Cultural Boarding Bodies: Status, Style, and Symbolic Capital

Abstract

The snowboarding body is a symbol of status, a system of social marking, and a site of distinctions. In snowboarding culture, the symbolic values attached to bodily forms are critical to many participants’ sense of self. Bernard Rudofsky (1986) reminds us that many of these practices are not new; in fact different cultural or tribal groups have long inscribed their identities on their members’ bodies. However, in contrast to premodern societies, where traditional signs marked the body in ritualized settings, today people treat the body as a phenomenon to be shaped, decorated and trained as an expression of both individual and group identity (Shilling, 1993). A host of theorists (Bourdieu, 1971, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1990a, b; Harvey, 2001; Shilling, 1993, 2003, 2005; Turner, 1988; Veblen, 1970[1899]) point to these bodily differences as strategies for social distinction. Of particular interest here are the ideas of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. In his theory of distinction, Bourdieu assigns a central place to the body, and through a number of theoretical concepts provides insight into the distinctive bodily practices employed by individuals and groups within contemporary society. Complementing the results of this approach, Connell (1983, p. 153) writes: ‘[Bourdieu] is one of the very few systematic social theorists to have a way of talking about what living in the world is really like, its shadows and sunlight, its langours and teeth’.KeywordsCultural CapitalSocial SpaceSymbolic CapitalWhite PrivilegeClothing StyleThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.