Embodied Cultural Capital and the Study of Ethnic Inequalities

Abstract

Concepts of non-economic forms of capital have become increasingly popular in both academic and public debates, as well as policy discourse, along with the idea that individuals and groups can mobilise a range of resources, from educational qualifications to social connections, to improve their social position and life chances. In response to the growth of research employing the concept of social capital in particular, a number of scholars have noted problems to do with the lack of distinction between capital specifically and resources/networks more broadly (e.g. Portes and Landolt, 1996; Portes, 1998; Pietersee, 2003; Ryan et al., 2008), and, as a result, a number of more recent contributions to the ‘capital’ debates have suggested that the concept should be reserved for cases where the resources concerned are possible to mobilise and/or transform/convert into other resources (e.g. Anthias, 2007; Anthias and Cederberg, 2009; Cederberg, 2012).