Negotiating Cultural Change: Habitus, Cultural Capital and Digital Transformation in Blitar

Abstract

The rapid expansion of digital technologies and social media has transformed how local cultural practices are produced, represented, and negotiated across generations. While previous scholarship has focused on major tourism hubs, limited attention has been given to smaller localities where cultural shift occurs through everyday interactions. Addressing this gap, this qualitative case study investigates how digitalization reshapes cultural habitus, reconfigures cultural capital, and transforms cultural legitimacy across generations in Blitar, Indonesia. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews, non-participant observations, and digital content analysis, then analyzed using the interactive model of Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña alongside Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, cultural capital, and social field. Findings reveal that digitalization does not generate a simple intergenerational conflict. Instead, it fosters continuous negotiations where older generations strive to preserve authenticity while younger actors serve as cultural brokers, reinterpreting traditions on digital platforms while retaining symbolic values. Rather than replacing tradition, digitalization facilitates hybrid cultural spaces where legitimacy is dynamically renegotiated. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that digital transformation should be conceptualized as an ongoing process of symbolic negotiation rather than a binary outcome of cultural preservation or decline.