Summary
Summary GY207 Economy, Society and Place - Formative Essay
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Formative coursework in preparation for the summative work. First class grade achieved.
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Bourdieu is interested in the links between culture and power. Using Bourdieu’s theory of fieldsexplain how power runs through a person’s decision to live in a setting. Use AT LEAST ONE
example e.g. suburb, and/or a gentrified neighbourhood.
Word Count: 940
Introduction
This essay first gives an account of Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘field’ and ‘capital’ theory in order to
reconceptualise our understanding of class. Rather than relying on economic wealth as a marker of
class difference, Bourdieu argues that culture can also be a marker of class difference. Culture
provides a non- economic form of domination and hierarchy and people use it to distinguish
themselves within and between classes. A person’s decision to live in a setting reflects their taste in
housing and classes seek to distinguish themselves through their taste. Those with the power to
‘monopolise ways of seeing and classifying [housing choice] according to their criteria of good
taste’ is class power (Bridge, 2006). Gentrification makes city living more ‘tasteful’ and involves
different classes changing their residential locations. This essay argues that a person’s decision to
live in a setting is based on a complex interplay between economic and cultural power.
Bourdieu’s theory and its link to gentrification
Bourdieu believes all human beings are situated in social places called ‘fields’. A field is
not a physical piece of land but is a metaphor for a space in which people are positioned
hierarchically in relation to one another.
In a field, ‘capital’ defines one’s position in a field but also enables people to compete in a
field for capital.
Bourdieu’s notion of capital extends beyond that of material assets to social and cultural
capital. Social capital refers to one’s network and relationships. Cultural capital can be
embodied through one’s thought and actions, objectified in cultural goods like houses or
institutionalised through qualifications.
The field of power can be understood as the meta field which operates as the organising
principle of differentiation and struggle throughout all fields, this includes the field of
gentrification (Ley and Bridge).
Academics have viewed gentrification as a field (Ley). Lees gives an idea of the different
actors within the field of gentrification: domestic and transnational financial actors,
developers, governments and homebuyers. Within the field, the ‘value of cultural capital is
elevated’ and determines how likely a place is going to be gentrified.
The definition of gentrification has evolved over time. Gentrification was first
conceptualised by Ruth Glass as the ‘take- over of working- class neighbourhoods by
middle or upper-income households through residential rehabilitation. A more
contemporary understanding by Smith defines gentrification as the ‘investment of capital at
the urban centre, designed to produce space for a more affluent class of people than
currently occupied that space’. This essay will adopt the contemporary understanding of
gentrification which focuses on the movement of capital.
Gentrification has often been presented either as an economic process to exploit the rent
gap (Smith) or as a social process that is based on cultural consumption. However, as Ley
states, in the gentrification field, it is ‘not a matter of whether economic or cultural
arguments prevail but rather how they work together to produce gentrification’.
Example
SoHo in New York represents a good example of the gentrification phenomenon as it demonstrates
the multiple struggles within the field of gentrification and captures the interaction between cultural
and economic capital. Gentrification in SoHo will be analysed using Ley’s framework.
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