In the article “The Forms of Capital” by Pierre Bourdieu, Bourdieu discusses the ways in which we look at power and how it is based on different structures. Bourdieu uses a lot of Marx’s theories when creating his own. Capital according to the author is accumulated labor in its material form or embodied form. Embodied form means one’s upbringing and knowledge that has been internalized. To accumulate capital it takes a lot of time in both material and embodied forms. There are three forms of capital. The first is economic, the second is cultural, and the third is social. Economic capital is directly convertible into money. It is institutionalized in the form of property rights. Cultural capital refers to the accumulation of body and mind. It is institutionalized through education by becoming concrete in its rules and values. Cultural capital also has three different forms: embodied, objectified, and institutionalized. Embodied form is non convertible. It cannot directly be converted into economic capital. Objectified form means to understand their value one has to have cultural experience to understand it. For this form one needs the embodied form in order to gain capital in the objectified form. The last form is institutionalized, and this refers to education, which provides a sense of knowledge and is the easiest convertible form into economic capital. According to Bourdieu, embodied is the most important. He believes this because the way one understands the world that they live in is based on the knowledge that they have gained growing up. Social Capital is the final type of capital. This capital is about the networks one has. Networks are pooling resources that are more or less institutionalized through recognition. There has to be a mutual recognition of a person’s recognition of them and their recognition of that person. There are two types of networks, one being actual and the other being potential network. Actual network is anybody that one would personally know. Potential network are those people who your friends know, a friend of a friend, for example.
When thinking about cultural capital and the embodied form, I think of a movie from my childhood called Jungle Book. In this movie a little boy named Mowgli ends up living in a jungle and befriending a bear name Baloo. For a child or any human being to survive in a jungle they would need to learn how to act or blend in with the animals. The bear Baloo then decides to teach Mowgli his way of surviving in this jungle and Mowgli then adapts and learns the way of their life there. This form of capital that Mowgli is learning cannot be converted into economic capital. However, he is gaining a cultural capital in the embodied form that is even more helpful in order for him to be able to live and survive. There is a part in the clip where another animal asks Baloo how Mowgli will survive, and Baloo says I will teach him everything that he has to know. This shows that the knowledge is being passed on by knowledge, and not formal education.
Here is a clip that helps better illustrate my point of cultural capital in the embodied form.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asobNFmHPD4
When thinking about cultural capital and the embodied form, I think of a movie from my childhood called Jungle Book. In this movie a little boy named Mowgli ends up living in a jungle and befriending a bear name Baloo. For a child or any human being to survive in a jungle they would need to learn how to act or blend in with the animals. The bear Baloo then decides to teach Mowgli his way of surviving in this jungle and Mowgli then adapts and learns the way of their life there. This form of capital that Mowgli is learning cannot be converted into economic capital. However, he is gaining a cultural capital in the embodied form that is even more helpful in order for him to be able to live and survive. There is a part in the clip where another animal asks Baloo how Mowgli will survive, and Baloo says I will teach him everything that he has to know. This shows that the knowledge is being passed on by knowledge, and not formal education.
Here is a clip that helps better illustrate my point of cultural capital in the embodied form.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asobNFmHPD4