Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 12:32:10 +0000
From: steven wainwright <steven.wainwright-AT-kcl.ac.uk>
Subject: BHA: Re: Bourdieu & CR


Hello again,

I too have found a symbiotic relationship between CR and Bourdieu.  As
someone who aspires to be a 'critical (empirical) social researcher' CR
brought about an epiphany in my understanding of the philosophy of social
research.  I am 'currently' working (if only!!) on a paper that argues "For
Bourdieu in realist social science".  Here's the abstract!  (For a whole
variety of reasons this paper is still in a half written state!).

Abstract
This paper argues for the salience of the work of Pierre Bourdieu - social
theorist, anthropologist, sociologist, philosopher and empirical researcher
- for realist social science.  I argue that although realism generally wins
the philosophical battles with its main rivals; it is losing the social
research war to positivism, social constructionism and postmodernism.  This
state of realism in social science is in marked contrast with the emphatic
empirical grounding of the dazzling theoretical and philosophical insights
that are the great strength of Bourdieu's impressive corpus of social
research.  Moreover, I suggest Bourdieu's work is best read as a variant of
critical realism.  This leads to an outline of Bourdieu's attempts to
sublate some of the classic dualism's of social research (e.g., the
objective-subjective, agency-structure, theory-research and
idiographic-nomothetic antinomies).  In particular, attention is paid to
Bourdieu's analysis of the logic of practice, and his use of the concepts
of capital, habitus, field, illusio and symbolic violence.  This discussion
draws on the recent spate of English translations of books by Bourdieu.
Health inequalities research is then used to illustrate the potential
fruitfulness of this family of concepts.  Finally, I conclude that Bourdieu
successfully fuses philosophy, social theory and social research and so
helps to overcome a major shortcoming of the neophyte programme of realist
social research.  We should therefore be: "For Bourdieu in realist social
science".

So it's good to know that there is something of a CR-Bourdieu community out
there. I'll end with a few quotes from (on) Bourdieu that strike me as the
sort of thing's that many realists would agree with:

"Bourdieu is a realistŠ As against positivists, realists accept that
explanation may involve analysis in terms of unobserved entitiesŠ As
against rationalists, realists claim that the unobserved and intransitive
relations and objects are not unknowable.  RatherŠ realist theories about
unobserved entities depend on the generation and testing of hypotheses,
within which there is always the possibility of mistakes."  (Fowler, 1996:
7-8).

This search for causal mechanisms is what gives realism it's explanatory
purchase.  However, these mechanisms only fire if the context is right.
This realist view is echoed by Bourdiieu: "Capital produces specific
effects only in specific conditions." (Bourdieu, 1990: 122).  Moreover, "if
one understands social mechanisms, one is not necessarily mastering them,
but one does increase one's chance of mastering them by however small an
amount, particularly when the social mechanisms in question rest largely on
misunderstanding." (Bourdieu, 1999: 220).  This is both realist and
critical (but not necessarily CR!).

Here are couple of quotes that I used in a recent talk at a qualitative
health research conference (in Canada).  Realists should aim to say "the
thing that is least expected, most improbable, most out of place in the
place where it is said.  This represents a refusal to 'preach to the
converted' [so this paper may not be] so well received because it [does
not] tell its audience only what they want to hear" (Bourdieu, 1993:viii).

So how about saying this at a 'Pomo conference': "it is not sufficient to
change language or theory to change reality... While it never does harm to
point out that gender, nation, or ethnicity or race are social constructs,
it is naive, even dangerous, to suppose that one only has to 'deconstruct'
these social artefacts, in a purely performative performance of resistance,
in order to destroy them... One may... doubt the reality of a resistance
which ignores the resistance of reality" (Bourdieu, 2000: 108).  Lets go
get 'em!

Sadly, for me it's back to the grindstone....

Best wishes

Steve





PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF ADDRESS AND TELEPHONE NUMBER

Steve Wainwright
Lecturer in Nursing Studies
Research in Health and Social Care Section
Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery
King's College London
James Clerk Maxwell Building
57 Waterloo Road
London
SE1 8WA
UK

Telephone 020 7848 3214 (direct)
Telephone 020 7848 3024 (secretary)
Fax       020 7848 3219
e-mail	  steven.wainwright-AT-kcl.ac.uk




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