Credits, references, and bibliography

(http://firgoa.usc.es/drupal/images/9bbf8c78685c28029be852ea14979695-16983.jpg)

Pierre Bourdieu (see also, local copy)

Bourdieu, An Introduction (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flz6shD3g2s)

Field theory - Pierre Bourdieu (http://youtu.be/7FXPnkwSCyE)
and another "simple explanation" http://youtu.be/87BPL62wyyU

Bridging Subjectivism and Objectivism (local copy)

1. Dialectic between agency and structure (subjectivism and objectivism): Practice
2. Genetic structuralism: study of objective structures as part of mental structures (produced, in part, through internalization of objective structures)
3. Structuralist perspective: objective structures in the world which constrain and guide
4. Constructivist perspective: action based on perception and thought create structures
5. Poststructuralist: interest in the relationship between mental structures and social structures (not subjectivity or intentionality, per se).
   • Dynamic actor, yet located in specific objective conditions

Habitus (local copy: excerpt from Distinctions. A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Conclusion. 1984, translated by Richard Nice, published by Harvard University Press, 1984, 604pp. – selected from pp. 466-484.)

• Mental, cognitive structure used to deal with the world
• Internalized schemes (recipes) used to define, interpret, evaluate and judge
• Habitus is internalized structure: reflects class, age, gender, etc.
• Varies based on objective position in the world--same position, similar habitus
• Collective, yet individualized.
• Develops over time and is linked to historical periods
• Hysteresis: habitus out of time/place
• A structuring structure as well as a structured structure (internalized exteriorality and exteriorized internality)
• Practice: mediates habitus--social world
• "The habitus provides the practical skills and dispositions necessary to navigate within different fields (such as sports, professional life, art) and guides the choices of the individual without ever being strictly reducible to prescribed, formal rules.[3] At the same time, the habitus is constantly remade by these navigations and choices (including the success or failure of previous actions)." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitus_(sociology))
• Constrains and directs thought and choice of action--does not determine them (as opposed to traditional structuralists)
• Practical logic--choice based on conscious deliberation. polythetic--variable and multi-form. Habitus is adapted by people based on the changing and contradictory circumstances in which they find themselves.
• Habitus is not under conscious control--it is manifest in our everyday behavior--it is a structure through which we operate.

Field

• A network of relations among objective positions. (rather than class in a pure Marxian sense)
• Occupied by people (agents) and/or collectivities--constrained by the field
• Fields: art, religion, science, education, higher education, technology, economics, politics, class). Specific logics and beliefs--stakeholders
• Arenas of struggle--maintaining or improving positions visa-vie others in the field, and between fields. Hierarchy: political field and power relationships structure other fields.
• Fields intersect vertically and horizontally
• Capital is used to compete and determine positions--and control fate of others
  • Economic capital (economic resources)
  • Cultural capital (legitimate knowledge)
  • Social Capital (valued social relationships)
  • Symbolic capital (honor and prestige)
• Agents and strategies: freedom, yet not necessarily--habitus and field position determinate.
• The state and symbolic violence (social control through cultural means)--education (in particular)
  • We are complicit
  • Obscures action of those in power
  • Legitimates the domination of the masses

Contemporary Applications: The "Field" of American Higher Education Today (2, page 182)

• Positions: universities and colleges, departments, chancellors, deans, professors (various ranks) graduate students, undergrads, staff, etc.
• A struggle on the playing field: Elite universities and those that aspire to greatness, Inter-departmental rivalry, senior versus junior faculty, faculty versus graduate students (and undergrads)

Habitus and Field: Distinction (local copy: excerpt from Distinctions. A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Conclusion. 1984, translated by Richard Nice, published by Harvard University Press, 1984, 604pp. – selected from pp. 466-484.) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBn28iNcpBA)

• Empirical concerns---examining the aesthetic preferences of different groups
• A focus on culture (high culture, as well as culture in general). Linking high/low culture
• Within the confines of habitus and field, cultural preferences constituting "coherent systems."
• Taste:
  • Social practice: place in social order (unifies those with similar, and differentiates. We categorize by "taste")
  • "acquired disposition to differentiate among various cultural objects" (2, page 180)
  • Stealthy Wealthy?
• Issue tied to two fields: class relationships (within class, too) and cultural relationships.
• Social class shapes ability to "play the game" (have one's tastes accepted and others rejected). Class intersects culture.
• Habitus is crucial, too: even mundane preferences are shaped by habitus and this serves to unite classes ("Through taste one habitus indicates its compatibility with another habitus. Dialectically, of course, it is the structure of the class that shapes the habitus." (2, page 180)
• People use their cultural capital in the cultural marketplace to claim and maintain positions
• We "pursue distinction" through consumption and differentiation. "Relationships of distinction are objectively inscribed in these products and reactivated each time they are appropriated" (2, page 181)
• Not "conspicuous consumption," but differentiation; demonstrating relative (and often superior) positions via taste: Anchor Steam versus Natural Light, Foie Gras versus Braunschweiger. High versus low culture with low culture define via dominance and symbolic violence. What do you see: image one (local) and image two (local).
• Dialectic between cultural products and tastes: changes in either produce changes in the other.
• Changes in taste reflect both cultural struggles and class issues (especially, dominant versus dominated fraction of dominant class). "Oppositions within the class structure condition oppositions in taste and habitus." (2, page 180)

http://learningenvironment.reurba.org/images/BourdieuNew2.jpg (this site is no longer available)

(see, Mapping Class and Culture, and the Trajectory of Beer, too, for an interesting application)

Methodological relationism

• Not methodological individualism, or
• Methodological holism
• Habitus and Field: the field conditions, shapes, directs the habitus and the habitus gives the field meaning, sense, and value through the agency of the actor

Reflexive Sociology: study the habitus and practices of sociologists in the field of sociology, education and politics. Rather than objectifying the social world, study how sociologists attempt to achieve distinction. Issues of jargon, "science," and the role of sociological inquiry in maintaining power arrangement.

"A major alternative to structuration theory is Pierre Bourdieu's (1930-2002) theory of habitus and field.  Bourdieu sought to bridge subjectivism (the individual) and objectivism (society) with a perspective called constructivist structuralism.  Structuralism focuses on the objective structures of language and culture that give shape to human action.  Constructivism looks at the social genesis of schemes of perception, thought, and action.  Bourdieu wants to examine the social construction of objective structures with an emphasis on how people perceive and construct their own social world, but without neglecting how perception and construction is constrained by structures.  An important dynamic in this relationship is the ability of individual actors to invent and improvise within the structure of their routines.

The habitus is the mental structure through which people deal with the social world.  It can be thought of as a set of internalized schemas through which the world is perceived, understood, appreciated, and evaluated.  A habitus is acquired as the result of the long-term occupation of a position in the social world.  Depending on the position occupied, people will have a different habitus.  The habitus operates as a structure, but people do not simply respond to it mechanically.  When people change positions, their habitus is sometimes no longer appropriate, a condition called hysteresis.  Bourdieu argues that the habitus both produces and is produced by the social world.  People internalize external structures, and they externalize things they have internalized through practices.

The concept of field is the objective complement to the idea of habitus.  A field is a network of social relations among the objective positions within it.  It is not a set of interactions or intersubjective ties among individuals.  The social world has a great variety of semi-autonomous fields such as art, religion, and higher education.  The field is a type of competitive marketplace in which economic, cultural, social, and symbolic powers are used.  The preeminent field is the field of politics, from which a hierarchy of power relationships serves to structure all other fields.  To analyze a field, one must first understand its relationship to the political field.  The next step is to map the objective positions within a field and, finally, the nature of the habitus of the agents who occupy particular positions can be understood.  These agents act strategically depending on their habitus in order to enhance their capital.  Bourdieu is particularly concerned with how powerful positions within a field can perpetrate symbolic violence on less powerful actors.  Cultural mechanisms such as education impose a dominant perspective on the rest of the population in order to legitimate their power. 

Bourdieu's analysis of the aesthetic preferences of different groups can be found in Distinction.  The cultural preferences of the various groups within society constitute coherent systems that serve to unify those with similar tastes and differentiate them from others with divergent tastes.  Through the practical application of preferences, people classify objects and in the process classify themselves.  Bourdieu thinks the field of taste involves the intersection of social-class relationships and cultural relationships.  He argues that taste is an opportunity to both experience and assert one's position in the class hierarchy.  These tastes are engendered in the deep-rooted dispositions of the habitus.  Changes in tastes result from struggles for dominance within both cultural and social-class fields as different factions struggle to define high culture and taste."(1)

quiz

Internet Exercise:(1)

Go to http://www.homme-moderne.org/societe/socio/wacquant/chronicUS.html, read the interview with Loic Wacquant, and answer the following questions.

a.  How did Pierre Bourdieu win a large nonacademic audience?

b.  Bourdieu is often compared to whom, in terms of his influence?

c.  What was the subject of Bourdieu's earliest work?

d.  Which element of Bourdieu's work "drew blood," according to the interviewer?

Weblinks:

http://www.slideshare.net/elma22/structures-and-the-habitus-pierre-bourdieu

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/ViewContentServlet?Filename=Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Articles/1600060502.html

http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj87/wolfreys.htm

The Essence of Neo-Liberalism: http://mondediplo.com/1998/12/08Bourdieu (Bourdieu's critique of contemporary capitalism featured in Le Monde Diplomatique.)

Pierre Bourdieu Bibliography (at end of article): http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/3210/resources/PIERREBOURDIEU-KEYTHINK-REV2006.pdf

Excerpts from Pierre Bourdieu's Distinction: http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/bourdieu.htm

Social Capital Gateway: http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/

Works Cited

1. Much of this page comes from the "Instructor's Manual" to accompany Contemporary Sociological Theory and Its Classical Roots: The Basics, Second Edition, George Ritzer, Mcgraw-Hill, 2007. The Instructor's Manual was prepared by James Murphy, University of Maryland, College Park and Todd Stillman, Fayetteville State University. These excerpts are from chapter 7.
2. Ritzer, George. 2007/2010/2013. Contemporary Sociological Theory and Its Classical Roots: The Basics. 2nd/3rd/4th editions. St. Louis: McGraw-Hill
3. Calhoun, Craig (ed) Dictionary of the Social Sciences, Article: Bourdieu, Pierre, Oxford University Press, 2002

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