Symbolic Capital

Symbolic capital is one of the forms of capital central to the work of Pierre Bourdieu. Although it is often simply glossed as “honor” or “prestige,” it is important to note that the honor and prestige inherent in [Page 1418]symbolic capital is the outcome of the conversion of other forms of capital. Bourdieu defines symbolic capital as “the form that the various species of capital assume when they are perceived and recognized as legitimate” (1989, 17; see also Bourdieu 1986). Hence, although apparently conceptually existing in Bourdieu's work alongside the other “capitals”—economic, cultural, and social—symbolic capital is not a different form of capital, but rather should be seen as the legitimated, recognized form of the other capitals. In other words, for Bourdieu, any capital may undergo a process of conversion so that it is recognized as legitimate “currency” or assets. Hence, educational credentials, for example—forms of institutionalized cultural capital—can work as symbolic capital because they are recognized as representing legitimate prestige:

This, of course, points to important implications for the arbitrary character of all capitals. If their value relies on legitimation through conversion into symbolic capital, then it follows that their value is not inherent in the capitals themselves—in, for example, the dispositions that allow the appreciation of forms of art or music, or the links developed through friendship or kinship ties. Rather, as money has no inherent worth but relies on a widespread recognition that it is a legitimate form of exchange, so too, Bourdieu suggests, cultural and social capital only “work” when they are recognized as having value. This links with the attentiveness to power, which is a feature of Bourdieu's work. Only some capitals “count”: only some can be traded with—and this counting is an outcome of symbolic struggles in which some groups have acquired the power to name specific types of the capitals as legitimate.

What this suggests is that there can be forms of capital that are not converted or convertible into symbolic capital. Whereas this aspect is rather underdeveloped in Bourdieu's own work, Beverley Skeggs uses and develops the insight to good effect in her ethnography of young working-class women in the north of England. Skeggs argues that these women had sets of skills and dispositions that could be seen as cultural capital. For example, they had skills to know the (locally) correct codes of femininity and so were able to develop this in their own persons. This could be locally traded (to gain peer approval and, potentially, sexual partners), but this femininity could not be converted into symbolic capital. Femininity is a restricted form of capital in that it is less readily available to trade in an employment market; furthermore, these working-class women did not have easy access to expensive signifiers of “classy” femininity, which might be more easily traded.

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