French feminism: national and international perspectives

During the 1980s, the French media proclaimed the death of feminism, but although the 1970s women’s movement had demobilised, feminists were still active in issue-specific groups, in academia and within the institutions of the state. Paying careful attention to the difficulties associated with defining feminisms and national feminisms in particular, this article situates an analysis of French feminism since the 1980s in a context of growing international feminist dialogue and activism and a renewed debate about the meaning of feminism. It focuses on the question of separatism and on changing relations between theory and practice, asking how feminists can act for change and form effective coalitions with men and with other movements. It argues that feminism is plural and often fragmented and diffuse. Feminism is shaped by local social, economic, political and cultural factors and by exchanges of people and ideas, and any analysis of feminist theory and activism needs to take these into account

Gender, home and family in cultural capital theory

The paper argues that Bourdieu's stress on early familiarization for the highest value of cultural capital is closely linked to his idea, strongly emphasized in Distinction, about the role of family and domestic life for individual development and social positions. The role of women, as mothers and homemakers, is crucial in this process. Yet, Bourdieu defines social origin as deriving from the father. The centrality to Bourdieu's thinking of a resilient traditional pattern of masculine domination and feminine submission constitutive of the Western gender habitus explains both his stress on 'normalcy' for the production of legitimate dispositions, and his resistance to incorporating into his thinking the implications of recent transformations in home family living, which have destabilized the gender order. It is thus important to consider contemporary feminist analyses of the family and home life and their significance for a renewed theory of cultural capital. The paper considers two sets of literature. Firstly, it addresses the manners in which home and family are conceptualized in Bourdieu's key texts where these issues were prominent in the development of his thinking on cultural capital. The second set of literature includes texts by feminist academics in the fields of family, gender and the body, which analyse the destabilizing of the gender order and everyday family living in contemporary society. Two questions are addressed on the basis of these reflections: (1) Is cultural capital an individual or a household resource? (2) How does cultural capital relate to personal interdependencies at the level of family and households

Situações de vida, pobreza e saúde: estratégias alimentares e práticas sociais no meio urbano Living situations, poverty and health: alimentary strategies and social practices in the urban environment

Este estudo trata da importância das práticas e estratégias da população de baixa renda no enfrentamento dos problemas cotidianos. Visa ao direcionamento de ações em saúde coletiva. Desvendar as formas de enfrentamento desses grupos populacionais tem a ver com o processo saúde-doença, e neste estudo específico, com a alimentação. O estudo indica uma opção metodológica interdisciplinar e conceitual, relacionando conceitos de práticas, estratégias, situações de vida e saúde. Parte-se do princípio de que a compreensão das formas de enfrentamento da realidade pela população de baixa renda abrange a utilização de estratégias num processo de (re)apropriação e (re)construção de saberes e de que a identificação das redes sociais facilitam o reconhecimento dessas práticas e o direcionamento das ações em saúde coletiva.<br>This study introduces the importance of the practices and strategies of the lower classes population in facing their daily problems in order to direct actions to Collective Health. Unveiling the ways of struggle of these classes, concerning their health-disease process, implies to identify the practices connected direct or indirectly with health, and in this specific study, with feeding. The study indicates a methodology (interdisciplinary) and the concepts related to practices, strategies, living situations and health. The different social categories create strategies based on their logic of action and on their experiences and life stories. The study sets out that the comprehension of the ways of facing their daily problems includes the use of strategies that (re)appropriate and (re)construct their knowledge, and it also points out that the identification of the existing social network facilitates the acknowledgment of these practices and the direction of the Collective Health actions