This presentation examines the relationship between culture and inequality in contemporary Japan by building on the theoretical framework established in Culture, Class, Distinction (Bennett et al., 2009), which innovatively applies Bourdieu’s relational thinking to culture and inequality. This work has made significant contributions to the sociology of art, culture, and class analysis. In 2017, a team of five researchers, including myself, translated and published the Japanese edition of this influential text. Fields, Capitals, Habitus: Australian Culture, Inequalities and Social Divisions (Bennett et al., 2021), while drawing on the foundation of Culture, Class, Distinction, incorporates significant theoretical and methodological developments, particularly in the Australian context.
In this study, I apply a Bourdieusian framework to analyze the relationship between culture and inequality in Japan. Using data collected through a postal survey and interview survey in the Kanto region, the research employs a mixed-method approach that integrates multiple correspondence analysis (MCA). The analysis constructs three types of spaces: social space, visual arts space, and musical space, which are then examined to reveal the patterns of social differentiation and cultural capital in contemporary Japanese society. This presentation will explore these spaces and their interrelationships, offering insights into how cultural capital operates as a principle of social differentiation in Japan today.