(While it is sometimes thought that Bourdieu tends to focus on consumer preferences for products that have an obvious or recognized aesthetic component (e.g., clothing, home furnishings, entertainment, cultural activities, etc.), he also extends his analysis to the most mundane and functional items of consumption. Thus, for Bourdieu, taste becomes a "social weapon" that defines and marks off the high from the low, the sacred from the profane, and the "legitimate" from the "illegitimate" in matters ranging from food and drink, cosmetics, and newspapers on the one hand, to art, music, and literature on the other. He argues that this "Kantian aesthetic" fails to recognize that tastes are socially conditioned and that the objects of consumer choice reflect a symbolic hierarchy that is determined and maintained by the socially dominant in order to enforce their distance or distinction from other classes of society. BOURDIEU'S THEORY OF CONSUMER TASTE FORMATION Bourdieu rejects the traditional notion that what he calls "tastes" (that is, consumer preferences) are the result of innate, individualistic choices of the human intellect.
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