The individual point of view: learning from Bourdieu’s 'The weight of the world'

This article explores what cultural studies can learn from the detailed consideration of the individual voice in Bourdieu’s (1999) The Weight of the World. This book addresses the criticism often made of Bourdieu’s earlier work—that it ignored individual agency in favor of structure—through a depiction of French society’s space of points of view. Based on in-depth interviews, it offers an intriguing methodology, although leaving unresolved methodological uncertainties and theoretical absences, including a neglect of the role of media and popular culture in everyday experience. To build on Bourdieu’s work, the conclusion suggests that we explore how a range of social categories derived from media and popular culture are employed in everyday action and thought

The sensory experiencing of urban design: the role of walking and perceptual memory

Experience is conceptualised in both academic and policy circles as a more-or-less direct effect of the design of the built environment. Drawing on findings from a research project that investigated people’s everyday experiences of designed urban environments in two UK towns, this paper suggests at least two reasons why sensory encounters between individuals and built environments cannot in fact be understood entirely as a consequence of the design features of those environments. Drawing from empirical analysis based on surveys, ethnographic ‘walk-alongs’ and photo-elicitation interviews, we argue that distinct senses of place do depend on the sensory experiencing of built environments. However, that experiencing is significantly mediated in two ways. First, it is mediated by bodily mobility: in particular, the walking practices specific to a particular built environment. Secondly, sensory experiences are intimately intertwined with perceptual memories that mediate the present moment of experience in various ways: by multiplying, judging and dulling the sensory encounter. In conclusion, it is argued that work on sensory urban experiencing needs to address more fully the diversity and paradoxes produced by different forms of mobility through, and perceptual memories of, built environments