Arena Of Capital

Under the framework of Bouraieu’s Field Theory,the research observes the economic field,social field and cultural field in the novel Carpentaria by Australian writer Alexis Wright.The Aborigines,in opposition to the dominant white colonizers,strive for more capital in the field to legitimate their own discourses.French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu advanced that the social world consists of relatively autonomous spaces of objective relations called "field".The field serves as an arena where agents engage in endless struggles for procuring capital.The amount and structure of a given kind of capital that an agent holds determines his position in that field.Bourdieu deems "capital" as the instrument of social practice,which takes four fundamental forms:economic,social,cultural and symbolic.The research analyzes the Aborigines,social practice of capital struggle and voice establishment as well as the distinct aboriginality embedded in it.The results show that:(1)in the economic field,the white residents of the Uptown possessed the most and best economic capital while the Aborigines were driven to the scrub on the edge of the town.The mining boom was a microcosm of the ruling class stealing natural resources,an objectified state of economic capital,from the Indigenous people while the heroic deed of blowing up the mine by the Aboriginal lad,Will,demonstrated a successful attempt to overthrow the white’s dominant position in economic field.(2)In the social field,the Municipal Council monopolized political power and imposed symbolic violence on the white residents and the "blackfella" by institutional acts such as putting a ban on sea burial and endowing the river and town with new names.(3)Although the Aborigines were in a dominated position in the economic and social field,they harbored a treasure of endless cultural capital whereas the white colonizers were in extreme scarcity of cultural capital.However,the ruling class intended to manipulate the town’s history and preserve their gains by means of museum,local archives,religious beliefs and so on.This research provides a better understanding of the living reality of the Aborigines and an open-ended reflection on how to conserve Aboriginal culture as the modern society evolves.