SYMBOLIC BOUNDARIES – THE ROLE OF CULTURAL FACTORS IN BUILDING, MAINTAINING AND CHANGING SOCIAL DIFFERENCES AND STRUGGLES

Text topic: Studies

Text author: Немања Крстић

The author uses the concept of symbolic boundaries to analyze cultural origins of social divisions. The analysis begins with consideration of Bourdieu’s idea of how cultural styles correlate with class formations, and is followed by a discussion regarding a strict division of culture into two poles – the popular and the elite culture. The main theories and typologies of taste are presented at the end of the paper, together with a discussion about taste-based social differences and the structuring of cultural features into stylistically coherent forms – lifestyles.