Symbolic Capital

Definition

Symbolic capital names the social credit or prestige that arises when economic, cultural, or social capital is misrecognized and euphemized into a form that "conceals the fact that it originates in 'material' forms of capital." Bourdieu introduces it in Outline of a Theory of Practice as the disguised form of accumulation that operates through recognition, honour, and the "good-faith economy," and extends it in his account of fields of cultural production, where it confers the power to define what is legitimate and to "define objects as rare." In this wiki, symbolic capital is the theoretical link between the sociology of practice and the star/icon economy: the signature or "label" of the star architect converts accumulated reputation into the power to confer value on a building.

Key Thinkers

• Pierre Bourdieu — the originator; symbolic capital as misrecognized economic capital; the power to "define objects as rare by means of their signature."
• (Related: Paul Knox — "symbolic capital of world cities" in starchitecture; Charles Jencks — the icon's symbolic dimension.)

Related Concepts

• Habitus — the incorporated disposition that yields and deploys symbolic capital within a field.
• Star Architecture — the star architect's symbolic capital as the engine of star commissioning.
• Iconic Architecture — the building as a locus of accumulated symbolic capital.
• Authorship — the signature/label as the carrier of symbolic capital.
• Everyday Architecture — ordinary, unauthored production that lacks the symbolic capital of the star system.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Outline of a Theory of Practice (Bourdieu 1977)
• The Logic of Practice (Bourdieu 1990)
• Bourdieu for Architects (Webster 2011)
• Starchitects, Starchitecture, and the Symbolic Capital of World Cities (Knox 2016)
• Bourdieu and Marx: Practices of Critique (Paolucci ed. 2022) — symbolic capital as one pole of Bidet's "bipolar domination" thesis (property-power vs. competence-power); Fowler on symbolic violence as the "orchestration of unconscious minds" that complements, but risks obscuring, Marx's exploitation.

Open Questions

• Does the misrecognition that generates symbolic capital make it inherently conservative — an instrument of social reproduction — or can the symbolic capital of the iconic building be redirected or refused in the critical/projective debate?