Cultivating cultural capital and transforming cultural fields: A study with arts and disability organisations in Europe

This article critically discusses participation by people with disabilities in the arts, drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital. It is informed by a qualitative study with representatives of organisations working on arts and disability in 22 European countries. The article highlights that experiences of inequality at various levels, including within education systems, and medicalised understandings of what disability is, continue to hamper arts participation and development of cultural capital by people with disabilities. A Bourdieusian analysis unveils how organisations working on arts and disability consciously engage in ‘high’ arts practices as an expression of distinction and in a way that is designed to reframe what is culturally valued within their fields. It also demonstrates the continued relevance of Bourdieu’s theorising of cultural capital and of arts practices as distinction for potentially marginalised groups. Furthermore, participants often linked arts participation involving high artistic standards to potential change in how societies understand and relate to disability, connecting cultural practices and political struggles.