From: Jeffrey David Feldman <jdf4e-AT-darwin.clas.Virginia.EDU> Subject: Bourdieu's Standards Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 19:05:00 -0500 (EST) I am also new to this server, but will take a stab at the question. As I understand it, Distinction constitutes Bourdieu's position on standards. All forms of capital (cultural, educational or otherwise symbolic, etc.) function within constraints roughly contiguous with the notion of class. The standard is not so much recognized as incorporated, and by corporate I mean not the contemporary business connotation, but the definition offered by anthropology (from Maine) that a corporation is an enduring group. Along these lines, on habitus Bourdieu suggests: "Since the habitus, the virtue made of necessity, is a product of the incorporation of objective necessity, it produces strategies which, even if they are not produced by consciously aiming at explicitly formulated goals on the basis of an adequate knowledge of objective conditions, nor by the mechanical determination excercised by causes, turn out to be objectively adjusted to the situation." (In Other Words, p. 11) So, what we have is an objectified set of dispositions. I think Roy Wagner's concept "obviation" (Symbols that Stand for Themselves) is helpful here--particularly since Bourdieu over uses the word objective so as to strip it of meaning. Habitus is a product of its own making. That's the dialectical trick we are supposed to pick out. Yet, the actor does not have full access to the set of dispositions, for to have such access would imply that those set of dispositions had changed. Again, it's a dialiectical problem. I would have to say that habitus provides its own standards, which are beyond the recognizable sphere of possibilities to those whose social world is constituted by that set of dispositions. In his own context, therefore, (Distinction is about France) Bourdieu couches habitus within a class framework. You must find the framework--or standards--if you choose to introduce habitus into a different context. Having considered this, the question then becomes: does habitus provide the tools to discover limiting factors other than those offered by the discourse on class (both in the materialist and symbolic sense)? -- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Sender: Jeffrey David Feldman Department of Anthropology University of Virginia 303 Brooks Hall Charlottesville, VA 22903 tel: (804) 977-8128 email: jdf4e-AT-Virginia.Edu
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