Between hierarchical nostalgia and fatalistic resignation – The case of Italian Commercialisti’s pursuit of economic and symbolic capitals

Focusing on Italian accountants (Commercialisti), who are usually professionals working alone or in small firms, we examine how small practitioners experience and navigate the dynamics between professionalism and commercialism. Drawing on empirical material from roundtable meetings and interviews with Commercialisti, and using a framework that examines how culturally patterned dispositions shape their experiences of field and capital conversion dynamics, we explore how these professionals engage reflexively with concerns about recognition. Our analysis shows how reflexive engagement with field positioning amidst tensions between professionalism and commercialism is tied to small practitioners’ concerns about recognition, stemming from experiences of ‘failed capital conversions’. We unpack these concerns through Commercialisti’s reflections on their quest for ‘fair compensation’, which functions for them as recognition that matters not only for economic survival but also for sustaining their position in a symbolic hierarchy dominated by large firms and prestigious peers. In doing so, we demonstrate how Commercialisti’s concerns about fair compensation, while economic in form, are deeply symbolic in function and how reflexivity plays an ambivalent role in such pursuits of recognition. While reflexivity enhances awareness of lacking status and power and triggers aspirations to address these constraints, it simultaneously heightens frustration about the structural and symbolic conditions that limit the feasibility of such strategies. This ambivalence produces a ‘reflexive impasse’ at the intersection of hierarchical nostalgia and fatalist resignation, leaving Commercialisti caught between attachment to institutionalized norms and a prevailing sense that change is unattainable, which stalls identity transformation despite ongoing efforts to reclaim recognition.