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White Capital: Whiteness Meets Bourdieu
... The section below explores Bourdieu's key concepts of habitus, field and capital and their applicability for studying Whiteness (Ahmed 2007;Lo 2014;Puwar 2004). ...
... In discussing Whiteness as embodied habitus, I draw on the work of Lo (2014), who highlights the value of Bourdieu's concept when studying Whiteness. The advantage of the concept habitus lies in its ability to combine two key features of Whiteness that are always entwined: the material (the White body) and the social (dominant White cultures and contexts), allowing us to understand how social structures operate in and through the body (Ahmed 2007;Dwyer and Jones 2000;Shilling 2016). ...
... It is these doxas that are "absorbed" as cultural and historical prescriptions in the habitus and are consequently taken as "the ways things are". Thus the doxas determine "what is thinkable and unthinkable, expressible or inexpressible, valued or not" within a profession (Grenfell and James 2004, p. 509), and are inscribed in the habitus of those occupying the field, along with the dominant social hierarchies (Lo 2014). The close relationship between doxa and habitus allows many advantages upon entry to someone whose habitus aligns with a field. ...
This aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the literature on professional identity, both collective and individual, stigma and Whiteness. To demonstrate the “White” origins of the professions it explores the development of the professions of accounting, engineering and industrial psychology in South Africa. Drawing on the work of (Al Ariss et al. in Journal of Managerial Psychology 29:362–369, 2014) it shows how their history and the social space in which it unfolded have led to the development of the professions as contexts characterised by Whiteness. Using the concepts of Bourdieu, it demonstrates how their collective professional identity is characterised by a White habitus, doxa and cultural capital. Finally, it considers the development of professional identity in a context of Whiteness, considering possible identity-work strategies available.KeywordsProfessional identityBourdieuIdentity workWhite professions
... Med ambitionen att belysa vitheten som en form av kulturellt kapital syftar den här artikeln till att lägga fram en analytisk ram för begreppet vitt kapital i ett transnationellt perspektiv -med särskilt fokus på samspelet mellan (vita) kroppar i kölvattnet av rastänkandets historia, nationella vithetsgränser och nyliberal globalisering -för att 300 därigenom nå nya former av teoretisk kunskap i studiet av vithet. 1 Detta görs i dialog med mina och andras empiriska analyser av dialektiken mellan nationell och transnationell vithet och vit migration, med utgångspunkt i sociologen Pierre Bourdieus begreppsram (se Oliver & O'Reilly 2010;Lundström2017c;Lo 2014;Richards 2019;Hof 2021;Lan 2022aLan , 2022bWallace 2023). 2 Syftet är att presentera och vidareutveckla en skiss för hur vithet som kulturellt kapital erkänns, överförs och omsätts över nationsgränser (eller inte) och därmed bidra med en transnationell dimension till tidigare studier av i huvudsak nationella vithetslogiker. Hur kan vithet som analytisk kategori förstås inom ramen för nationella och transnationella logiker för vithet, och hur står dessa i relation till rubbade internationella maktrelationer och förändrade migrationsprocesser? ...
... Det kulturella kapitalets objektiverade tillstånd motsvarar kläder, möbler, mat, vin, konst, böcker eller pass (som förstås motsvarar nationalitet och medborgarskap), vilka ofta är laddade ras-och vithetsmarkörer (Skeggs 1999;Lo 2014;Richards 2019;Le Renard 2021). I fråga om konsumtionsmönster motsvarar kulturellt kapital således "rätt" kulturella attribut, som i sin tur omvandlas till socialt, ekonomiskt eller symboliskt kapital i de bestämda sociala rummen (beroende av kapitalets fältspecifika värde) genom högt betalda yrken eller genom institutionalisering i olika former, bland annat i utbildningsinstitutioner, men även tillträde till segregerade bostadsområden (Bourdieu 1986;Bonilla-Silva m.fl. ...
I den här artikeln ställs Bourdieus analytiska begrepp kulturellt kapital i dialog med ras- och vithetsforskningen och migrationsforskningen. I fokus står vita migranter med en erkänd uppsättning privilegier avseende nationalitet, medborgarskap, och kompetens; tillgångar som öppnar för nya sätt att producera och reproducera kulturella, sociala och ekonomiska former av kapital. Som objektiverat och institutionaliserat kulturellt kapital finns vitheten i institutioner, pass eller visumpolitik, som alla innebär att människor som klassificeras som vita kan uppleva det mest upphöjda tillståndet av att känna sig hemmastadda nästan var som helst i världen. I kölvattnet av en globaliserad historia av rastänkande och europeisk kolonisering positioneras dock vita grupper på olika sätt i det transnationella sociala rummet. Vithet som kulturellt kapital är med andra ord å ena sidan sammanflätat med historier om koloniala rasstrukturer, och utmanas å den andra av global konkurrens, där framför allt den asiatiska synen på vithet ställer den europeiska vitheten i nytt ljus.
... Critical race scholars in education have proposed ways to situate race at the center of analysis. From the influential idea of community cultural wealth (Yosso 2005) to the notion of Black cultural capital (Carter 2003;Rollock et al. 2015;Wallace 2019) to White capital (Lo 2014;Utt 2018), researchers have strengthened conceptualizations of cultural capital with a race-conscious lens. For example, Tara J. Yosso (2005) argues that research often positions students from low-income, ethnic minority backgrounds as lacking the cultural assets and behavioral norms required for success in schools, fortifying a long-standing cultural deficit model. ...
In this essay, we argue that Whiteness is intrinsic to Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital, yet it remains unmarked within U.S.-based sociology of education research. As a result, these studies treat race as a tangential issue as opposed to a structure that is foundational to how society is organized and functions. We disrupt this unmarked relationship between Whiteness and cultural capital by (1) reviewing Bourdieu’s work on race, class, and cultural capital, and the application of these concepts in U.S.-based research; (2) examining the educational field as White institutional space and the concerning consequences of conflating cultural capital with Whiteness; (3) discussing the implications for a research framework embedded in a class-based master narrative; and (4) offering suggestions about how to disrupt Whiteness in cultural capital research, including emphasizing the racialized dimension of the habitus, taking an institutional approach and by taking a race-conscious approach to knowledge production in sociology.
... Given the importance of this type of exposure in the development of professional identity, one cannot underestimate the advantage of these White capitals (Lo 2014) that remain unrecognised except by those excluded from them. ...
The aim of this chapter is to explore at the macro-level of analysis the influence of stigma and Whiteness in the identity work of professionals of colour within the public space. These areas included education, both schooling and university, as well as legislation, most specifically relating to employment equity and broad-based Black economic empowerment. This chapter explores the dynamics of the schooling and university systems, as well as their impact on aspirant professionals of colour. It considers contrasts in rural versus urban schools, the ways in which historical racial spaces continue to be reproduced and the consequences for identity regulation. Finally, it explains how legislation, aimed at redress for the structural inequalities of apartheid continues to be used by White people to restrict and challenge the professional identity of people of colour.KeywordsProfessional identityMacro-contextPublic spaceIdentity workEducation systemsEmployment equity
... I approached her particularly for the study as she had attended what is considered to be a very conservative, historically White university and I was particularly interested in her experiences in this setting. Interestingly, however, it was not her university experiences that were foremost in her mind when considering her experiences of In this extract White cultural capital is depicted as agentic (Lo 2014), "people in charge" and "presenting papers", while in contrast Annie has no voice in the face of institutionalised Whiteness (Jones 2000). While she is quick to reflect on her own reasons for these impressions, citing her previous experiences of racism as critical to the formation of her perceptions, she admits to this triggering considerable identity work: ...
The aim of this chapter is to explore the influence of stigma and Whiteness in the identity work of professionals of colour at the meso-level of analysis. The challenges are structured within three elements central to socialisation, the aim of which is to produce an “appropriate” professional. Given that professionals are defined by what they do, access to tasks and work related to developing oneself as a professional are critical to identity development; being denied these opportunities challenges the very heart of professional identity. Findings related to the functional dimension include work allocation, competence and mentoring. In moving up the hierarchy, professionals of colour were challenged by their (in)visibility, and silencing. Finally, inclusion within the profession was hindered by professional bodies (IOP specifically), language and professional culture.KeywordsProfessional identityMeso-contextProfessional spaceIdentity workLanguage
It is widely reported that international student cohorts present pedagogical challenges. This chapter tells the story of a research project undertaken at a leading British university to investigate how ‘cultural diversity’ was understood and experienced by staff and students on a creative industries programme. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with students and staff, and the data revealed a range of tensions around cultural difference, social integration and cultural adaptation, particularly in relation to the Chinese students, which comprised almost half of the cohort. A variety of social and cultural factors collided in the classroom, creating misunderstandings, causing resentment and highlighting a general lack of intercultural awareness and competence. Cultural diversity was recognised and positively encouraged, yet its inherent complexities were not fully understood. This chapter calls for the development of a collective intercultural competence, better recognition of the teaching and learning challenges that result from internationalisation, and institutional support.
White South Africans constitute a privileged migrant group compared to many other, and particularly ‘non-white’, migrants in the UK. Little research has been conducted on this particular group, however. Through an interview study, this gap in research will be addressed. Based on 30 qualitative and semi-structured interviews, the paper argues that some white South Africans in the UK emphasise aspects of their group status deemed to be ‘desirable’ by the white host society population – and thereby maintain the white privileges with which they have historically been bestowed – in order to offset any negative connotations associated with their status as a migrant group. The privileges accrued by their whiteness that white South Africans are shown to be maintaining include the relevance of British ancestral ties privileging certain white South Africans, the relevance of their socio-cultural background stemming from the colonial ties between Britain and South Africa, the significance attached to English language proficiency as well as their socio-economic status in the global transnational employment market. In the process, it will be shown how some white South Africans construct themselves in a manner that works to distinguish them from more stigmatised groups. It is shown how participants buy in to anti-immigration rhetoric – as commonly associated with the host country’s immigration and citizenship policy environment – in order that this can continue to be directed at more stigmatised groups rather than themselves. This, then, references markers of difference such as ancestry, culture and language, essentially enabling the stigmatisation even of other white migrants, such as Eastern Europeans who are predominantly white but perceived to be lower down in the ‘social hierarchy’ of the host society than white South Africans.
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