Snowboarding with Pierre Bourdieu

As an Entré

Now, as Open Culture notes, Foucault admitted to his friend John Searle that he intentionally complicated his writings to appease his French audience. Searle claims Foucault told him: “In France, you gotta have ten percent incomprehensible, otherwise people won’t think it’s deep–they won’t think you’re a profound thinker.” When Searle later asked Pierre Bourdieu if he thought this was true, Bourdieu insisted it was much worse than ten percent. You can listen to Searle’s full comments below.

With that in mind and equipped, here goes.

Bourdieu, Feminism and Female Physical Culture: Gender Reflexivity and the Habitus-Field Complex

Holly Thorpe - University of Waikato

Feminist theorizing in the sociology of sport and physical culture has progressed through ongoing and intense dialogue with an array of critical positions and voices in the social sciences (e.g., Judith Butler, R.W. Connell, Michel Foucault). Yet, somewhat surprisingly, the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu—arguably one of modern sociology’s “most important voices of social critique and theoretical innovation” (Krais, 2006, p. 120)—has gone largely unheard among critical sports scholars interested in gender (notable exceptions include Atencio, Beal & Wilson, 2009; Brown, 2006; Kay & Laberge, 2004; Laberge, 1995). In this paper I introduce recent feminist engagements with Bourdieu’s original work to a critical sports sociology readership via a case study of snowboarding culture and female snowboarders. I begin by briefly examining the efficacy of three of Bourdieu’s key concepts—capital, field and habitus—for explaining gender and embodiment in snowboarding culture. I then consider how the habitus-field complex can illustrate the “synchronous nature of constraint and freedom” (McNay, 2000, p. 61) for women in contemporary physical culture.

...

Capital and Gender

The concept of capital sits at the center of Bourdieu’s (1985) construction of social space: “The structure of the social world is defined at every moment by the structure and distribution of the capital and profits characteristic of the different particular fields” (p. 734) and it is important to work out the correct hierarchy “of the different forms of capital” (p. 737). Capital refers to the different forms of power held by social agents. Bourdieu (1986) identifies various forms of capital (power), including economic (e.g., wealth), social (e.g., social connections), cultural (e.g., artistic taste), symbolic (e.g., prestige), linguistic (e.g., vocabulary and pronunciation), academic (e.g., tertiary qualifications), and corporeal (e.g., physical attractiveness). The power of an agent to accumulate various forms of capital, and to define those forms as legitimate, is proportionate to their position in the social space. According to Bourdieu, women are not typically capital-accumulating subjects. Rather, they are “capital bearing objects” whose value accrues to the primary groups to which they belong (e.g., her husband, the family) (Lovell, 2000; Skeggs, 2004). Feminist scholars, however, maintain that some women do pursue capital accumulating-strategies (see, e.g., Adkins, 2000; Lawler, 2000; Moi, 1991; Skeggs, 1997). Certainly, in snowboarding, core female boarders have accrued symbolic capital by showcasing their abilities and commitment.

 Symbolic capital is another name for distinction. It is a “unique form of motivation—a resource, a reward” (Booth & Loy, 1999, p. 4) closely tied up with the concepts of status, lifestyle, honor and prestige. Snowboarders assess symbolic capital in terms of style, commitment, abilities on challenging terrain, and difficulty and range of maneuvers. While some economic capital is necessary for participating in snowboarding, individuals cannot buy their way into the core of the culture. As New Zealand Snowboarder magazine put it, respect has “to be earned, usually with … blood, sweat and tears” (Onset, 1995, p. 9). For many years, only the most committed males enjoyed access to symbolic capital. During the mid 1990s and 2000s, however, male boarders began to recognize and praise their female counterparts for displays of physical prowess, skill, aggression and courage. Recalling his first experience riding with Amy Howitt, professional boarder Todd Richards (2003) admitted his expectations were “pretty low” but he quickly conceded that she “hit big jumps and grabbed airs: rocket airs, mutes, methods” and most importantly “earned my respect” (p. 64). Increasingly, female boarders demonstrating legitimate physical prowess, skill, risk-taking, courage and commitment earn symbolic capital from male and female peers, the snowboarding media, and snowboarding companies (see Thorpe, 2005, 2008b).

 Contemporary male and female snowboarders gain cultural status through exhibiting cultural commitment, physical prowess and risk-taking; some convert this symbolic capital into economic capital. The relationship between economic capital and cultural capital, however, is more complex than a direct exchange (Bourdieu, 1984). With bigger-than-life snowboarding personalities, professionals including Mark Frank Montoya, Shaun White, and Tara Dakides have been labeled cultural “superstars” by both the mainstream and snowboarding specific media (Is Snowboarding, 2002, para. 3). Bourdieu (1980) notes that to “‘make one’s name’ means making one’s mark, achieving recognition (in both senses) of one’s difference from others …” (p. 289). Professional snowboarders attempt to make their name through a combination of physical prowess and distinctive and marketable identities. Although physical prowess plays a key role in determining the symbolic capital possessed by a snowboarder, image is also crucial for converting this symbolic capital into economic capital. Top male snowboarders work hard to create distinctive hyper-masculine identities based on characteristics such as hedonistic and party lifestyles, gangster or punk identities, disregard for authority, heterosexual pursuits, and high jinks, or in the words of one participant, “shitty attitudes” and “booze [and] drugs” (Kelsey, personal communication [pc], September 2004; see Thorpe, 2007b).3
In an effort to convert symbolic capital into economic capital, some women construct a marketable snowboarding identity by drawing on their gender and femininity as a unique source of capital.

...

Intrigued? Here is the Pdf