Academic literature on the topic 'Pierre Bourdieu’s socio-cultural theories'

The article addresses the subject of social and cultural inequalities in relation to the situation of children in degraded spaces of selected courtyards in one of the smallest housing estates in Wrocław, Poland, Przedmieście Oławskie. The aim of the research was to diagnose and describe the specific situation of these children and to analyse it in the context of Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of reproducing cultural capital. The first part presents theoretical threads relevant for further interpretations and covers the concepts of marginalisation and reproduction of cultural capital as perceived in P. Bourdieu`s theories. The second part discusses the methodology of qualitative research, embedded in an interpretive paradigm and based on: ethnographicresearch strategy, the approach to research with children and the mosaic approach. The third part presents the results of research showing the specificity of the physical and socio-cultural environment of the studied courtyards. On the one hand, the dimensions of its marginalisation and the processes proving the reproduction of poor cultural capital were indicated; on the other hand, examples of artistic interventions in this type of marginalised environment were presented as exemplifications of breaking the mechanisms of cultural reproduction.

Education for rural transformation requires a critical analysis and appraisal of policies and education programmes, and skills development that can lead to the creation of sustainable jobs for rural people. This paper will examine and analyze how inclusion or exclusion manifests for rural people, and will do so with Pierre Bourdieu’s socio-critical theoretical framework that provides a three pronged (Habitus, Capital and Field), but unified approach that can be utilized to theories education for rural transformation. Bourdieu draws our attention to three interactive ways of conceptualizing and understanding inclusion, exclusion, marginalization, disadvantage and transformation via:1) the objective, physical, outright rejection in community due to the ways individuals are positioned and named in that community (field); 2) overt or covert denial of social, economic and cultural goods (capital), and 3) the inside subjective world, the space of thought, mind, attitudes, idea and interiority, which Bourdieu referred to as habitus (Bourdieu, 1990, 1996, 1998 & 1999). The paper provides a socio-critical framework for educators of how to work with rural people to enhance their living standards.

This article traces the relationship between the organised women'.s movement and the numerous individual acts of resistance women perform in their everyday lives. Drawing upon Pierre Bourdieu's ideas about habitus and doxa to explain women's internalisation of patriarchy and subordinate status, as well as their ways of overcoming it, we explore why a majority of women do not identify themselves as feminist. How do they manage (or not) to bring the experience of their subordination from the field of doxa to the field of opinion—a precondition for 'feminist' politics? Feminism, for its part, must learn to theorise women's 'experiences' and to invoke the entire range of human relations that constitute such an experience. The argument is intention ally provocative in its critique of feminism as a way, further, of opening up fresh theoretical problems and resources for women's movements in India today.

This article is about a work developed between 2013 and 2015 within the Sociological Observatory of Student Life at the Federal University of Viçosa –UFV – (Brazil), a research group that produces and disseminates knowledge about students from working classes’ university life. This work aimed at creating possibilities for poor students do an intellectual affiliation to the public university. First, eighteen pedagogy female students developed a self-analysis of their own school trajectories and academic experiences, describing them reflexively based on Bourdieu ideas. Then, projects and researches were done about the themes that emerged from the self-analysis stage. The method used to generate the data was the biographical stories, and, most of those who were investigated were UFV’s students, consequently, it was possible to do a connection between the knowledge from the students as researchers and as research subjects. Among the results of this work was the fact that the self-analysis enabled the students to interpret principles, which engendered their practices and the incorporation and/or updating of favorable dispositions, which constituted the academic quality of their trajectories. It also showed that the trajectories may promote the intellectual affiliation to the public university and that it can face up the effects that social origin may have on the academic trajectories. The association of self-analysis, as an interpretive work of dispositions and practices, with the research development, and the connection of knowledge among students, with affinities of habitus, made possible the constitution sociability networks and permanence at UFV.ResumoO artigo trata de um trabalho realizado nos anos de 2013 a 2015, no âmbito do Observatório Sociológico da Vida Estudantil da Universidade Federal de Viçosa – UFV – (Brasil), instância formativa, de produção e de divulgação do conhecimento sobre a vida estudantil de universitários das camadas populares. O objetivo do trabalho foi criar possibilidades para a afiliação intelectual de estudantes pobres à universidade pública. Na primeira etapa, dezoito universitárias, do curso de Pedagogia, realizaram autoanálises das trajetórias escolares e vivências acadêmicas, tendo como referência o pensamento bourdieusiano, e fzeram a descrição reflexiva delas. Na segunda etapa, foram elaborados projetos e desenvolvidas pesquisas sobre temas que emergiram dessas autoanálises. O método de geração de dados foi o relato biográfico, e os investigados, em sua maior parte, eram estudantes da UFV, o que, juntamente com as autoanálises realizadas, viabilizou a conexão de saberes entre as estudantes na condição de pesquisadoras e os sujeitos investigados. Dentre os resultados desse trabalho há o fato de que as autoanálises permitiram às estudantes a interpretação dos princípios que engendram suas práticas e a incorporação e/ou atualização de disposições favoráveis à constituição de percursos acadêmicos de qualidade e se mostraram uma forma de promover a afiliação intelectual à universidade pública e de enfrentamento dos efeitos que a origem social possa ter nos percursos acadêmicos. A associação da autoanálise, como um trabalho interpretativo das disposições e práticas, com a realização de pesquisas, e a conexão de saberes entre estudantes com afinidades de habitus, engendrou a constituição de redes de sociabilidade e a permanência na UFV.Keywords: Access to higher education, Sociology of Education, Socio-educational inequalities.Palavras-chave: Acesso à educação superior, Sociologia da Educação, Desigualdades socioeducacionais.ReferencesARIOVALDO, Thainara Cristina de Castro. O Sistema de Seleção Unificada e a escolha pelas Licenciaturas na Universidade Federal de Viçosa. 2018, 117 p. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação) – Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2018.BOURDIEU, Pierre. Reprodução cultural e reprodução social. In: BOURDIEU, Pierre. A economia das trocas simbólicas. 3. ed. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1992. p. 295-336.BOURDIEU, Pierre. Esboço de uma teoria da prática. In: ORTIZ, Renato. Pierre Bourdieu. 2. ed. São Paulo: Ática, 1994. p. 46-81.BOURDIEU, Pierre. É possível um ato desinteressado? In: BOURDIEU, Pierre. Razões práticas: sobre a teoria da ação. Campinas: Papirus, 1996. p. 137-162.BOURDIEU, Pierre. Os excluídos do interior. In: BOURDIEU, Pierre. (Coord.) A miséria do mundo. Petrópolis/RJ : Vozes, 1997, p. 481-487.BOURDIEU, Pierre. Violência simbólica e lutas políticas. In: BOURDIEU, Pierre. Meditações pascalianas. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil, 2001, p. 199-233.BOURDIEU, Pierre. Esboço de auto-análise. São Paulo: Cia. das Letras, 2005.CARVALHO, Josiane das Graças. A formação por alternância na Licenciatura em Educação do Campo da UFV: experiências e representações sociais dos educandos. 2017. 133 p. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação) – Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa, 2017.COULON, Alain. Reprodução e filiação. In: COULON, Alain. Etnometodologia e educação. Petrópolis, Vozes, 1995, p. 147-166.COULON, Alain. A condição de estudante. A entrada na vida universitária. Salvador/BA: EDUFBA, 2008.LACERDA, Wânia Maria Guimarães. Famílias e filhos na construção de trajetórias escolares pouco prováveis: o caso dos iteanos. 2006. 416 p. Tese (Doutorado em Educação) – Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), Rio de Janeiro, 2006.LACERDA, Wânia Maria Guimarães. Famílias e filhos na construção de percursos escolares pouco prováveis. In: SANTOS, Georgina Gonçalves dos; SAMPAIO, Sônia Maria Rocha (Orgs.). Observatório da vida estudantil. Estudos sobre a vida e cultura universitárias. Salvador/BA: EDUFBA, 2012, p. 87-130.LACERDA, Wânia Maria Guimarães. Professores em formação e hierarquias simbólicas: o caso de estudantes de Pedagogia da UFV. In: BRAÚNA, Rita de Cássia de Alcântara; BARCELOS, Ana Maria Ferreira (Orgs.). Demandas contemporâneas na formação de Professores. Viçosa/MG: Editora UFV, 2013, p.12-43.LACERDA, Wânia Maria Guimarães. De escolas públicas estaduais ao Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA). In: PIOTTO, Débora Cristina (Org.). Camadas Populares e universidades públicas. Trajetórias e experiência escolares. São Carlos: Pedro & João Editores, 2014, p. 45-88.LAHIRE, Bernard. O ponto de vista do conhecimento. In: LAHIRE, Bernard. Sucesso escolar nos meios populares: as razões do improvável. São Paulo: Ática, 1997. p. 17-46.LUCAS, S. R. Effectively Maintained Inequality: education transitions, track mobility, and social background effects. The American Journal of Sociology, v. 106, n. 6, p. 1642-1690, maio 2001.MONT’ALVÃO, A. A dimensão vertical e horizontal da estratificação educacional. Teoria e Cultura. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Sociais – UFJF, v. 11, n. 1 jan/jun. p. 13-20, 2016.PAIVANDI, Saeed. A qualidade da aprendizagem dos estudantes e a pedagogia na universidade. In: SANTOS, Georgina Gonçalves dos; SAMPAIO, Sônia Maria Rocha (Orgs.). Observatório da vida estudantil. Estudos sobre a vida e cultura universitárias. Salvador/BA: EDUFBA, 2012, p. 31-59.PAIVANDI, Saeed. A avaliação do ensino pelo estudante, a pedagogia universitária e o ofício de professor. In: SANTOS, Georgina Gonçalves dos; SAMPAIO, Sônia Maria Rocha (Orgs.). Observatório da vida estudantil. Universidade, responsabilidade social e juventude. Salvador/BA: EDUFBA, 2013, p. 319-352.PAIVANDI, Saeed. Que significa o desempenho acadêmico dos estudantes? In: SANTOS, Georgina Gonçalves dos; SAMPAIO, Sônia Maria Rocha; CARVALHO, Ava. (Orgs.). Observatório da vida estudantil. Avaliação e qualidade no ensino superior: formar como e para que mundo? Salvador/BA: EDUFBA, 2015, p. 23-60.PASSERON, Jean-Claude. A encenação e o corpus: biografias, fluxos, itinerários, trajetórias. In: ______. O raciocínio sociológico: o espaço não-popperiano do raciocínio natural. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1995. p. 204-227.PEREIRA, Aline Juliana de Souza. Três famílias de camadas populares e a escolarização dos filhos: entre estabelecimentos de ensino públicos e privados. 2016. 119 p. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação) – Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa, 2016.PORTES, Écio Antônio. Trajetórias e estratégias escolares do universitário das camadas populares. 1993. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação) – Faculdade de Educação, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 1993.PORTES, Écio Antônio. Trajetórias escolares e vida acadêmica do estudante pobre na UFMG – um estudo a partir de cinco casos. 2001. Tese (Doutorado em Educação) – Faculdade de Educação, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2001.PORTES, Écio Antônio. A vida universitária de estudantes pobres na UFMG: possibilidades e limites. In: PIOTTO, Débora Cristina (Org.). Camadas Populares e universidades públicas. Trajetórias e experiência escolares. São Carlos: Pedro & João Editores, 2014, p. 167-238.RIBEIRO, Carlos Antônio Costa; SCHLEGEL, Rogério Estratificação horizontal da educação superior no Brasil (1960 a 2010). In: ARRETCHE, Marta (Org.). Trajetórias das desigualdades: como o Brasil mudou nos últimos cinquenta anos. São Paulo: Editora UNESP, 2015, p. 133-162.SANTOS, Georgina Gonçalves dos; SAMPAIO, Sônia Maria Rocha (Orgs.). Observatório da vida estudantil. Estudos sobre a vida e cultura universitárias. Salvador/BA: EDUFBA, 2012.SANTOS, Georgina Gonçalves dos; SAMPAIO, Sônia Maria Rocha (Orgs.). Observatório da vida estudantil. Universidade, responsabilidade social e juventude. Salvador/BA: EDUFBA, 2013.SANTOS, Georgina Gonçalves dos; SAMPAIO, Sônia Maria Rocha; CARVALHO, Ava. (Orgs.). Observatório da vida estudantil. Avaliação e qualidade no ensino superior: formar como e para que mundo? Salvador/BA: EDUFBA, 2015.SILVA, Sabrina Lopes Nogueira. A formação de professores e o Programa de Licenciaturas Internacionais (PLI): experiências de licenciandos em Letras da UFV. 2017. 239 p. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação) – Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa, 2017.SOARES, José Francisco. Qualidade da Educação. In: DAYRELL, Juarez et al. (Orgs.). Família, escola e juventude. Olhares cruzados Brasil-Portugal. Belo Horizonte: Editora da UFMG, 2016, p.231-251.TEIXEIRA, Ana Maria Freitas. A universidade entre as palavras de jovens de origem popular. In: SANTOS, Georgina Gonçalves dos; SAMPAIO, Sônia Maria Rocha (Orgs.). Observatório da vida estudantil. Estudos sobre a vida e cultura universitárias. Salvador/BA: EDUFBA, 2012, p. 163-185.TEIXEIRA, Ana Maria Freitas. Aprendendo a ser estudante universitário: uma relação entre o campo disciplinar e a construção de si. In: SANTOS, Georgina Gonçalves dos; SAMPAIO, Sônia Maria Rocha (Orgs.). Observatório da vida estudantil. Universidade, responsabilidade social e juventude. Salvador/BA: EDUFBA, 2013, p. 99-119.TEIXEIRA, Ana Maria Freitas; COULON, Alain. Interiorização do ensino superior público e afiliação: e se eu conseguir uma vaga, como é que vai ser? In: SANTOS, Georgina Gonçalves dos; SAMPAIO, Sônia Maria Rocha; CARVALHO, Ava. (Orgs.). Observatório da vida estudantil. Avaliação e qualidade no ensino superior: formar como e para que mundo? Salvador/BA: EDUFBA, 2015, p. 209-230.TERRAIL, J. P. L’issue scolaire: de quelques histories de transfuges. In: TERRAIL, J. P. Destins ouvriers. La fin d’une classe? Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1990. p. 223-258.VIANA, Maria José Braga. Longevidade escolar em famílias de camadas populares: algumas condições de possibilidades. In: NOGUEIRA, Maria Alice; ROMANELLI; Geraldo, ZAGO, Nadir. Família & escola: trajetórias de escolarização em camadas médias e populares. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2000. p. 45-60.VIANA, Maria José Braga. As práticas socializadoras familiares como locus de constituição de disposições facilitadoras de longevidade escolar em meios populares. Educação e Sociedade, Campinas, v. 26, n. 90, p. 107-125, jan.-abr. 2005.VIANA, Maria José Braga. Longevidade escolar em famílias populares. Algumas condições de possibilidade. Goiânia: Editora da UFG, 2007.

El artículo presenta los hallazgos de una investigación hecha sobre el proceso de la génesis del campo artístico paraguayo y el fenómeno de grupos de vanguardia antagónicos, entre los años 50 y 60’s. Se utilizó el sistema teórico de Pierre Bourdieu, cuya puesta a prueba dejó ver que sus conceptos definen, simultáneamente, una interpretación conceptual específica y unas funciones metodológicas precisas en la reconstrucción de casos particulares: por ejemplo, mantener una perspectiva relacional, ejercer la ruptura con las prenociones y los datos preconstruidos, como también estabilizar un modelo analógico para la comparación entre casos ya establecidos. Esto significa que, si bien se estudiaron las propiedades singulares del caso, el objetivo radicó en inscribirlo en una serie de casos históricos semejantes mediante el razonamiento por analogía. El artículo presenta tres dimensiones estrictamente interrelacionadas: a) dimensión epistemológica; b) dimensión histórica; y c) una dimensión de análisis. Las proposiciones teóricas hacen inteligible que las tomas de posición de los grupos Arte Nuevo y Los Novísimos constituyeron unas específicas articulaciones entre la ética, la estética y la política en el arte paraguayo. This paper shows the research finding of the Paraguayan artistic field genesis process and the phenomenon of the avant-garde antagonistic groups around the 1950s and 1960s. Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical system was utilized for the purpose of construction and reconstruction: the deployment of concepts in this case showed that they define a specific conceptual interpretation and very precise methodological steps simultaneously. This means that, even if the singular properties of the case have been studied, the main aim resided in inscribing it in a series of similar historical cases through the reasoning by analogy. Furthermore, the logic of the investigation was composed of historical analysis, epistemological vigilance, and socio-analysis for the sake of reaching the rigorousness that characterizes sociology. The paper is structured by three interrelated dimensions: and epistemological dimension; a historical dimension; and a dimension of the analysis.Naturally, the Paraguayan artistic field has displayed singular properties like a particular case. But the heuristical power of Bourdieu’s theoretical propositions has allowed inscribing the Paraguayan case in the model of symbolic revolutions and in the specific struggle which revolved around the proper definition of art that was carried out by avant-garde groups. At the same time, the political context was a fundamental element: as Stroessner’s power was increasing (with the support of international cooperation like Brazil or the United States contributions), local artists, writers, and intellectuals were defining the structure and the autonomy of the cultural production field. Primarily, the importance of the actions of the group called Arte Nuevo was fundamental in the relative rupture with postulates of academic art; but later, Los Novísimos’ irruption played as a trigger of ethic and aesthetic investments that modified the field structure as it was emerging. Results show, on the one hand, the interrelations between ethics, aesthetic and political issues in the Paraguayan artistic field during the historical period studied and, on the other hand, the theoretical force of Bourdieu’s concepts. Finally, the approach applies a dispositionalist theory to study the process of symbolic production.

The cognitive specificity of social pedagogy is its interest in the issues related to social conditionings of human development and, respectively, the specific social conditionings of the upbringing process. The notion has been developed in various directions since the very beginning of the discipline, yet the most clearly visible area seems to be the functioning of individuals, families and broader environment. Simultaneously, it is possible to observe that the issues have been entangled in certain socio-political conditions, the knowledge of which is substantial for the reconstruction and identification of the research heritage of social pedagogy. All these interrelationships allowed to distinguish particular stages of development of social pedagogy. Contemporarily, it is a discipline with descent scientific achievements which marks out and indicates new perspectives both in the field of educational practice and the theory of social activity. Social pedagogy, similarly to other areas (subdisciplines) of pedagogy, deals with the notion of upbringing in a certain aspect – in a certain problem inclination. It specializes in social and environmental conditionings of the upbringing process. It is the thread of the social context of upbringing what proves to be the crucial, basic and fundamental determinant of upbringing and, thus, decisive factor for human development. This notion was always present in the general pedagogical thought however, its organized and rationalized character surfaced only when the social pedagogy was distinguished as a separate, systematic area of pedagogy. It occurred in Poland only at the beginning of the 19th century. From the very beginning the creators and precursors of this subdiscipline pointed out its relatively wide range. It has been the notion of individual – social conditionings of human development, yet, social pedagogists were interested in human at every stage of their lives i.e. childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. Another area of interest were the issues related to family as the most important “place” of human development and, in this respect, the issues connected with institutions undertaking various activities: help, care, support and animation. Finally, the scope of interest included issues related to the environment as the place where the upbringing process is supposed to realize and realizes. Since the very beginning of social pedagogy these have been the prominent threads for exploration. At the same time it ought to be stated that these threads have always been interwoven with various social-political conditions both with regards to their interpretation as well as possible and planned educational practice. Therefore social pedagogy and its findings must be always “read” in the context of social-political conditions which accompanied the creation of a given thought or realization of some educational practice. As these conditions have constantly been undergoing certain transformations one may clearly distinguish particular stages of development of social pedagogy. The stages reflect various approaches to exploring and describing the above-mentioned areas of this discipline. Following the assumptions regarding the chronology of social pedagogy development and the three distinguished stages of development, it seems worthwhile to study how the issues related to an individual, family and environment were shaped at these stages. The first stage when the social psychology was arising was mainly the time of Helena Radlińska’s activities as well as less popular and already forgotten Polish pedagogists – precursors of this discipline such as: Anna Chmielewska, Irena Jurgielewiczowa, Zofia Gulińska or Maria Korytowska. In that period social pedagogists mainly dealt with individuals, families and the functioning of environments in the context of educational activities aimed at arousing national identity and consciousness. However, their work did no focus on indicating the layers of threats and deficits in functioning of individuals, social groups or families but on the possibilities to stimulate their development and cultural life. Therefore social pedagogy of those times was not as strongly related to social work as it currently is but dealt mainly with educational work. The classic example of such approach in the research carried out in the social pedagogy of that time may be the early works by Helena Radlińska who undertook the narrow field of cultural-educational work targeted to all categories of people. The works described such issues as the organization of libraries, organizing extra-school education (H. Orsza, 1922, H. Orsza-Radlińska, 1925). It ought to be stated that this kind of work was regarded as public and educational work, whereas currently it exists under the name of social work. Frequently quoted works related to the issues of arising social pedagogy were also the works by Eustachy Nowicki e.g. “Extra-school education and its social-educational role in the contemporary Polish life” from 1923 or the works by Stefania Sempołowska, Jerzy Grodecki or Jadwiga Dziubińska. Such an approach and tendencies are clearly visible in a book from 1913 (a book which has been regarded by some pedagogists as the first synthetic presentation of social pedagogy). It is a group work entitled “Educational work – its tasks, methods and organization” (T. Bobrowski, Z. Daszyńska-Golińska, J. Dziubińska, Z. Gargasa, M. Heilperna, Z. Kruszewska, L. Krzywicki, M. Orsetti, H. Orsza, St. Posner, M. Stępkowski, T. Szydłowski, Wł. Weychert-Szymanowska, 1913). The problem of indicated and undertaken research areas and hence, the topics of works realized by the social pedagogists of that times changed immediately after regaining independence and before World War II. It was the time when the area of social pedagogists interests started to include the issues of social inequality, poverty and, subsequently, the possibility of helping (with regards to the practical character of social pedagogy). The research works undertaken by social pedagogists were clearly of diagnostic, practical and praxeological character. They were aimed at seeking the causes of these phenomena with simultaneous identification and exploration of certain environmental factors as their sources. A classic example of such a paper – created before the war – under the editorial management of H. Radlińska was the work entitled “Social causes of school successes and failures” from 1937 (H. Radlińska, 1937). Well known are also the pre-war works written by the students of H. Radlińska which revealed diagnostic character such as: “The harm of a child” by Maria Korytowska (1937) or “A child of Polish countryside” edited by M. Librachowa and published in Warsaw in 1934 (M. Librachowa, 1934). Worthwhile are also the works by Czesław Wroczyński from 1935 entitled “Care of an unmarried mother and struggle against abandoning infants in Warsaw” or the research papers by E. Hryniewicz, J. Ryngmanowa and J. Czarnecka which touched upon the problem of neglected urban and rural families and the situation of an urban and rural child – frequently an orphaned child. As it may be inferred, the issues of poverty, inefficient families, single-parent families remain current and valid also after the World War II. These phenomena where nothing but an outcome of various war events and became the main point of interest for researchers. Example works created in the circle of social pedagogists and dealing with these issues may be two books written in the closest scientific environment of Helena Radlińska – with her immense editorial impact. They are “Orphanage – scope and compensation” (H. Radlińska, J. Wojtyniak, 1964) and “Foster families in Łódź” (A. Majewska, 1948), both published immediately after the war. Following the chronological approach I adopted, the next years mark the beginning of a relative stagnation in the research undertaken in the field of social pedagogy. Especially the 50’s – the years of notably strong political indoctrination and the Marxist ideological offensive which involved building the so called socialist educational society – by definition free from socio-educational problems in public life. The creation and conduction of research in this period was also hindered due to organizational and institutional reasons. The effect of the mentioned policy was also the liquidation of the majority of social sciences including research facilities – institutes, departments and units. An interesting and characteristic description of the situation may be the statement given by Professor J. Auletner who described the period from the perspective of development of social policy and said that: “During the Stalinist years scientific cultivation of social policy was factually forbidden”. During the period of real socialism it becomes truly difficult to explore the science of social policy. The name became mainly the synonym of the current activity of the state and a manifestation of struggles aimed at maintaining the existing status quo. The state authorities clearly wanted to subdue the science of social activities of the state […]. During the real socialism neither the freedom for scientific criticism of the reality nor the freedom of research in the field of social sciences existed. It was impossible (yet deliberated) to carry out a review of poverty and other drastic social issues” (J. Auletner, 2000). The situation changes at the beginning of the 60’s (which marks the second stage of development of social pedagogy) when certain socio-political transformations – on the one hand abandoning the limitation of the Stalinist period (1953 – the death of Stalin and political thaw), on the other – reinforcement of the idea of socialist education in social sciences lead to resuming environmental research. It was simultaneously the period of revival of Polish social pedagogy with regards to its institutional dimension as well as its ideological self-determination (M. Cichosz, 2006, 2014). The issues of individuals, families and environments was at that time explored with regards to the functioning of educational environments and in the context of exploring the environmental conditionings of the upbringing process. Typical examples here may be the research by Helena Izdebska entitled “The functioning of a family and childcare tasks” (H. Izdebska, 1967) and “The causes of conflicts in a family” (H. Izdebska, 1975) or research conducted by Anna Przecławska on adolescents and their participation in culture: “Book, youth and cultural transformations” (A. Przecławska, 1967) or e.g. “Cultural diversity of adolescents against upbringing problems” (A. Przecławska, 1976). A very frequent notion undertaken at that time and remaining within the scope of the indicated areas were the issues connected with organization and use of free time. This may be observed through research by T. Wujek: “Homework and active leisure of a student” (T. Wujek, 1969). Another frequently explored area was the problem of looking after children mainly in the papers by Albin Kelm or Marian Balcerek. It is worthwhile that the research on individuals, families or environments were carried out as part of the current pedagogical concepts of that time like: parallel education, permanent education, lifelong learning or the education of adults, whereas, the places indicated as the areas of human social functioning in which the environmental education took place were: family, school, housing estate, workplace, social associations. It may be inferred that from a certain (ideological) perspective at that time we witnessed a kind of modeling of social reality as, on the one hand particular areas were diagnosed, on the other – a desired (expected) model was built (designed) (with respect to the pragmatic function of practical pedagogy). A group work entitled “Upbringing and environment” edited by B. Passini and T. Pilch (B. Passini, T. Pilch, 1979) published in 1979 was a perfect illustration of these research areas. It ought to be stated that in those years a certain model of social diagnosis proper for undertaken social-pedagogical research was reinforced (M. Deptuła, 2005). Example paper could be the work by I. Lepalczyk and J. Badura entitled: “Elements of pedagogical diagnostics” (I. Lepalczyk, J. Badura, 1987). Finally, the social turning point in the 80’s and 90’s brought new approaches to the research on individuals, families and environments which may be considered as the beginning of the third stage of the development of social pedagogy. Breaking off the idea of socialist education meant abandoning the specific approach to research on the educational environment previously carried out within a holistic system of socio-educational influences (A. Przecławska, w. Theiss, 1995). The issues which dominated in the 90’s and still dominate in social pedagogy with regards to the functioning of individuals, families and local environments have been the issues connected with social welfare and security as well as education of adults. Research papers related to such approach may be the work by Józefa Brągiel: “Upbringing in a single-parent family” from 1990; the work edited by Zofia Brańka “The subjects of care and upbringing” from 2002 or a previous paper written in 1998 by the same author in collaboration with Mirosław Szymański “Aggression and violence in modern world” published in 1999 as well as the work by Danuta Marzec “Childcare at the time of social transformations” from 1999 or numerous works by St. Kawula, A. Janke. Also a growing interest in social welfare and social work is visible in the papers by J. Brągiel and P. Sikora “Social work, multiplicity of perspectives, family – multiculturalism – education” from 2004, E. Kanwicz and A. Olubiński: “Social activity in social welfare at the threshold of 21st century” from 2004 or numerous works on this topic created by the circles gathered around the Social Pedagogy Faculty in Łódź under the management of E. Marynowicz-Hetka. Current researchers also undertake the issues related to childhood (B. Smolińska-Theiss, 2014, B. Matyjas, 2014) and the conditionings of the lives of seniors (A. Baranowska, E. Kościńska, 2013). Ultimately, among the presented, yet not exclusive, research areas related to particular activities undertaken in human life environment (individuals, families) and fulfilled within the field of caregiving, social welfare, adult education, socio-cultural animation or health education one may distinguish the following notions:  the functioning of extra-school education institutions, most frequently caregiving or providing help such as: orphanage, residential home, dormitory, community centre but also facilities aimed at animating culture like youth cultural centres, cultural centres, clubs etc.,  the functioning of school, the realization of its functions (especially educational care), fulfilling and conditioning roles of student/teacher, the functioning of peer groups, collaboration with other institutions,  the functioning (social conditionings) of family including various forms of families e.g. full families, single-parent families, separated families, families at risk (unemployment) and their functioning in the context of other institutions e.g. school,  social pathologies, the issues of violence and aggression, youth subcultures,  participation in culture, leisure time, the role of media,  the functioning of the seniors – animation of activities in this field,  various dimensions of social welfare, support, providing help, the conditionings of functioning of such jobs as the social welfare worker, culture animator, voluntary work. It might be concluded that the issues connected with individuals, families and environment have been the centre of interest of social pedagogy since the very beginning of this discipline. These were the planes on which social pedagogists most often identified and described social life – from the perspective of human participation. On the course of describing the lives of individuals, families and broader educational environments social pedagogists figured out and elaborated on particular methods and ways of diagnosing social life. Is it possible to determine any regularities or tendencies in this respect? Unquestionably, at the initial stage of existence of this discipline, aimed at stimulating national consciousness and subsequent popularization of cultural achievements through certain activities – social and educational work, social pedagogists built certain models of these undertakings which were focused on stimulating particular social activity and conscious participation in social life. The issues concerning social diagnosis, though not as significant as during other stages, served these purposes and hence were, to a certain extent, ideologically engaged. The situation changed significantly before and shortly after the World War II. Facing particular conditions of social life – increase in many unfavourable phenomena, social pedagogists attempted to diagnose and describe them. It seems to have been the period of clear shaping and consolidation of the accepted model of empirical research in this respect. The model was widely accepted as dominating and has been developed in Polish social pedagogy during the second and subsequent stages of developing of this discipline. Practical and praxeological character of social pedagogy became the main direction of this development. Consequently, social diagnosis realized and undertaken with regard to social pedagogy was associated with the idea of a holistic system of education and extra-school educational influences and related educational environments. Therefore, the more and more clearly emphasized goal of environmental research – forecasting, was associated with the idea of building holistic, uniform educational impacts. After the systemic transformation which occurred in Poland in the 90’s, i.e. the third stage of social pedagogy development, abandoning the previous ideological solutions, environmental research including diagnosis was reassociated with social life problems mainly regarding social welfare and security. Individuals, families and environment have been and still seem to be the subject of research in the field of social pedagogy in Poland. These research areas are structurally bound with its acquired paradigm – of a science describing transformations of social life and formulating a directive of practical conduct regarding these transformations. A question arouses about the development of social pedagogy as the one which charts the direction of transformations of practices within the undertaken research areas. If it may be considered as such, then it would be worthwhile to enquire about the directions of the accepted theoretical acknowledgments. On the one hand we may observe a relatively long tradition of specifically elaborated and developed concepts, on the other – there are still new challenges ahead. Observing the previous and current development of Polish social pedagogy it may be inferred that its achievements are not overextensive with regards to the described and acquired theoretical deliberations. Nevertheless, from the very beginning, it has generated certain, specific theoretical solutions attempting to describe and explain particular areas of social reality. Especially noteworthy is the first period of the existence of this discipline, the period of such social pedagogists like i.a. J.W. Dawid, A. Szycówna, I. Moszczeńska or Helena Radlińska. The variety of the reflections with typically philosophical background undertaken in their works (e.g. E. Abramowski) is stunning. Equally involving is the second stage of development of social pedagogy i.e. shortly after the World War II, when Polish social pedagogy did not fully break with the heritage of previous philosophical reflections (A. Kamiński, R. Wroczyński) yet was developed in the Marxist current. A question arouses whether the area of education and the projects of its functioning of that time were also specific with regards to theory (it seems to be the problem of the whole Socialist pedagogy realised in Poland at that time). The following years of development of this discipline, especially at the turn of 80’s and 90’s was the period of various social ideas existing in social pedagogy – the influences of various concepts and theories in this field. The extent to which they were creatively adapted and included in the current of specific interpretations still requires detailed analysis, yet remains clearly visible. Another important area is the field of confronting the theories with the existing and undertaken solutions in the world pedagogy. A. Radziewicz-Winnicki refers to the views of the representatives of European and world social thought: P. Bourdieu, U. Beck, J. Baudrillard, Z. Bauman and M. Foucault, and tries to identify possible connections and relationships between these ideas and social pedagogy: “the ideas undertaken by the mentioned sociologists undoubtedly account for a significant source of inspiration for practical reflection within social pedagogy. Therefore, it is worthwhile to suggest certain propositions of their application in the field of the mentioned subdiscipline of pedagogy” (Radziewicz-Winnicki 2008). The contemporary social pedagogy in Poland constantly faces numerous challenges. W. Theiss analysed the contemporary social pedagogy with regards to its deficiencies but also the challenges imposed by globalisation and wrote: “Modern social pedagogy focuses mainly on the narrow empirical research and narrow practical activity and neglects research in the field of theory functioning separately from the realms of the global (or globalising) world or pays insufficient attention to these problems. It leads to a certain self-marginalisation of our discipline which leaves us beyond the current of main socio-educational problems of modern times. In this respect, it seems worthwhile and necessary to carry out intensive conceptual and research work focused on e.g. the following issues:  metatheory of social pedagogy and its relationship with modern trends in social sciences;  the concepts of human and the world, the concepts of the hierarchy of values;  the theory of upbringing, the theory of socialization, the theory of educational environment;  a conceptual key of the modern reality; new terms and new meanings of classical concepts;  socio-educational activities with direct and indirect macro range e.g. balanced development and its programmes, global school, intercultural education, inclusive education, professional education of emigrants”. Considering the currently undertaken research in this field and the accepted theoretical perspectives it is possible to indicate specific and elaborated concepts. They fluctuate around structural spheres of social pedagogy on the axis: human – environment – environmental transformations. It accounts for an ontological sphere of the acknowledged concepts and theories. Below, I am enumerating the concepts which are most commonly discussed in social pedagogy with regards to the acquired and accepted model. Currently discussed theoretical perspectives (contexts) in social pedagogy and the concepts within. I. The context of social personal relationships  social participation, social presence;  social communication, interaction;  reciprocity. II. The context of social activities (the organization of environment)  institutionalisation;  modernization;  urbanization. III. The context of environment  space;  place;  locality. The socially conditioned process of human development is a process which constantly undergoes transformations. The pedagogical description of this process ought to include these transformations also at the stage of formulating directives of practical activities – the educational practice. It is a big challenge for social pedagogy to simultaneously do not undergo limitations imposed by current social policy and response to real social needs. It has been and remains a very important task for social pedagogy.

IntroductionIf human beings have become a geophysical force, capable of impacting the very crust and atmosphere of the planet, and if geophysical forces become objects of study, presences able to be charted over millions of years—one of our many problems is a 'naming' problem. - Bethany NowviskieThe anthropocene "denotes the present time interval, in which many geologically significant conditions and processes are profoundly altered by human activities" (S.Q.S.). Although the narrative and terminology of the anthropocene has not been officially legitimized by the scientific community as a whole, it has been adopted worldwide by a plethora of social and cultural studies. The challenges of the anthropocene demand interdisciplinary efforts and actions. New contexts, situations and environments call for original naming propositions: new terminologies are always illegitimate at the moment of their first appearance in the world.Against the background of the naming challenges of the anthropocene, we will map the emergence and tell the story of a tiny world within the world of media studies: the world of the term 'nanomedia' and its hyphenated sister 'nano-media'. While we tell the story of the uses of this term, its various meanings and applications, we will provide yet another possible interpretation and application to the term, one that we believe might be helpful to interdisciplinary media studies in the context of the anthropocene. Contemporary media terminologies are usually born out of fortuitous exchanges between communication technologies and their various social appropriations: hypodermic media, interactive media, social media, and so on and so forth. These terminologies are either recognised as the offspring of legitimate scientific endeavours by the media theory community, or are widely discredited and therefore rendered illegitimate. Scientific legitimacy comes from the broad recognition and embrace of a certain term and its inclusion in the canon of an epistemology. Illegitimate processes of theoretical enquiry and the study of the kinds of deviations that might deem a theory unacceptable have been scarcely addressed (Delborne). Rejected terminologies and theories are marginalised and gain the status of bastard epistemologies of media, considered irrelevant and unworthy of mention and recognition. Within these margins, however, different streams of media theories which involve conceptual hybridizations can be found: creole encounters between high culture and low culture (James), McLuhan's hybrid that comes from the 'meeting of two media' (McLuhan 55), or even 'bastard spaces' of cultural production (Bourdieu). Once in a while a new media epistemology arises that is categorised as a bastard not because of plain rejection or criticism, but because of its alien origins, formations and shape. New theories are currently emerging out of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary thinking which are, in many ways, bearers of strange features and characteristics that might render its meaning elusive and obscure to a monodisciplinary perspective. Radical transdisciplinary thinking is often alien and alienated. It results from unconventional excursions into uncharted territories of enquiry: bastard epistemologies arise from such exchanges. Being itself a product of a mestizo process of thinking, this article takes a look into the term nanomedia (or nano-media): a marginal terminology within media theory. This term is not to be confounded with the term biomedia, coined by Eugene Thacker (2004). (The theory of biomedia has acquired a great level of scientific legitimacy, however it refers to the moist realities of the human body, and is more concerned with cyborg and post-human epistemologies. The term nanomedia, on the contrary, is currently being used according to multiple interpretations which are mostly marginal, and we argue, in this paper, that such uses might be considered illegitimate). ’Nanomedia’ was coined outside the communications area. It was first used by scientific researchers in the field of optics and physics (Rand et al), in relation to flows of media via nanoparticles and optical properties of nanomaterials. This term would only be used in media studies a couple of years later, with a completely different meaning, without any acknowledgment of its scientific origins and context. The structure of this narrative is thus illegitimate, and as such does not fit into traditional modalities of written expression: there are bits and pieces of information and epistemologies glued together as a collage of nano fragments which combine philology, scientific literature, digital ethnography and technology reviews. Transgressions Illegitimate theories might be understood in terms of hybrid epistemologies that intertwine disciplines and perspectives, rendering its outcomes inter or transdisciplinary, and therefore prone to being considered marginal by disciplinary communities. Such theories might also be considered illegitimate due to social and political power struggles which aim to maintain territory by reproducing specific epistemologies within a certain field. Scientific legitimacy is a social and political process, which has been widely addressed. Pierre Bourdieu, in particular, has dedicated most of his work to deciphering the intricacies of academic wars around the legitimacy or illegitimacy of theories and terminologies. Legitimacy also plays a role in determining the degree to which a certain theory will be regarded as relevant or irrelevant:Researchers’ tendency to concentrate on those problems regarded as the most important ones (e.g. because they have been constituted as such by producers endowed with a high degree of legitimacy) is explained by the fact that a contribution or discovery relating to those questions will tend to yield greater symbolic profit (Bourdieu 22).Exploring areas of enquiry which are outside the boundaries of mainstream scientific discourses is a dangerous affair. Mixing different epistemologies in the search for transversal grounds of knowledge might result in unrecognisable theories, which are born out of a combination of various processes of hybridisation: social, technological, cultural and material.Material mutations are happening that call for new epistemologies, due to the implications of current technological possibilities which might redefine our understanding of mediation, and expand it to include molecular forms of communication. A new terminology that takes into account the scientific and epistemological implications of nanotechnology applied to communication [and that also go beyond cyborg metaphors of a marriage between biology and cibernetics] is necessary. Nanomedia and nanomediations are the terminologies proposed in this article as conceptual tools to allow these further explorations. Nanomedia is here understood as the combination of different nanotechnological mediums of communication that are able to create and disseminate meaning via molecular exchange and/ or assembly. Nanomediation is here defined as the process of active transmission and reception of signs and meaning using nanotechnologies. These terminologies might help us in conducting interdisciplinary research and observations that go deeper into matter itself and take into account its molecular spaces of mediation - moving from metaphor into pragmatics. Nanomedia(s)Within the humanities, the term 'nano-media' was first proposed by Mojca Pajnik and John Downing, referring to small media interventions that communicate social meaning in independent ways. Their use of term 'nano-media' proposes to be a revised alternative to the plethora of terms that categorise such media actions, such as alternative media, community media, tactical media, participatory media, etc. The metaphor of smallness implied in the term nano-media is used to categorise the many fragments and complexities of political appropriations of independent media. Historical examples of the kind of 'nano' social interferences listed by Downing (2),include the flyers (Flugblätter) of the Protestant Reformation in Germany; the jokes, songs and ribaldry of François Rabelais’ marketplace ... the internet links of the global social justice (otromundialista) movement; the worldwide community radio movement; the political documentary movement in country after country.John Downing applies the meaning of the prefix nano (coming from the Greek word nanos - dwarf), to independent media interventions. His concept is rooted in an analysis of the social actions performed by local movements scattered around the world, politically engaged and tactically positioned. A similar, but still unique, proposition to the use of the term 'nano-media' appeared 2 years later in the work of Graham St John (442):If ‘mass media’ consists of regional and national print and television news, ‘niche media’ includes scene specific publications, and ‘micro media’ includes event flyers and album cover art (that which Eshun [1998] called ‘conceptechnics’), and ‘social media’ refers to virtual social networks, then the sampling of popular culture (e.g. cinema and documentary sources) using the medium of the programmed music itself might be considered nano-media.Nano-media, according to Graham St John, "involves the remediation of samples from popular sources (principally film) as part of the repertoire of electronic musicians in their efforts to create a distinct liminalized socio-aesthetic" (St John 445). While Downing proposes to use the term nano-media as a way to "shake people free of their obsession with the power of macro-media, once they consider the enormous impact of nano-technologies on our contemporary world" (Downing 1), Graham St John uses the term to categorise media practices specific to a subculture (psytrance). Since the use of the term 'nano-media' in relation to culture seems to be characterised by the study of marginalised social movements, portraying a hybrid remix of conceptual references that, if not completely illegitimate, would be located in the border of legitimacy within media theories, I am hereby proposing yet another bastard version of the concept of nanomedia (without a hyphen). Given that neither of the previous uses of the term 'nano-media' within the discipline of media studies take into account the technological use of the prefix nano, it is time to redefine the term in direct relation to nanotechnologies and communication devices. Let us start by taking a look at nanoradios. Nanoradios are carbon nanotubes connected in such a way that when electrodes flow through the nanotubes, various electrical signals recover the audio signals encoded by the radio wave being received (Service). Nanoradios are examples of the many ways in which nanotechnologies are converging with and transforming our present information and communication technologies. From molecular manufacturing (Drexler) to quantum computing (Deutsch), we now have a wide spectrum of emerging and converging technologies that can act as nanomedia - molecular structures built specifically to act as communication devices.NanomediationsBeyond literal attempts to replicate traditional media artifacts using nanotechnologies, we find deep processes of mediation which are being called nanocommunication (Hara et al.) - mediation that takes place through the exchange of signals between molecules: Nanocommunication networks (nanonetworks) can be used to coordinate tasks and realize them in a distributed manner, covering a greater area and reaching unprecedented locations. Molecular communication is a novel and promising way to achieve communication between nanodevices by encoding messages inside molecules. (Abadal & Akyildiz) Nature is nanotechnological. Living systems are precise mechanisms of physical engineering: our molecules obey our DNA and fall into place according to biological codes that are mysteriously written in our every cell. Bodies are perfectly mediated - biological systems of molecular communication and exchange. Humans have always tried to emulate or to replace natural processes by artificial ones. Nanotechnology is not an exception. Many nanotechnological applications try to replicate natural systems, for example: replicas of nanostructures found in lotus flowers are now being used in waterproof fabrics, nanocrystals, responsible for resistance of cobwebs, are being artificially replicated for use in resistant materials, and various proteins are being artificially replicated as well (NNI 05). In recent decades, the methods of manipulation and engineering of nano particles have been perfected by scientists, and hundreds of nanotechnological products are now being marketed. Such nano material levels are now accessible because our digital technologies were advanced enough to allow scientific visualization and manipulation at the atomic level. The Scanning Tunneling Microscopes (STMs), by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer (1986), might be considered as the first kind of nanomedia devices ever built. STMs use quantum-mechanical principles to capture information about the surface of atoms and molecules, allowed digital imaging and visualization of atomic surfaces. Digital visualization of atomic surfaces led to the discovery of buckyballs and nanotubes (buckytubes), structures that are celebrated today and received their names in honor of Buckminster Fuller. Nanotechnologies were developed as a direct consequence of the advancement of digital technologies in the fields of scientific visualisation and imaging. Nonetheless, a direct causal relationship between nano and digital technologies is not the only correlation between these two fields. Much in the same manner in which digital technologies allow infinite manipulation and replication of data, nanotechnologies would allow infinite manipulation and replication of molecules. Nanocommunication could be as revolutionary as digital communication in regards to its possible outcomes concerning new media. Full implementation of the new possibilities of nanomedia would be equivalent or even more revolutionary than digital networks are today. Nanotechnology operates at an intermediate scale at which the laws of classical physics are mixed to the laws of quantum physics (Holister). The relationship between digital technologies and nanotechnologies is not just instrumental, it is also conceptual. We might compare the possibilities of nanotechnology to hypertext: in the same way that a word processor allows the expression of any type of textual structure, so nanotechnology could allow, in principle, for a sort of "3-D printing" of any material structure.Nanotechnologies are essentially media technologies. Nanomedia is now a reality because digital technologies made possible the visualization and computational simulation of the behavior of atomic particles at the nano level. Nanomachines that can build any type of molecular structure by atomic manufacturing could also build perfect replicas of themselves. Obviously, such a powerful technology offers medical and ecological dangers inherent to atomic manipulation. Although this type of concern has been present in the global debate about the social implications of nanotechnology, its full implications are yet not entirely understood. A general scientific consensus seems to exist, however, around the idea that molecules could become a new type of material alphabet, which, theoretically, would make possible the reconfiguration of the physical structures of any type of matter using molecular manufacturing. Matter becomes digital through molecular communication.Although the uses given to the term nano-media in the context of cultural and social studies are merely metaphorical - the prefix nano is used by humanists as an allegorical reference of a combination between 'small' and 'contemporary' - once the technological and scientifical realities of nanomedia present themselves as a new realm of mediation, populated with its own kind of molecular devices, it will not be possible to ignore its full range of implications anymore. A complexifying media ecosystem calls for a more nuanced and interdisciplinary approach to media studies.ConclusionThis article narrates the different uses of the term nanomedia as an illustration of the way in which disciplinarity determines the level of legitimacy or illegitimacy of an emerging term. We then presented another possible use of the term in the field of media studies, one that is more closely aligned with its scientific origins. The importance and relevance of this narrative is connected to the present challenges we face in the anthropocene. The reality of the anthropocene makes painfully evident the full extent of the impact our technologies have had in the present condition of our planet's ecosystems. For as long as we refuse to engage directly with the technologies themselves, trying to speak the language of science and technology in order to fully understand its wider consequences and implications, our theories will be reduced to fancy metaphors and aesthetic explorations which circulate around the critical issues of our times without penetrating them. The level of interdisciplinarity required by the challenges of the anthropocene has to go beyond anthropocentrism. Traditional theories of media are anthropocentric: we seem to be willing to engage only with that which we are able to recognise and relate to. Going beyond anthropocentrism requires that we become familiar with interdisciplinary discussions and perspectives around common terminologies so we might reach a consensus about the use of a shared term. For scientists, nanomedia is an information and communication technology which is simultaneously a tool for material engineering. For media artists and theorists, nano-media is a cultural practice of active social interference and artistic exploration. However, none of the two approaches is able to fully grasp the magnitude of such an inter and transdisciplinary encounter: when communication becomes molecular engineering, what are the legitimate boundaries of media theory? If matter becomes not only a medium, but also a language, what would be the conceptual tools needed to rethink our very understanding of mediation? Would this new media epistemology be considered legitimate or illegitimate? Be it legitimate or illegitimate, a new media theory must arise that challenges and overcomes the walls which separate science and culture, physics and semiotics, on the grounds that it is a transdisciplinary change on the inner workings of media itself which now becomes our vector of epistemological and empirical transformation. 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Taste and Lively Matter in the Anthropocene This paper is concerned with the role of taste in relation to food produced in backyard or community gardens. Taste, as outlined by Bourdieu, is constructed by many factors driven primarily by one’s economic position as well as certain cultural influences. Such arguments tend to work against a naïve reading of the “natural” attributes of food and the biological impulses and responses humans have to taste. Instead, within these frameworks, taste is positioned as a product of the machinations of human society. Along these lines, it is generally accepted that the economic and, consequently, the social shaping of tastes today have been significantly impacted on by the rise of international agribusiness throughout the twentieth century. These processes have greatly reduced the varieties of food commercially available due to an emphasis on economies of scale that require the production of food that can be grown in monocultures and which can withstand long transport times (Norberg-Hodge, Thrupp, Shiva). Of course, there are also other factors at play in relation to taste that give rise to distinction between classes. This includes the ways in which we perform our bodies and shape them in the face of our social and economic conditions. Many studies in this area focus on eating disorders and how control of food intake cannot be read simply as examples of disciplined or deviant bodies (Bordo, Probyn, Ferreday). Instead, the links between food and subjectivity are much more complex. However, despite the contradictions and nuance acknowledged in relation to understandings of food, it is primarily conceptualised as an economic and symbolic good that is controlled by humans and human informed processes. In line with the above observations, literature on food provisioning choices in the areas of food sociology and human geography tends to focus on efforts to understand food purchasing decisions and eating habits. There is a strong political-economic dimension to this research even when its cultural-symbolic value is acknowledged. This is highlighted by the work of Julie Guthman which, among other things, explores “the conversion of tastes into commodities (as well as the reverse)” (“Commodified” 296). Guthman’s analysis of alternative food networks, particularly the organic sector and farmers markets, has tended to reaffirm a Bourdieuan understanding of class and distinction whereby certain foods become appropriated by elites, driving up price and removing it from the reach of ordinary consumers (“Commodified”, “Fast Food”). There has also been, however, some recognition of the limits of such approaches and acknowledgement of the fragility and porous nature of boundaries in the food arena. For example, Jordan points out in her study of the heirloom tomato that, even when a food is appropriated by elites, thereby significantly increasing its cost, consumption of the food and its cultural-symbolic meaning can continue unchanged by those who have traditionally produced and consumed the food privately in their gardens. Guthman is quite right to highlight the presence of huge inequities in both mainstream and alternative food systems throughout the world. Food may, however, be able to disrupt the dominance of these economic and social representations through its very own agentic qualities. To explore this idea, this paper draws on the work of political theorist, Jane Bennett, and eco-feminist, Val Plumwood, and applies some of their key insights to data gathered through in-depth interviews with 20 community gardeners and 7 Canberra Show exhibitors carried out from 2009 to 2012. These interviews were approximately 1 to 2 hours long in duration and were carried out in, or following, an extensive tour of the gardens of the participants, during which tastings of the produce were regularly offered to the interviewers. Jane Bennett sets out to develop a theoretical approach which she names “thing-power materialism” which is grounded in the idea that objects, including food, have agency (354). Bennett conceptualises this idea through her notion of “lively matter” and the “thing power” of objects which she defines as “the curious ability of inanimate things to animate, to act, to produce effects dramatic and subtle” (“The force” 351, “Vibrant”). The basic idea here is that if we are willing to read agency into the nonhuman things around us, then we become forced to recognise that humans are simply one more element of a world of things which can act on, with or against others through various assemblages (Deleuze and Guatarri). These assemblages can be made, undone and rebuilt in multiple ways. The power of the elements to act within these may not be equal, but nor are they stable and static. For Bennett, this is not simply a return to previous materialist theories premised on naïve notions of object agency. It is, instead, a theory motivated by attempts to develop understandings and strategies that encourage engaged ecological living practices which seek to avoid ongoing human-inflicted environmental damage caused by the “master rationality” (Plumwood) that has fuelled the era of the anthropocene, the first geological era shaped by human action. Anthropocentric thinking and its assumptions of human superiority and separateness to other elements of our ecological mesh (Morton “Thinking”) has been identified as fuelling wasteful, exploitative, environmentally damaging practices. It acts as a key impediment to the embrace of attitudinal and behavioural changes that could promote more ecologically responsible and sustainable living practices. These ideas are particularly prominent in the fields of ecological humanities, ecological feminism and political theory (Bennett “The force”, “Vibrant”; Morton “Ecological”, “Thinking”, “Ecology”; Plumwood). To redress these issues and reduce further human-inflicted environmental damage, work in these spaces tends to highlight the importance of identifying the interconnections and mutual reliance between humans and nonhumans in order to sustain life. Thus, this work challenges the “master rationality” of the anthropocene by highlighting the agentic (Bennett “The force,” “Vibrant”) or actant (Latour) qualities of nonhumans. In this spirit, Plumwood writes that we need to develop “an environmental culture that values and fully acknowledges the nonhuman sphere and our dependency on it, and is able to make good decisions about how we live and impact on the nonhuman world” (3). Food, as a basic human need, and its very gustatory taste, is animated by nonhuman elements. The role of these nonhumans is particularly visible to those who engage in their own gardening practices. As such, the ways in which gardeners understand and speak of these processes may provide insights into how an environmental culture as envisaged by Plumwood could be supported, harnessed and shared. The brevity of this paper means only a quick skim of the murky ontological waters into which its wades can be provided. The overarching aim is to identify how the recent resurgence of cultural materiality can be linked to the ways in which everyday people conceptualise and articulate their food provisioning practices. In so doing, it demonstrates that gardeners can conceptualise their food, and the biological processes as well as the nonhuman labour which bring it to fruition, as having actant qualities. This is most overtly recognised through the gardeners’ discussions of how their daily habits and routines alter in response to the qualities and “needs” of their food producing gardens. The gardeners do not express this in a strict nature/culture binary. Instead, they indicate an awareness of the interconnectedness and mutual reliance of the human and nonhuman worlds. In this way, understandings of “taste,” as produced by human centred relations predicated on exchange of capital, are being rethought. This rethinking may offer ways of promoting a more sustainable engagement with ecological beliefs and behaviours which work against the very notion of human dominance that produced the era of the anthropocene. Local Food, Taste and Nonhuman Agency Recent years have seen an increase in the purchasing, sale and growing of local food. This has materialised in multiple forms from backyard, verge and community gardens to the significant growth of farmers markets. Such shifts are attributed to increasing resistance to the privileging of globalised and industrial-scale agri-business, practices which highlight the “master rationality” underpinning the anthropocene. This backlash has been linked to environmental motivations (Seyfang “Shopping,” “Ecological,” “Growing”); desires to support local economies (particularly the financial well-being of farmers) (Norberg-Hodge); and health concerns in relation to the use of chemicals in food production (Goodman and Goodman). Despite evidence that people grow or buy food based on gustatory taste, this has received less overt attention as a motivator for food provisioning practices in the literature (Hugner). Where it is examined, taste is generally seen as a social/cultural phenomenon shaped by the ideas related to the environmental, economic and health concerns mentioned above. However, when consumers discuss taste they also refer to notions of freshness, the varieties of food that are available, and nostalgia for the “way food used to be”. Taste in its gustatory sense and pleasure from food consumption is alluded to in all of the interviews carried out for this research. While the reasons for gardening are multiple and varied, there is a common desire to produce food that tastes better and, thus, induces greater pleasure than purchased food. As one backyard gardener and successful Royal Canberra Show exhibitor notes: “[e]verything that you put [grow] in the garden [has a] better taste than from the market or from the shop.” The extent of this difference was often a surprise for the gardeners: “I never knew a home grown potato could taste so different from a shop bought potato until I grew [my own] […] and I couldn’t believe the taste.” The gardeners in this research all agreed that the taste of commercially available fruit and vegetables was inferior to self-produced food. This was attributed to the multiple characteristics of industrialised food systems. Participants referred specifically to issues ranging from reduction in the varieties available to the chemical intensive practices designed to lead to high yields in short periods of time. The resulting poor taste of such foods was exemplified by comments such as shop bought tomatoes “don’t taste like tomatoes” and the belief that “[p]otatoes and strawberries from the shop taste the same as each other”. Even when gardeners raised health concerns about mainstream food, emphasising their delight in growing their own because they “knew what had gone into their food” (Turner, “Embodied”), the issue of taste continued to play an important role in influencing their gardening practices. One gardener stated: “I prefer more [food that] is tasty than one that is healthy for me”. The tastiest food for her came from her own community garden plot and this motivated her to travel across town most days to tend the garden. While tasty food was often seen as being more nutritious, this was not the key driver in food production. The superior taste of the fruit and vegetables grown by these gardeners in Canberra calls their bodies and minds into action to avoid poor tasting food. This desire for tasty food was viewed as common to the general population but was strongly identified as only being accessible to people who grow their own. A backyard gardener, speaking of the residents of an aged care facility where he volunteers observes: “[w]hen you…meet these people they've lost that ability to do any gardening and they really express it. They miss the taste, the flavours.” Another backyard gardener and Show exhibitor recounted a story from two years prior when he and his wife invited guests for a New Year’s Day lunch. While eating their meal, a guest asked “did you grow these carrots?” When he confirmed that he had, she declared: “I can taste it.” Others noted that many young people don’t know what they are missing out on because they have never tasted home-grown produce. Through the sense of taste, the tomatoes, potatoes and carrots and myriad of other foodstuffs grown at homes or in community gardens actively encourage resistance to, or questioning of, the industrial agricultural system and its outputs. The gardeners link poor tasting food to a loss of human responsiveness to plants resulting from the spatial characteristics of industrial agriculture. Modern agribusiness requires large-scale, global production and streamlined agricultural processes that aim to limit the need for producers to respond to unique climatic and soil conditions (through genetically modification technology, see Turner, “Reflections”) and removes the need, and capacity, for individual care of plants. This has led to heavy reliance on agricultural chemicals. The gardeners tend to link high-level usage of pesticides and herbicides with poor taste. One highly successful Show exhibitor, states that in his food, “There’s better taste …because they haven’t got the chemicals in them, not much spray, not much fertiliser, for that is better”. However, when chemical use is limited or removed, the gardeners acknowledge that food plants require more intensive and responsive human care. This involves almost daily inspection of individual plants to pick off and squash (or feed to chickens and birds) the harmful bugs. The gardeners need to be vigilant and capable of developing innovative techniques to ensure the survival of their plants and the production of tasty food. They are, of course, not always successful. One organic community gardener lamented the rising populations of slaters and earwigs which could decimate whole beds of newly sprouted seedlings overnight. This was a common issue and, in response, the gardeners research and trial new methods of control (including encouraging the introduction of “good” bugs into the ecosystem through particular plantings). Ultimately, however, the gardeners were resigned to “learn[ing] to live with them [the ‘bad’ bugs]” while exerting regular bodily and mental efforts to reduce their populations and maximise their own food production. The lack of ultimate control over their growing patch, and the food it could produce, was acknowledged by the gardeners. There was an awareness and understanding of the role nonhuman elements play in food production, ranging from weather conditions to soil microbes to bugs. The gardeners talk of how their care-giving is responsive to these elements. As one community gardener asserts: “…we prefer to … garden in a way that naturally strengthens the plant immune system.” This involves regular attention to soil microbes and the practice of what was referred to as “homeopathic” gardening. Through a responsive approach to the “needs” of plants, the soil, and other nonhuman elements, the plants then delivered “vitamins and minerals” to the gardeners, packaged in tasty food. The tastiest foods ensured their survival through seed-saving practices: “[i]f something tastes good, we’ll save the seed from it”. In this way, the plant’s taste encourages gardeners to invest their human labour to secure its future. The production of tasty food was understood to be reliant on collaborative, iterative and ongoing efforts between human and nonhuman elements. While gardening has often been represented as an attempt to bend nature to the will of humans (Power), the gardeners in this study spoke about working with nature in their quest to produce good tasting food. This was particularly evident in the interviews with gardeners who exhibit produce in the Canberra Show (see NMA for further details). However, despite the fact that taste is the key motivator for growing their own food, it is not a factor in Show judging. Instead, fruit and vegetable entries (those not turned into value added goods such as jams or relishes) are judged on appearance. While this focus on appearance tends to perpetuate the myth that the fruits and vegetables we consume should conform to an ideal type that are blemish free and uniform in size (just as is prized in industrialised agriculture), the act of gardening for the Show and the process of selecting produce to enter, contradicted this assumption. Instead, entering the Show seemed to reinforce awareness of the limits of human control over nature and emphasise the very agency of nonhuman elements. This is highlighted by one exhibitor and community gardener who states: I suppose you grow vegetables for the enjoyment of eating them, but there’s also that side of getting enough and perfecting the vegetables and getting… sometimes it’s all down to the day of whether you’ve got three of something, if it’s the right size and colour and so I’ll enter it [in the Show] on the day instead of putting an entry form in before …you just don’t know what you’re going to have, the bugs decide to eat this or the mice get it or something. There’s always something. In this way, where “there’s always something” waiting to disrupt a gardener’s best laid plans, the exhibitors involved in this project seem to be acutely aware of the agency of nonhumans. In these interviews there is evidence that nonhuman elements act on the gardeners, forcing them to alter their behaviours and engage with plants to meet both of their needs. While perfect specimens can sometimes be grown for the Show, the gardeners acknowledge that this can only be done with an element of luck and careful cultivation of the partnership between human and nonhuman elements in the garden. And, even then, you never know what might happen. This lack of ultimate control is part of the challenge and, thus, the appeal, of competing in the Show. Conclusion The era of the anthropocene demonstrates the consequences of human blindness to ecological matters. Myths of human supremacy and a failure to respect nonhuman elements have fuelled a destructive and wasteful mentality that is having serious consequences for our environment. This has prompted efforts to identify new environmental cultures to promote the adoption of more sustainable lifestyles. The resurgence of cultural materialism and the agentic capacity of objects is one key way in which this is being explored as a means of promoting new ethical approaches to how humans live their lives enmeshed with nonhumans. Food, as a basic necessity, provides a key way in which the interconnected relationships between humans and nonhumans can be brought to the fore. Taste, as a biological response and organic attribute of foodstuffs, can induce humans to act. It can cause us to alter our daily habits, behaviours and beliefs. Perhaps a more attentive approach to food, its taste and how it is produced could provide a framework for rethinking human/nature relations by emphasising the very limits of human control. References Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body. Berkeley, CA: U of California P, 1993. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Trans. R. Nice. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1984. Bennett, Jane. “The Force of Things: Steps Toward an Ecology of Matter.” Political Theory 32.3 (2004): 347–372. ---. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology Of Things. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2010. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1993. Ferreday, Donna. “Unspeakable Bodies: Erasure, Embodiment and the Pro-Ana Community.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 6 (2003): 277–295. Goodman, David, and Michael Goodman. “Alternative Food networks.” International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. Ed. R. Kitchin and N. Thrift. Oxford: Elsevier, 2008. Guthman, Julie. “Commodified Meanings, Meaningful Commodities: Re–thinking Production–Consumption Links through the Organic System of Provision.” Sociologia Ruralis 42.4 (2002): 295–311. ---. “Fast Food/Organic Food: Reflexive Tastes and the Making of ‘Yuppie Chow’.” Social and Cultural Geography 4.1 (2003): 45–58. Hugner, Renee. S., Pierre McDonagh, Andrea Prothero, Clifford J. Scultz, and Julie Stanton. “Who Are Organic Food Consumers?: A Compilation And Review Of Why People Purchase Organic Food.” Journal of Consumer Behaviour 6.2–3 (2007): 94–110. Jordan, Jennifer A. “The Heirloom Tomato as Cultural Object: Investigating Taste and Space.” Sociologia Ruralis 47.1 (2007): 20–41. Latour, Bruno. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Milton Keynes: Open UP, 1987. Morton, Timothy. The Ecological Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010. ---. “Thinking Ecology, the Mesh, the Strange Stranger and the Beautiful Soul.” Collapse VI (2010): 265–293. ---. Ecology without Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2007. National Museum of Australia Urban Farming and the Agricultural Show. 12 Mar. 2014. ‹http://www.nma.gov.au/online_features/urban_farming_agricultural_show/home›. Norberg-Hodge, Helena. “Beyond the Monoculture: Strengthening Local Culture, Economy and Knowledge.” The Journal of Sustainability Education. 19 Mar. 2012. 13 Mar. 2014 ‹http://www.jsedimensions.org/wordpress/content/beyond-the-monoculture-strengthening-local-culture-economy-and-knowledge_2012_03›. Plumwood, Val. Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason. London and New York: Routledge, 2002. Power, Emma. “Human-Nature Relations in Suburban Gardens.” Australian Geographer 36.1 (2005): 39–53. Probyn, Elspeth. Carnal Appetites: Foodsexidentites. London: Routledge, 2000. Seyfang, Gil. “Shopping for Sustainability: Can Sustainable Consumption Promote Ecological Citizenship?”. Environmental Politics 14.2 (2005): 290–306. -----. “Ecological Citizenship and Sustainable Consumption: Examining Local Organic Food Networks.” Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006): 383–395. -----. “Growing Sustainable Consumption Communities: The Case Of Local Organic Food Networks.” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 27.3/4 (2007): 120–134. Shiva, Vandana. Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply. Cambridge, MA: South End P, 2000. Thrupp, Lori Ann. “Linking Agricultural Biodiversity and Food Security.” International Affairs 76.2 (2000): 265–282. Turner, Bethaney. “Embodied Connections: Sustainability, Food Systems And Community Gardens.” Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability 16.6 (2011): 509-522. ---. “Reflections On a New Technology”. National Museum of Australia 2012. 12 Mar. 2014. ‹http://www.nma.gov.au/history/pate/objects/collection_reflections/genetically_modified_food_and_farming›. Acknowledgements Thank you to the gardeners who volunteered to be part of this study. The interviews related to the Royal Canberra Show were carried out as part of a collaborative project between the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra (Joanna Henryks and Bethaney Turner) and the People and the Environment team (George Main and Kirsten Wehner) at the National Museum of Australia.

Reviews are an integral aspect of creating economic capital through avenues of establishing and increasing the other forms of capital outlined by Pierre Bourdieu across his extensive body of work. The economic importance of reviews can be identified on the majority of film trailers, posters and DVD covers, where quotations attempt to convince potential audiences of the film’s credentials. Although economic capital is the obvious aim for both the film publicists and the reviewers, this article outlines the creation of symbolic capital through the assertion of cultural and social capital. Examples from recent film reviews demonstrate how lexical choices establish educational and linguistic capital, whilst the creation of cultural capital is illustrated in disparaging attitudes towards Titanic (US, 1997, Cameron). The language and treatment of a text combine to produce a hegemonic relationship between reviewer and consumer. The term ‘reviewer’ is being used here in accordance with the ‘macro-institution’ of film criticism which David Bordwell labels as journalism (19-20). Although Bordwell categorises the British magazine Sight and Sound into the separate macro-institution of essayist criticism, it is primarily the journalistic reviews that feature towards the rear of the magazine with which this article is concerned. The performance, or demonstration, of linguistic competence might disguise the magazine’s fundamentally journalistic intent. Through the utilisation of a prestigious register, and rhetorical devices, Sight and Sound strives to create symbolic capital in the same way as lower brow publications. Andrew Caine comments that: the operation of cultural tastes is inseparable from the material conditions of the critical commentator. To understand the particular angle adopted by a specific critic, it becomes necessary not only to understand the socio-cultural context in which that reviewer worked, but also this task demands information about the preferences of particular publications and their readership. (Caine 16) Published by the British Film Institute, Sight and Sound is constructed as a highbrow magazine, with connotations of sophistication and, vitally, a greater appreciation for film. Consuming, or advertising the consumption of the magazine articulates a mastery over film that others supposedly do not possess. This is a clear manifestation of Bourdieu’s core thesis, which he empirically demonstrates in Distinction. Before discussing Bourdieu’s thesis about the classification of taste in relation to Titanic, the linguistic creation of symbolic capital needs to be addressed. Another British film magazine, Empire (marketed as the “The UK’s No.1 Movie Magazine”), is aimed at a different audience. Although the design of Sight and Sound may appear more formal than the glossy, sexualised imagery within Empire, there are many stylistic similarities. Both publications use French phrases (succès de scandale in S&S, and tête-a-têtes within Empire) within their reviews of The Last Mitterrand (Fr, 2005, R. Guédiguian). (Empire spells ‘Mitterrand’ with one ‘r’ – S&S uses two.) Both magazines are creating symbolic capital based upon the cultural capital of the phrase, capitalising upon the linguistic and symbolic capital of multilingualism (Talbot et al. 257). In Language and Symbolic Power, Bourdieu explains how linguistic exchanges establish “a particular relation of power between a producer, endowed with a certain linguistic capital, and a consumer (a market), and which is capable of procuring a certain material or symbolic profit” (66). A symbolic relationship is established between producer and receiver, hegemonic in that the latter is encouraged to remain in this healthy relationship of intellectual superiority through continued purchase or, minimally, consumption of the magazine. Attitudes towards linguistic competence are closely related to other areas of cultural appropriation and appreciation (67), areas which are more overtly expressed within film reviews. In Distinction, Bourdieu asserts that the “consumption or non-consumption of popular cultural artefacts is a means by which individuals in a society define for themselves and others their social position, their status” (Lubin 7). This thesis can be applied to our current discussion in numerous capacities. The film reviewer articulates the status of the consumer: the films chosen for inclusion, the appreciation or denunciation of its aesthetics contribute to the creation of symbolic capital. The inclusion of a technical register, consisting of expressions such as mise-en-scene and genre, assert distinctions through their connections to educational capital owing to their appearance in media and film studies (primarily sub-undergraduate) syllabuses. Establishing knowledge as part of the educational system, as Bourdieu explains, legitimises it and greatly increases its symbolic capital. This register expresses cultural capital in price formation in the same way as the earlier example concerning French phrases. The symbolic relationship is reinforced through the exhibition of other forms of cultural capital. Reviewers in the two magazines being discussed here regularly refer back to previous films and directors, demonstrating a proficiency of knowledge of the subject about which they are commenting. The consumer is subjected to either a subordinate position in which their cultural capital is inferior, or where they are interpolated into the symbolic relationship; a hegemonic relationship in which the process of consuming is gratifying. In the Sight and Sound review of The Last Mitterrand, mentioned above, Ginette Vincendeau (a Warwick academic) integrates the director and an earlier work into his opening paragraph. This correlates to Bourdieu’s empirical research in Distinctions, in which he observed that knowledge about film directors is consecrated into legitimate culture (27), and its relation to educational capital. References to actors are restricted to within parenthesis following the character’s names, reflecting the lower cultural capital of actors. The next section comments upon how the representation of actors in other media has a detrimental effect upon the symbolic capital of the film text, and a positive effect upon the symbolic capital of the reviewer and their publication. The Sinking of Titanic A hegemonic relationship through the establishment of symbolic capital within film reviews is not new. Andrew Caine, whilst discussing the attitudes of critics against the British pop film of the 1950s and 60s, expands upon the core debates expressed within this brief article. Crucially, he remarks that: Through their writings, film and music critics/journalists not only reflected their own position and status in society, but also the place of their publications within the cultural sphere… [the] writer’s tastes coincided with their reader’s values, or at least had to adapt to achieve some form of mutual co-existence. (Caine 16) This co-existence was demonstrated in the coverage of James Cameron’s Titanic, which began its commercial life packaged as a reverential historical epic: a genre with a respected genesis closely associated with a biblical narrative. However, the film lost much of this reverence as it became phenomenally popular and its two main stars became associated with teenage magazines and the tabloid press after an emphasis was placed upon the romance plot rather than historical issues. (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet received saturated, inevitably sexualised, attention in the tabloid media.) Interestingly, Empire, which classifies film releases using a reductive five-star rating system, reduced Titanic’s rating from the maximum five stars and an enthusiastic review (February 1998, 30) to four stars (November 1998, 132), with a less positive review in the later edition, adjusted to accommodate its readers’ tastes. The first review was written (and, to a large extent, published) before the film and its stars had become indelibly associated with popular culture. The phenomenon of Titanic contributes a useful demonstration of Bourdieu’s theory of distinction and the arbitrariness of cultural values. The cultural capital of the text was appropriated differently in response to the dynamics of its audiences. The reported activities of the film’s fans (such as multiple viewings) is far removed from the symbolic capital of multilingualism and educational capital. David M. Lubin reports in his BFI monograph about the film that few of the people he knows “had seen it – or at least were willing to admit they had” (1999: 7). Addressing Bourdieu’s theory of distinction, Lubin summarises that “refusing to see Titanic, or, if seeing it, refusing to be taken in by it… became a way of asserting one’s independence from all the journalistic gush” (7-8). In US reviewer Kenneth Turan’s unforgiving criticisms, Lubin identifies a similar trend concerning forces of material production to what Caine discusses about pop and rock movies. Where attitudes against the pop film are a partial reaction to “juvenile delinquency, the Teddy Boys and perceived immorality” (43), Lubin identifies that “the enemy here [concerning the onslaught against Titanic] appears to be contemporary popular taste, mass culture, the McDonaldization of sensibility… [and] market-driven film making” (9). All items on that list have elitist oppositions, which the reviewer is constructing for the consumer. Reviewers and magazines operate within the same forces of material production as the mass culture products being ostracised. Ironically, dismissing Titanic’s screenplay as clichéd has become a cliché. Criticisms of anachronisms and other factual inaccuracies (such as Murdoch’s suicide) have become as repetitive and obvious as the tabloid coverage about its two main stars. They do, however, have the symbolic capital, the gratification, of being able to correct an Oscar-winning Hollywood director, in the same way that a horror audience assumes superiority through guessing when a ‘jump moment‘ will occur. This provides film fans (or students) with the sense that they have equal or superior competence in the field to a professional director. Conclusion This article provides an overview of how the construction of symbolic capital establishes and condones the hegemonic relationship between reviewer and consumer. Crucially, the consumer experiences substantial gratification when awarded the symbolic capital by the reviewer. Symbolic capital is created and retained by the reviewer, who awards consumers with superiority over other consumers of the form – and, vitally, over non-consumers of that magazine. The article is not suggesting that these reductive binary oppositions manifest themselves in society: rather, the institutional conditions of publications mean that symbolic violence is exercised to generate economic capital. Lexical choices (mise-en-scene, etc.) establish group membership, sociability and a sense of prestige. Legitimate culture is constructed through the connections of discourse to educational capital. This status is further supported by other areas of high linguistic capital, such as multi-syllabic words, and phrases in foreign languages. In order to retain the symbolic capital upon which the products (magazines and the consumer’s face) rely, it is essential to attack the symbolic capital of others. This explains the phenomenon against Titanic, and, previously, against the body of work Caine discusses. Such criticism perpetuates the distinctions between high and low culture, and, thus, relevant positions and status in society. Ironically, although highbrow criticisms against mass culture are concerned with commercialism, it is the “material conditions of the critical commentator” (Caine 16) that proliferate such criticisms. References Bordwell, D. Making Meaning. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1989. Bourdieu, P. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Trans. R. Nice. London: Routledge, 1984. ———. Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity, 1991. Caine, A. Interpreting Rock Movies: The Pop Film and its Critics in Britain. Manchester: Manchester UP. 2004. Crook, S. “Review: The Last Mitterand.” Empire Online. 29 Jul. 2005 http://www.empireonline.co.uk/site/incinemas/ReviewInFull.asp?FID=11262> Lubin, D. M. Titanic. London: British Film Institute, 1999. Talbot, M., K. Atkinson and D. Atkinson. Language and Power in the Modern World. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2003. Vincendeau, G. “The Last President: Lead Review: The Last Mitterrand.” Sight and Sound. 29 Jul. 2005 http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/2475>. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Stephenson, John-Paul. "Reviewing Symbolic Capital." M/C Journal 8.5 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0510/06-stephenson.php>. APA Style Stephenson, J. (Oct. 2005) "Reviewing Symbolic Capital," M/C Journal, 8(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0510/06-stephenson.php>.

Introduction Ngarrindjeri futures depend on the survival of the land, waters, and other interconnected living things. The Murray-Darling Basin is recognised nationally and internationally as a system under stress. Ngarrindjeri have long understood the profound and intricate connection of land, water, humans, and non-humans (Trevorrow and Hemming). In an effort to secure environmental sustainability the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority (NRA) have engaged in political negotiations with the State, primarily with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), to transform natural resource management arrangements that engage with an ethics of justice, redistribution, and recognition (Hattam, Rigney and Hemming). In 1987, prior to the formation of the NRA, Camp Coorong: Race Relations and Cultural Education Centre was established by the Ngarrindjeri Lands and Progress Association in partnership with the South Australian Museum and the South Australian Education Department (Hemming) as a place for all citizens to engage with the values of a land ethic of care. The complex includes a cultural museum, accommodation, conference facilities, and workshop facilities for primary, secondary, and tertiary education students; it also serves as a base for research and course development on Indigenous and Ngarrindjeri culture and history (Hattam, Rigney and Hemming). Camp Coorong seeks to share Ngarrindjeri cultural values, knowledges, and histories with students and visitors in order to “improve relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people with a broader strategy aimed at securing a future for themselves in their own ‘Country’” (Hemming 37). The Centre is adjacent to the Coorong National Park and 200 km South-East of Adelaide. The establishment of Camp Coorong on Ngarrindjeri Ruwe/Ruwar (land/body/spirit) occurred when Ngarrindjeri Elders negotiated with the Department of Education and Children’s Services (DECS) to establish the race relations and cultural education centre. This negotiation was the beginning of many subsequent negotiations between Ngarrindjeri, local, State, and Federal governments about reclaiming ownership, management, and control of Ngarrindjeri lands, waters, and knowledge systems for a healthy Country and by implication healthy people (Hemming, Trevorrow and Rigney). As Elder Tom Trevorrow states: The waters and the seas, the waters of the Kurangh (Coorong), the waters of the rivers and lakes are all spiritual waters…The land and waters is a living body…We the Ngarrindjeri people are a part of its existence…The land and waters must be healthy for the Ngarrindjeri people to be healthy…We say that if Yarluwar-Ruwe dies, the water dies, our Ngartjis die, the Ngarrindjeri will surely die (Ngarrindjeri Nation Yarluwar-Ruwe Plan 13). Ruwe/Ruwar is an important aspect of the public pedagogy practiced at Camp Coorong and by the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority (NRA). The NRA’s nation building activities arise from negotiated contractual agreements called KNYs: Kungan Ngarrindjeri Yunnan (Listen to Ngarrindjeri people talking). KNYs establish a vital aspect of the NRA’s strategic platform for political negotiations. However, the focus of this paper is concerned with local Indigenous experience of teaching and experience with the education system rather than the broader Ngarrindjeri educational objectives in the area. The specific concerns of this paper are the performance of storytelling and the dialectic relationship between the listener/learner (Tur and Tur). The pedagogy and place of Camp Coorong seeks to engage non-Indigenous people with Indigenous epistemologies through storytelling as a pedagogy of experience and a “pedagogy of discomfort” (Boler and Zembylas). Before detailing the relationship of these with one another, it is necessary to grasp the importance of the interconnectedness of Ruwe/Ruwar articulated in the opening statement of Ngarrindjeri Nations Yarluwar-Ruwe Plan: Caring for Ngarrindjeri Sea, Country and Culture: Our Lands, Our Waters, Our People, All Living Things are connected. We implore people to respect our Ruwe (Country) as it was created in the Kaldowinyeri (the Creation). We long for sparkling, clean waters, healthy land and people and all living things. We long for the Yarluwar-Ruwe (Sea Country) of our ancestors. Our vision is all people Caring, Sharing, Knowing and Respecting the lands, the waters, and all living things. Caring for Country The Lakes and the Coorong are dying as irrigation, over grazing, and pollution have left their toll on the Murray-Darling Basin. Camp Coorong delivers a key message (Hemming, 38) concerning the on-going obligation of Ngarrindjeri’s Ruwe/Ruwar to heal damaged sites both emotionally and environmentally. Couched as a civic responsibility, caring for County augments environmental action. However, there are epistemological distinctions between Natural Resources Management and Ngarrindjeri Ruwe/Ruwar. Ngarrindjeri conceive of the River Murray as one system that cannot be demarcated along state lines. Ngarrrindjeri Elder Uncle Matt Rigney, who recently passed away, argued that the River Murray and the Darling is embodied and that when the river is sick it impacts directly on Ngarrindjeri personhood and wellbeing (Hemming, Trevorrow and Rigney). Therefore, Ngarrindjeri have a responsibility to care for Ngarrindjeri Country and Ngarrindjeri governance systems are informed by cultural and ethical obligations to Ruwe/Ruwar of the lower Murray River, Lakes and Coorong. Transmitting knowledge of Country is imperative as Aunty Ellen Trevorrow states: We have to keep our culture alive. We want access to our special places, our lands and our waters. We need to be able to protect our places, our ngatji [totems], our Old People and restore damaged sites. We want respect for our land and our water and we want to pass down knowledge (cited in Bell, Women and Indigenous Religions 3). Ruwe/Ruwar is an ethic of care where men and women hold distinctive cultural and environmental knowledge and are responsible for passing knowledge to future generations. Knowledge is not codified into a “canon” but is “living knowledge” connected to how to live and how to understand the connection between material, spiritual, human, and non-human realms. Elders at Camp Coorong facilitate understandings of this ontology by sharing stories that evoke questions in children and adults alike. For settler Australians, the first phase of this understanding begins with an engagement with the discomfort of the colonial history of Indigenous dispossession. It also requires learning new modes of “re/inhabition” through a pedagogy informed by “place-consciousness” that centralises Indigenous connection to Country (Gruenewald Both Worlds). Many settler communities embody a dualist western epistemology that is necessarily disrupted when there is acknowledgment from whence one came (Carter 2009). The activities and stories at Camp Coorong provide a positive transformative pedagogy that transforms a possessive white logic (Moreton-Robinson) to one of shared cultural heritage. Ngarrindjeri epistemologies of connection to Country are expressed through a pedagogy of storytelling at Camp Coorong. This often occurs during weaving, making feather flowers, or walking on Ngarrindjeri Country with visitors and students. Enactments such as weaving are not simply occupational or functional. Weaving has deep cultural and metaphorical significance as Aunty Ellen Trevorrow states: There is a whole ritual in weaving. From where we actually start, the centre part of a piece, you’re creating loops to weave into, then you move into the circle. You keep going round and round creating the loops and once the children do those stages they’re talking, actually having a conversation, just like our Old People. It’s sharing time. And that’s where our stories were told (cited in Bell, Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin 44). At Camp Coorong learning involves listening to stories while engaging with activities such as weaving or walking on Country. The ecological changes and the history of dispossession are woven into narrative on Country and students see the impact of the desecration of the Coorong, Lower Murray and Lakes and lands. In this way the relatively recent history of colonial race relations and contemporary struggles with government bureaucracies and legislation also comprise the warp and weave of Ngarrindjeri knowledge and connection to Country. Pedagogy of Experience A pedagogy of experience involves telling the story of Indigenous peoples’ sense of “placelessness” within the nation (Watson) as a story of survival and resistance. It is through such pedagogies that Ngarrindjeri Elders at Camp Coorong reconstruct their lives and create agency in the face of settler colonialism. The experiences of growing up in Australia during the assimilation era, fighting against the State on policies that endorsed child theft, being forced to live at fringe camps, experiencing violent racisms, and, for some, living as part of a diaspora in one’s own Country is embedded in the stories of survival, resilience and agency. “Camp Coorong began as an experiment in alternative teaching methods developed largely by George Trevorrow, a local Ngarrindjeri man” (Hemming 38). Classroom malaise was experienced by Ngarrindjeri Elders from Camp Coorong, such as Uncle Tom and Aunty Ellen Trevorrow and the late Uncle George Trevorrow, Aunty Alice Abdulla, and others when interacting or employed in schools as Aboriginal Education Workers (AEWs). It was the invisibility of these Elders’ knowledges inside schools that generated the impetus to establish Camp Coorong as a counter-institution. The spatial dimension of situationality, and its attention to social transformation, connects critical pedagogy to a pedagogy of place at Camp Coorong. Both discourses are concerned with the contextual, geographical conditions that shape people, and the actions people take to shape these conditions (Gruenewald, Both Worlds). Place-based education at Camp Coorong advocates a new localism in order to stimulate community revitalisation and resistance to globalisation and commodity capitalism. It provides the space and opportunity to develop the capacity for inventiveness and adaptation to changing environments and resistance to ecological destruction. Of concern to the growing field of place-based education are how to promote care for people and places (Gruenewald and Smith, xix). For Gruenewald and Smith this requires decolonisation and developing sensitivity to forms of thought that injure and exploit people and places, and re/inhabitation by identifying, conserving, and creating knowledge that nurtures and protects people and places. Engaging in a land ethic of care on Country informs the educational paradigm at Camp Coorong that does not begin in front of bulldozers or under police batons at anti-globalisation rallies, but in the contact zones (Somerville 342) where “a material and metaphysical in-between space for the intersection of multiple and contested stories” (Somerville 342) emerge. Ngarrindjeri knowledge, environmental knowledge, scientific knowledge, colonial histories, and media representations all circulate in the contact zone and are held in productive tension (Carter). Decolonising Pedagogy and Pedagogies of Discomfort The critical and transformative aspects of decolonising pedagogies emerge from storytelling and involve the gift of narrative and the enactment of reciprocity that occurs between the listener and the storyteller. Reciprocity is based on the principles of interconnectedness, balance, and the idea that actions create corresponding action through the gift of story (Stewart-Harawira). Camp Coorong is a place for inter-cultural dialogue through storytelling. Being located on Ngarrindjeri Country the non-Indigenous listener is more able to “hear” and at the same time move along a continuum of a) disbelief and anger about the dispossession of Indigenous peoples; b) emotional confusion about their own sense of belonging in Australia; c) shock at the ways in which liberal western society’s structural privilege is built on Indigenous inequality on the grounds of race and habitus (Bordieu and Passeron); then, d) towards empathy that is framed as race cognisance (Aveling). Stories are not represented through a sanguine vision of the past, but are told of colonisation, dispossession, as well as of hope for the healing of Ngarrinjderi Country. The listener is gifted with stories at Camp Coorong. However, there is an ethical obligation to the gifting that learners may not understand until later and which concern the rights and obligations fundamental to notions of deep connection to Country. It is often in the recount of one’s experience at Camp Coorong, such as in reflective journals or in conversation, that recognition of the importance of history, social justice, and sovereignty are brought to light. In the first phase of learning, non-Indigenous students and teachers may move from uncomfortable silence, to a space where they can hear the stories and thereby become engaged listeners. They may go through a process of grappling with a range of issues and emotions. There is frustration, anger, and blame that knowledge has been omitted from their education, and they routinely ask: “How did we not know this history?” In the second stage learners tend to remain outside of the story until they are hooked by an aspect that draws them into it. They have the choice of engagement and this requires empathy. At this stage learners are grappling with the antithetical feelings of guilt and innocence; these feelings emerge when those advantaged and challenged by their complicity with settler colonialism, racism, and the structural privilege of whiteness start to understand the benefits they gain from Indigenous dispossession and ask “was it my fault?” Thirdly, learners enter a space which may disavow and dismiss the newly encountered knowledge and move back into resistance, silence, and reluctance to hear. However, it is at this point that a choice emerges. The choice to engage in the emotional labour required to acknowledge the gift of the story and thereby unsettle white Australian identity (Bignall; Boler and Zembylas). In this process “inscribed habits of attention,” as described by Boler and Zembylas (127), are challenged. These habits have been enabled by the emotional binaries of “us” and “them”. The colonial legacy of Indigenous dispossession is an emotive subject that disrupts national pride that is built on this binary. At Camp Coorong, discomfort is created during the reiteration of stories and engagement in various activities. Uncertainty and discomfort are necessary parts of restructuring the emotional habitus and reconstructing identity. The primary ethical aim of a pedagogy of discomfort is the creation of contestability. The learner comes to understand the rights and obligations of caring for Country and has to decide how to carry the story. Ngarrindjeri ethics of care inspire the learner to undertake the emotional labour necessary to relocate their understanding of identity. As a zone of cultural contestation, Camp Coorong also enables pedagogies that allow for critical reflection on common educational practices undertaken by educators and students. Conclusion The aim of the camp was to overturn racism and provide employment for Ngarrindjeri on Country (Hemming, 38). Students and teachers from around the state come to Camp Coorong and learn to weave, make feather flowers, and listen to stories about Ngarrindjeri Country whilst walking on Country (Hemming 38). Camp Coorong fosters understanding of Ngarrindjeri Ruwe/Ruwar and at the same time overturns essentialist notions developed by deficit theories that routinely remain embedded in the school curriculum. Camp Coorong’s anti-racist epistemology mobilises an Indigenous pedagogy of storytelling and experience as a decolonising methodology. Learning Ngarrindjeri history, cultural heritage, and land ethic of care deepens students’ understanding of connecting to Country through reflection on situations, histories, and shared spaces of human and non-human actors. Pedagogies of discomfort also inform practice at Camp Coorong and the intersections of theory and practice in this context disrupts identity formations that have been grounded in a white colonial construction of nationhood. Education is a means of social and cultural reproduction, as well as a key site of resistance and vehicle for social change. Although the analysis of domination is a feature of critical pedagogy, what is urgently required is a language of hope and transformation understood from a Ngarrindjeri standpoint; something that is achieved at Camp Coorong. Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge the process of collaboration that occurred at Camp Coorong with Aunty Ellen Trevorrow, Aunty Alice Abdulla, and Deborah Rankine. The key ideas were established in conversation and the article was revised on subsequent occasions whilst at Camp Coorong with the aforementioned authors. This paper was produced as part of the Australian Research Council Discovery Project, ‘Negotiating a Space in the Nation: The Case of Ngarrindjeri’ (DP1094869). 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This thesis explores the construction of technological expertise amongst a heterogenous group of New Zealand teenagers, specifically in regard to their home computer use, which for many of them is their primary site of leisure. This thesis explores the field in which these teenagers are positioned, and explains the practice constituting that field. In this field, the trajectories towards expertise are explained including the time, experimentation, and pleasure evident in their praxis. The qualitative study involved observations and interviews with eight teenagers aged 13 – 17. Five boys and three girls participated and each attended one of various secondary schools located within a provincial city in New Zealand. All of the participants considered themselves to be technological experts, and their peers and/or their family supported this comprehension. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s socio-cultural theories, the capital (cultural, economic, social) and habitus of the teenagers are described (habitus being what makes them who they are, and continues to define who they are in the future). Chapter five centres on explaining the field the teenagers have positioned themselves in, namely the field of out-of-school leisure and home computer use. It also explores the construction and performance of technological expertise within the field. Chapter six examines traditional views of schooling and expertise, and contrasts these views with what the teenagers think about their learning and expertise. This gap is specifically explained with regard to differences between the concepts and value of learning, expertise, and technology, and how they are recognised and valued differently between generations. Chapter seven explores the praxis that the participants exhibit, which is arguably misrecognized by those whose interests are in the established order (e.g. institutional, societal structures). The field they are placed in is arguably part of the broader field of education, yet the findings suggest their capital is misrecognized by digital newcomers, and therefore not legitimated. This thesis concludes that the gap between teenager and adult understandings of expertise is exacerbated in the digital world in which the teenagers position themselves. Their schooling is mainly positioned in the print culture of previous generations and consequently, in the lives of these teenagers, schooling has had little influence on the development of their technological expertise. Additionally, gender has had little impact in their development of expertise; therefore stereotypical notions of female underachievement as computer experts are contested.

Using the publication of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s ‘L. E. L.’s Last Question’ in the Ladies’ Pocket Magazine as a case study, this chapter establishes the central premise of the book: periodical contexts are crucial to the study of Victorian poetry and poetics. From there, it provides an overview of recent work on periodical culture and poetry, including that by Kirstie Blair, Natalie Houston, Linda Hughes, Kathryn Ledbetter, and Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, as well as theories of cultural production and form, focusing on Pierre Bourdieu’s notions of cultural capital and middlebrow culture, and Caroline Levine’s recent work on form and its affordances.