Everyone is a War Reporter: Field Theory and Wellbeing Capital in Conflict Journalism

Few domains of journalism are as emotionally fraught as that of conflict journalism. Using field theory as a framework and long-form interviews with journalists (n = 21), in this study, we investigate how conflict zone journalists perceive the role of wellbeing within the journalistic field. We found that journalists regularly felt the need to exchange their mental and physical wellbeing for economic, cultural, and social capital. We argue for an expansion of Bourdieu’s (Citation1986) field theory in recognition of journalists’ personal wellbeing as a capital. Through the lens of this study, we argue that wellbeing capital reflects a form of embodied cultural capital, an accumulation of mental and physical health resources, which serves as a mark of social distinction and provides advantages within the field.