Discuss about the Role and Influence of Cultural Capital.
In the photograph, a person is in a rejoicing mood. He is drinking alcohol as well as smoking cigarette, all at the same time. This artifact can be located in the Bogan subcultural world of Australia, as Bogans are reportedly known to be heavy drinkers and smokers. The Bogan man depicted in the above picture is showing no remorse or guilt while engaging in such an unacceptable behavior. This particular Bogan man has stuck his tongue out while pointing his right forefinger to the beer can, which he is holding in his left hand. The casual attire of the Bogan man and his could not care less attitude can easily give a glimpse to the viewer about his derogatory lifestyle management. The happy go lucky pose given by the Bogan man in the above picture shows that he finds comforts in various addictions and he is least concerned about the adverse impacts of such. (Campbell, 2013).
The artifact represents the fondness of addiction to alcohol and smoking among the Bogan community, especially among the youth of the community. However, this adverse impact of smoking and alcohol consumption is affecting the lifestyle and health of the Bogan people. The Bogan community is suffering severe issues in health due to massive alcohol consumption and smoking. This aspect of the cultural abnormality among the Bogans is the most immediate causes of the rapid rise in the occurrences of death and ill health in Australia. With the increasing rate of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and other health-related disorders, the overall future health condition of the Australians is at stake. The life expectancy and health condition of the Bogans are declining as they live by following unhealthy means .(CHURN, 2013).
In past years, there has been much research in the identification of the health issues of the Bogans due to alcohol consumption and smoking. Fone et al. (2013) stated that, due to the lower socioeconomic status of the Bogans, the practices of alcohol consumption and smoking are embedded in their culture. Here, the authors claim that income is the single most important factor in determining the cultural practices of humans. Resultantly, the people of the Bogan community represent the lower socio-economic class and they live in cheap suburban areas. They are not well qualified as they have low education rate. As the authors identify the economic condition to be the single most important factor in the determination of the cultural practices, hence, this assumption has lead to the provision of many income support systems to the Bogans in order to solve the health-related issues. With the monitory improvement, the improvement of the educational facilities of the community or other technological training will take place. This will also lead to the improvement in health behavior.
It is seen from the research that socio-economic drawbacks lead to smoking and consumption of alcohol, in order to cope up with the frustration and stress due to the looming financial disadvantages. The socio-economic disadvantages could be determined in terms of individual access to the social and material resources and the potentiality to participate in the society (Gruenewald et al., 2012). Thus, as the Bogans are representative of the lower socio-economic group, they are in a disadvantageous position in the society. and This is the reason that the rate of smoking and consumption of alcohol is higher among them, which has affected their health heavily. However, if the socio-economic condition were changed, the health issue would be improved (Marmot & Bell, 2012).
However, an alternative perspective rejects the issues related to reduction of the rate of alcohol consumption with an improvement of income rate among the lower socio-economic groups like Bogans. Callander, Schofield and Shrestha (2012), have stated that improvement of the economic condition will not change the behavior towards the cultural practices as this has become a part of the community practices. If the economic condition would be improved among the Bogans, there would be more chance to spend the extra money in addiction. The literature has suggested that it would not be an effective solution towards improving the health condition of the Bogan people. However, the paper has suggested an alternative approach to reducing the poor health condition among the Bogans (Callander, Schofield & Shrestha, 2012). Rejecting the income as an important factor, the paper focuses on the improvement of the educational system, and this would contribute towards the improvement of the health condition of the Bogans. By educating the Bogans, building awareness against alcohol is possible. People of the Bogan community would know the side effects and the cause of this side effects of smoking and alcohol consumption. As it is seen that the children of the Bogan community imitate the addictive behavior of their parents, thus, the attitude of the Bogan parents needs to be changed first through awareness creation. By the pursuance of higher education it would be possible to change the habit of the young generation. Shield, Parry and Rehm (2014), have researched about the health issue and effect of the alcohol consumption among the Bogans. It has been seen that there is an immense effect of alcohol consumption among the Bogans and it is becoming the cause of the increased rate of mortality among the Bogan population. However, alcohol consumption of the Bogans does not only create harm to themselves but it massively affects the wellbeing and health of the family, friends and close acquaintances. The most common health-related problems due to heavy drinking among the Bogans are high blood pressure, stroke, heart and liver diseases and digestion related problems. The other mental problems related to heavy drinking are anxiety and depression. Excessive alcohol consumption leads to long-term and short-term health-related problems among the Bogans and it is also evident from the fact that the bogans are severely affected by these problems management.
The drinking addiction among the Bogans could be related and analyzed in the context of Australian cultural approaches towards drinking alcohol stated by Pereira et al. (2013), Consumption of alcohol is essentially an important part of the Australian culture. Consumption of Alcohol is a regular customary practice in the Australian culture and it also somehow symbolizes the national identity. The study has shown that between 2001 and 2005, an average number of 79,646 deaths have occurred due to excessive alcohol consumption in the Australian community (Stockwell et al., 2012). However, with this approach of the state, it is not possible to reduce alcohol consumption among the Bogans who are already culturally inclined towards heavy drinking. The health issue related to alcoholism is immense among the Australians, especially of the Bogans. The legislative and taxation system of the state has to be strong enough to prevent issues related to alcoholism. The total attributable cost of the alcohol-related crime in Australia is 1.7 billion Dollars and the social cost of the alcohol-related violence is 187 million Dollars. The cost of violent alcohol-related deaths in Australia is 124 million dollars. It is evident from the study that the drinking behavior of someone adversely affects 75% of adult Australians (Kehoe et al., 2012). According to the recent study of the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the alcohol consumption rate has been decreased within Australia by 1.1% from 2010-11. However, the overall consumption of alcohol is much higher in Australia than the other countries. It could be stated from the recent study on the alcohol consumption of Australia is that the country has to maintain the strict norms to prevent the alcohol consumption and its harmful effect to the inhabitants of Australia. The alcohol consumption not only affects the Bogans and its youth, it also adversely affects the overall health of the Australian society.
The Australian society has evolved into a social hierarchy with time, which comprises of high, middle and low socio-economic classes. The Bogans are the poorest people and represent the lower socio-economic class of Australia. Karl Marx’s theory could be applied to the health and social approaches of Bogan. According to the theory of social construction, Marx summarized that the wealth of the Bourgeoisie or upper class comes from the labor of the proletariat or lower-socioeconomic class. The bourgeoisie gain their wealth from the exploitation of the labor of the proletariat (Berlin, 2013). This type of capitalist structure leads to the formation of class division and in this structure, the exploitative behavior of the high class leads to poverty and unequal access to the resources of the society of the lower class like Bogans. The exploitation leads them into further poverty and unequal access to the socio-economic facilities. There is some research, which has shown that due to the poor socio-economic condition of the Bogans, they are much more prone to alcoholism and smoking. Hence, their health is heavily affected by their addiction-prone culture.
However, the overall popular culture of Australia, which heavily celebrates with alcohol consumption and hard partying, indirectly influences the issue of the Bogans. The Bogans are a sub-community of Australia. The survey report from 2010 stated that 88% of the total population in Australia have consumed alcohol by the age of 14. Many Australians including the Bogan people consume alcohol at destructive level (Allan et al., 2012). The Australian culture of alcohol consumption influences the Bogan most and they are affected by this practice. The alcohol consumption and smoking rate are higher among the Bogans compared to the overall Australian community. Therefore, the Bogan sub-cultural community has mostly been seriously affected by this practice. The rate of mortality and other health-related problems are higher among the Bogans due to their cultural practices of consuming alcohol and smoking. Awareness of this issue is important to minimize the rate of health-related problems among the Australians, especially of the Bogans. Discussion, events, and seminars are needed to be organized to build awareness among the Bogans and Government should give serious consideration to this issue (Campbell, 2013).
It is necessary to spread the knowledge of the health issue of the Bogans caused by heavy drinking and smoking. This will help to create an optimistic change in the society by removing the negative impact of the smoking and drinking alcohol. Building awareness and analyzing the economic and social factors, which cause health deterioration, could be aided to develop strategies for minimizing the acceptance of smoking and alcohol consumption among the poor and lower socioeconomic individuals like Bogans. As an outcome of this analysis, I assume that the public health experts should channelize their resources to minimize the poverty among the Bogans, and naturally, that will help to minimize the addictive behavior of drinking and smoking in the community. This will also help to minimize the other health-related issues. Education is another factor that will contribute in the minimization of the adverse health effects related to this cultural practice.
The artifact, which is a photograph of a young man, represents Bogan culture. The man is jumping high in the air. This man is smoking a cigarette and drinking beer. The man is the representative of Bogan culture as Bogans are famous for smoking and consuming alcohol. Due to increased acceptance of smoking and drinking alcohol among the Bogans, the rate of health-related hazards are high and most rampant among the Bogans. From this photographic representation, it is important to note down that it would be helpful in creating awareness in the Australian society and among the Bogan community members and the areas have been identified where changes are needed, within the social, economic, healthcare and educational structure. Participating in this analysis, I have acquired a further and detailed understanding about the division of classes in relation to the socio-economic structure of the society. I have gained the knowledge that it effects this socio-economic division of classes on the health issues and behaviors. The social theory of Karl Marx has helped me to improve further my understanding of the effect of the class division and the result of this on the Australia’s Bogan community.
This is very interesting topic to read. The topic of the assignment reflects on the prevalence of smoking and importance of health education among the Bogans. I like the opening paragraph as it has connected with the underlying stereotypes of the contemporary Bogans. The stereotypes are related to the health issue of the community. However, in the opening paragraph, the artifacts, which is a popular television show ‘Kath and Kim’ used in the paper has associated Bogan culture and their lack of health education within their community practices. The Video clip is also very interesting and it has shown the common health behavior among the Bogans.
The public health issue has analyzed the health and life practices of the Bogans and its outcome as a poor health condition. The community practice and its result of poor health condition could be related to the underprivileged geographic area, lower socio-economic background and this is a logical approach towards the analysis of the health issues among the Bogans.
In the cultural and social analysis, the theory of Karl Marx about the social class and relationship of bourgeoisie and proletariat has been correlated, which has provided a Marxist theory of class struggle with the health issue. For me, it is a rational social theory that could be applied to analyze the problems. I like the way the paper has acknowledged the socio-economic factors for developing strategies to decline the negative health effect among the lower socio-economic class. However, the artifact is interesting and well chosen and it is a well-analyzed wiki.
In another reflection, the artifact has well shown the effect of social media addiction on the health of the young generation. The way the paper has addressed the problems of the young generation with excessive use of the social media is interesting. It creates mental health issues and affects the physical health of the young generation in a negative way.
The health issue, which has been addressed, is current problem and lot of research is necessary on this topic. The overall use of social media is time-consuming and many mental and physical health problems have been created among the young Australians.
I like the way the paper has acknowledged the limitation of the social theory regarding the fact. Overall, the paper is nicely written and it is a well-researched wiki.
References
Allan, J., Clifford, A., Ball, P., Alston, M., & Meister, P. (2012). ‘You’re Less Complete if You Haven’t Got a Can in Your Hand’: Alcohol Consumption and Related Harmful Effects in Rural Australia: The Role and Influence of Cultural Capital. Alcohol and alcoholism, 47(5), 624-629.
Berlin, I. (2013). Karl Marx. Princeton University Press.
Callander, E. J., Schofield, D. J., & Shrestha, R. N. (2012). Towards a holistic understanding of poverty: a new multidimensional measure of poverty for Australia. Health Sociology Review, 21(2), 141-155.
Campbell, M. L. (2013). Bogan: Exploring images of Australian cultural marginalisation (Doctoral dissertation, University of Melbourne).
CHURN, N. (2013). BOGAN TIME AND THE RACE THAT STOPS THE NATION. Movements in Time: Revolution, Social Justice and Times of Change, 103.
Fone, D. L., Farewell, D. M., White, J., Lyons, R. A., & Dunstan, F. D. (2013). Socioeconomic patterning of excess alcohol consumption and binge drinking: a cross-sectional study of multilevel associations with neighbourhood deprivation. BMJ open, 3(4), e002337.
Gruenewald, T. L., Karlamangla, A. S., Hu, P., Stein-Merkin, S., Crandall, C., Koretz, B., & Seeman, T. E. (2012). History of socioeconomic disadvantage and allostatic load in later life. Social science & medicine, 74(1), 75-83.
Kehoe, T., Gmel, G., Shield, K. D., Gmel, G., & Rehm, J. (2012). Determining the best population-level alcohol consumption model and its impact on estimates of alcohol-attributable harms. Population health metrics, 10(1), 6.
Marmot, M., & Bell, R. (2012). Fair society, healthy lives. Public health, 126, S4-S10.
Pereira, G., Wood, L., Foster, S., & Haggar, F. (2013). Access to alcohol outlets, alcohol consumption and mental health. PloS one, 8(1), e53461.
Shield, K. D., Parry, C., & Rehm, J. (2014). Chronic diseases and conditions related to alcohol use. Alcohol Research: Current Reviews, 35(2), 155.
Stockwell, T., Auld, M. C., Zhao, J., & Martin, G. (2012). Does minimum pricing reduce alcohol consumption? The experience of a Canadian province. Addiction, 107(5), 912-920.
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