Social Justice and Democratization

Alienated labour in the production of cultural and social capital

Bourdieu's famous extension of the category of capital focuses on the benefits actors draw from its accumulation. Investment of time in cultural capital pays out in terms of certificates and competences which give access to higher social circles and positions; the collecting of important social contacts make more such contacts possible; both forms of capital are – within limits – re-convertible into each other and into economic capital.

What is left out, though, is the extraction and accumulation of other people's cultural and social labour, as for example the condensed cultural labour of humanity scholars by wealthy students in an elite university or the exploitation of subcultural activities by the fashion industries. What may count as an inherently valuable activity for the producers changes into alienated labour when such functional contexts of‚ value extraction’ become dominant. In times of immaterial labour and social networks, the issue of alienated cultural and social activities gains new importance, not only for the capitalist economy in the narrower sense, but also for the living conditions and power networks of knowledge societies.

The session aims to explore how cultural activities and leisure time are put to the service of third persons' accumulation of social, cultural, and economic capital.