Gender and Bourdieu's Field Theory

• In Event: 070 - Regular Session. Cultural Capital

Abstract

Although feminist Bourdieusian scholars have enthusiastically taken up some of Bourdieu’s concepts, particularly habitus and cultural capital, his field theory has not yet benefited from sustained gender analysis. Yet, scholarly literature on artistic occupations describes multiple gender inequalities that are remarkably similar across fields, pointing to the utility of an overarching theory to synthesize these observed dynamics and make them systematically comparable across creative industries. Due to its theoretical focus on the power relations underlying cultural work, Bourdieu’s field analysis offers an ideal framework for this task. In this paper, I propose four theoretical entry points at which we could bring gender analysis into field theory: field structure, capital, habitus, and symbolic and social boundaries.

Author

• Diana Lee Miller, University of Toronto