Working-class politics and cultural capital: Considerations from transformations of the French left

Cultural capital is a relevant and useful concept for analysing working-class activism, provided that it is not reduced to educational capital and particular attention is given to its incorporated forms. Workers acquire resources from activism that may compensate for their paucity of formal educational qualifications, thus allowing them to build an activism-based cultural capital. From this perspective, the activities of workers who become full-time union officers may be considered as activist work, calling on specific skills and offering possibilities for social ascension that set them apart from their former peers still doing manual work. This analysis of such activist promotion is based on long-term fieldwork among unionised railway workers in a rural town in France. This case study addresses transformations in the worker-activist profile, notably in changed logics for forming activism-based cultural capital and weakened ties drawing activists into the political field. Approaching left-leaning activism 'from below' ultimately sheds light on how it is being reshaped and the ever-greater separation of trade union and political party spheres. The study also elucidates the expanding divide between the working classes and political elites that can be observed in many European countries, especially in rural areas.