and qualifications (degrees or titles that shows cultural authority and acceptance.