Let's hear it for Humpty: social exclusion, the third way and cultural capital

Abstract

In the rhetoric of New Labour, words often mean both more and less than their users intend. More, in that what they connote depends on their context and the assumptions of both user and audience. Less, in that what they denote is frequently both unclear and contested. The peculiar language of New Labour has been a matter of journalistic comment at least since 1996, and there have also been more systematic studies of the construction of a new political discourse. Flexible concepts that can be understood in different ways by different constituencies are an essential part of this discourse, and are fundamental to processes of spin and political obfuscation. This article shows how this has been true of both the ‘third way’ and of ‘social exclusion’. It moves on to argue that the concept of cultural capital poses a related problem. Dominant explanations of social exclusion rely in part on cultural explanations, while agendas of social inclusion are being promoted through the cultural sector as well as elsewhere. There is an implicit idea of ‘cultural capital’ at work here, but one that diverges sharply from its origins in the work of Pierre Bourdieu, and which has very different political implications.