Illuminating a Resilient Rural Culture in Twentieth CenturyY Fro GymraegUsing Bourdieu'sBearn

Abstract

This article uses Bourdieu's analysis of peasant life in the Bearn to illuminate a changing but resilient rural culture in mid-twentieth century Wales. Rather than finding their culture and language eroded by economic and social change, Welsh speaking participants in this biographical study used the education system to build upon their existing cultural capital previously cultivated through religious and informal civic institutions. A distinctive habitus enabled exchange of locally acquired cultural capital for the symbolic capital of qualifications, in the face of declines in the farming and quarrying industries and consequent loss of employment opportunities. Anglicising influences of upward social mobility were counteracted by Welsh language activism, combined with a sense that Wales was heir to a tradition of Bards and scholars. This helped maintain the illusio that ‘Welsh culture’ was a game worth playing. Unlike peasant life in the Bearn, this story is of transformation rather than demise.