Legitimate culture, field of power, and domination

Abstract

This review critically examines the Fields, Capitals, Habitus (FCH) study and discusses its potential application to a forthcoming study in Japan. It investigates FCH from four perspectives. First, it compares the approach of FCH to the relationship between culture and inequality in Australia with Bourdieu's approach in Distinction and that taken in the United Kingdom by Culture, Class, Distinction. In doing so, it aims to define the theoretical scope of FCH as a sociological and Australian study. Second, it focuses on the definition of legitimate culture, that is, how does it differ from other types of culture? Third, it considers how FCH engages with the field of power. This concept, which is unique to Bourdieu, extends beyond politics and economics. How does it construct a field of power? Finally, the study of culture and inequality in Japan, which has just begun, is briefly introduced as research that builds on the FCH study.