University of Bergen.
University of Oslo.
Br J Sociol. 2019 Jan;70(1):166-189. doi: 10.1111/1468-4446.12345. Epub 2017 Dec 26.
In this article we use qualitative interviews to examine how Norwegians possessing low volumes of cultural and economic capital demarcate themselves symbolically from the lifestyles of those above and below them in social space. In downward boundary drawing, a range of types of people are regarded as inferior because of perceived moral and aesthetic deficiencies. In upward boundary drawing, anti-elitist sentiments are strong: people practising resource-demanding lifestyles are viewed as harbouring 'snobbish' and 'elitist' attitudes. However, our analysis suggests that contemporary forms of anti-elitism are far from absolute, as symbolic expressions of privilege are markedly less challenged if they are parcelled in a 'down-to-earth' attitude. Previous studies have shown attempts by the privileged to downplay differences in cross-class encounters, accompanied by displays of openness and down-to-earthness. Our findings suggest that there is in fact a symbolic 'market' for such performances in the lower region of social space. This cross-class sympathy, we argue, helps naturalize, and thereby legitimize, class inequalities. The implications of this finding are outlined with reference to current scholarly debates about politics and populism, status and recognition and intersections between class and gender in the structuring of social inequalities. The article also contributes key methodological insights into the mapping of symbolic boundaries. Challenging Lamont's influential framework, we demonstrate that there is a need for a more complex analytical strategy rather than simply measuring the 'relative salience' of various boundaries in terms of their occurrence in qualitative interview data. In distinguishing analytically between usurpationary and exclusionary boundary strategies, we show that moral boundaries in particular can take on qualitatively different forms and that subtypes of boundaries are sometimes so tightly intertwined that separating them to measure their relative salience would neglect the complex ways in which they combine to engender both aversion to and sympathies for others.
在本文中，我们使用定性访谈来研究拥有较少文化和经济资本的挪威人如何在社会空间中从他们之上和之下的人的生活方式中象征性地标出自己。在向下的边界划定中，由于感知到道德和审美上的缺陷，各种类型的人都被认为是劣等的。在向上的边界划定中，反精英主义的情绪非常强烈：被认为是资源密集型生活方式的人被视为怀有“势利”和“精英”态度。然而，我们的分析表明，当代形式的反精英主义远非绝对，因为如果特权的象征性表达以“务实”的态度来划分，那么它们就会受到明显较少的挑战。先前的研究表明，有特权的人试图在跨阶级的交往中淡化差异，同时表现出开放和务实的态度。我们的研究结果表明，在社会空间的较低区域实际上存在这样的表演的象征性“市场”。我们认为，这种跨阶级的同情有助于使阶级不平等自然化，并使其合法化。本文还概述了这一发现对当前关于政治和民粹主义、地位和认可以及阶级和性别在社会不平等结构中的交叉的学术争论的影响。这篇文章还为象征性边界的绘制提供了关键的方法学见解。我们挑战了拉蒙特有影响力的框架，表明需要更复杂的分析策略，而不仅仅是根据定性访谈数据中边界出现的频率来衡量各种边界的“相对显著性”。通过在分析上区分篡夺性和排斥性边界策略，我们表明，特别是道德边界可以采取不同的定性形式，并且边界的子类型有时紧密交织在一起，如果将它们分开以衡量它们的相对显著性，就会忽略它们结合起来产生对他人的厌恶和同情的复杂方式。
