Bourdieu Dynamics of Fields from a Modified Axelrod Model

TL;DR

This paper introduces a modified Axelrod model inspired by Bourdieu's social theory to analyze how social tastes and cultural dynamics evolve, highlighting the role of conflict and social structures in shaping societal change.

Contribution

It presents a novel adaptation of the Axelrod model to incorporate Bourdieu's concepts, enabling analysis of social influence and power relations in cultural dynamics.

Findings

Small conflicts within social classes drive continuous cultural change.

Social structures significantly influence the evolution of societal tastes.

The model clarifies the role of symbolic power in social dynamics.

Abstract

Pierre Bourdieu discussed how an individual's taste relates o his or her social environment, and how the classification of \emph{distinct} and \emph{vulgar}, among others, arises from at the same time as shapes this taste in his work called \emph{La Distinction}. Robert Axelrod created a computational model with local convergence and global polarization properties to describe the dissemination of culture by simple selective interactions. In this letter, Axelrod model is modified, while holding to the same original principles, to describe Bourdieu theory. This allows to analyze how the dynamics of society's tastes and trends may vary with a simple approach, considering social structures and to understand which social forces are crucial to change dynamics. Despite the relative simplicity, the present approach clarifies symbolic power relations, a relevant issue for understanding power relation both on large as well as on small and localized scale, with impact on activities ranging from daily life matters to business, politics, and research. This model sheds light on social issues, showing that a small amount of conflict within a class plays a central role in the culture dynamics, being the major responsible for continuous changes in distinction paradigms.