Street capital : Ethnicity and violence on the streets of Oslo

Most of Pierre Bourdieu’s work describes struggles over symbolic

capital and hierarchies among the economic and cultural elite.

However, his theories and concepts are not exclusive to studies of

those with power. By using Bourdieu’s conceptualizations of social

space, capital and habitus, the article discusses the hierarchies and

struggles over symbolic capital at the bottom of societies. The

analysis is grounded in interviews and fieldwork with ethnic minority

youths on the streets of Oslo, Norway. Analysing the violence

among the young men, the article argues that marginalized ethnic

minorities and certain groups of refugees use particular strategies in

order to accumulate symbolic capital. They have embodied

experiences that can be transformed into forms of ‘street capital’

favourable in a violent street culture. Working empirically with the concept of street capital can include

insights from the economic structural determinist argument of Wacquant as

well as the more cultural and voluntaristic approaches of Newman,

Anderson and Duneier. Such a framework may even be seen as a compromise

in an otherwise heated and politicized debate.