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.For exam-ple, the fact that a certain way of speaking or accent, let us say thebraying tones of a hooray Henry , is indelibly associated with theassumed superiority and rightful self-importance of the English upperclasses, is itself arbitrary.It could just as easily be another way of speak-ing that has played that same role, the Sloane Ranger (so named byPeter York) could, for example, speak in an entirely different accent;what is important is that this voice has come to play this role in main-taining authority and in commanding respect (York, 1984).InBourdieu s account this enables social reproduction to take place.Thecultural arbitrary encourages the inclination of the habitus to the field,ensuring that social legitimation is more easily secured.This voice andthe bodily gestures and styles with which it is associated (the Barbourjacket, the string of pearls), create a sense of social authority so as to beindistinguishable from it.Bourdieu presents a model of social spacewhich is less determined by conflict than the Marxist dialectical account,and without the pervasive trouble that in Butler s writing always hauntsthe bid to ensure the power of enduring social relations.Garnham isalso the more conventional Marxist here, he is (as Butler is in herengagement with Bourdieu) interested in how the classificatory schemacan ever be dislodged, how these schemas which are constitutive ofmental structures, ways of perceiving and ways of acting which arealso unthought , can actually be changed.He rightly points toBourdieu s attention to the education system where a radical disjuncturebetween the needs of the labour market and the expectations of thosenow in possession of qualifications (degrees) can produce something ofa break in the value system.Garnham argues that this does suggest thepossibility of breaking with, or seeing through, the illusion, suggesting inturn that the habitus might not be so overwhelmingly binding.But forBourdieu instead it only means that new forms of system maintenance Uses Cultural Studies 10/3/05 11:52 am Page 127 Needs and Norms : Bourdieu and Cultural Studies 127have to be found, as the habitus and the field seek to find a new stabil-ity or fit.In Distinction Bourdieu argues that an example of this can be found inthe emergent forms of the cultural economy.Two distinct class fractionsconverge on this site in pursuit of employment.But, where a Marxistsociology might envisage such a situation as one where social contra-diction leads to possible politicisation, this is not how Bourdieuunderstands it.For him anxieties around education and qualifications(the result of change in the field of labour market and economy), areorchestrated so as to avoid disruption and discourage critical awareness.There are the declassé middle classes who do not possess the top pro-fessional qualifications of their peers who go on to medicine or law, andwho therefore gravitate downwards towards lifestyle careers, such astop chef, landscape gardener or fashion designer.(Bourdieu points to thenew preponderance of women in this group.) But they are joined by thenew, upwardly mobile, lower middle class who now do have some cer-tificates but not of the sort that would secure entrance into theover-crowded professions; they too then veer towards this semi-legitimate area of cultural economy where they can invent jobs withgrand sounding titles, for example, lifestyle consultant.This group isenchanted by the dream of social flying and overall it demonstrates cultural goodwill to its social superiors.While there are invariably pro-liferations of new categorisations and symbolically violent modes ofdifferentiation, the cultural intermediaries are inclined to social con-formity.In his account of this group as collective bearers of dominantideology whose job it is to spread its values to the population in the formof consumer culture, with all the various products, tastes, and prefer-ences that entails, Bourdieu comes close to agreeing with Althusser stheory of ideology, but once again he fills the spaces of subjecthood outby giving to them the embodied presence of (gendered) actors whocome from specific class fractions and whose new habitus of work pro-duces dispositions such that there is endorsement of the dominantcultural field.Bourdieu theorises social practice, then, within a frame-work of enduring social stability, and his understanding of theclassificatory schema as arbitrary is what precludes his emphasis onmeaning or content.That he or she is, let us say, an arts advisor/administrator , is only of significance as a position which invariablyperpetuates dominant cultural values.This in turn disallows any con-cern for that role as also being one of ambivalence or of the possibility Uses Cultural Studies 10/3/05 11:52 am Page 128128 The Uses of Cultural Studiesof other meanings (which may haunt the schema) being possibly takenup by groups of arts advisors/administrators who can appropriate ortwist around meanings for their own alternative or oppositional pur-poses.In contrast to Bourdieu s focus only on embodied position,Garnham mentions the radical journalists (as a group of cultural inter-mediaries) who are able to use the idea of freedom of the press so as to utilise the very legitimacy of the concept as the basis for a critique ofcurrent press practice and the realisation of a more extended concept ofpress freedom (Garnham, 1993: 186)
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