Sit Back and Enjoy The Ride: Financial planners and the symbolic domination of clients.
Canadian Journal of Sociology, Vol. 34, No. 4, 1065-1086.
Patrick F. Parnaby
Borrowing from Bourdieu’s theory of practice, specifically, the
relationship between forms of capital and discourse on the one hand and
the nature of symbolic domination on the other (see Bourdieu 1998;
1991), this paper seeks to answer the following question: what
discursive strategies do personal financial planners use to facilitate
desirable client behavior vis-à-vis market investment? On the basis of
32 semi-structured interviews with financial planners and textual
analyses of relevant industry materials, I argue that planners use
three essential discursive strategies: the naturalization of market
volatility, the establishing of reasonable expectations, and the
managing of external discourses. Together, these discursive strategies
facilitate the symbolic domination of clients while cultivating a
professional relationship amenable to long term investment and
profitability.
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