File spoon-archives/bourdieu.archive/bourdieu_1996/96-07-02.141, message 188


Date: Sat, 25 May 1996 14:11:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: sekleinm-AT-postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu (Sy Kleinman)
Subject: Re: a modest account of modest theory


to alan and all,

not being very familiar with the literature you are citing, i have been
silent until now, but enjoying this bourdieu list very much. what follows
then are, for the most part, some of my own thoughts on your remarks:

the upcoming annual congress on research in dance (CORD) has established as
its theme, "The Body in Dance: Modes of Inquiry." i have undertaken to make
a presentation which will ask, and attempt to answer, the question, "is a
kinesthetic phenomenology possible?" ( i think it is) And i found your
remarks on Thrift and "modest theory" intriguing, particularly the notions
of a) experience as thought in action, b) the moment of action within
context, and c) thinking with the entire body. 

they reminded somewhat of a) dewey's principle of self developing activity
in which the living body is a "bodying forth of the soul," b)
merleau-ponty's "visible and invisible" and c) wittgenstein's conclusion
that "the rest is silence." and perhaps these may be clues to addressing
your questions, "how can we theorize practices without losing their meaning"
and "what's the point of theorizing practice" anyway? in fact it may be
useful to turn the question around (embody it) by practicing theory or begin
to regard theory AS practice thus overcoming the distinction we seem
compelled to make between the two.

at any rate, as muddled as all this may seem, i'm committed to a summer of
what i am calling, "addressing the ineffable," and would appreciate your
comments.

sy kleinman 

>THIS IS A BIT OF A LENGTHY ACCOUNT OF 'MODEST THEORY' AFTER THRIFT 1996. 
>SO DELETE IT NOW IF YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED.
>
>Dear All, 
>	So, I've been quite reasonably asked - given that I used the term 
>'modest theory' without explaining it - what Thrift means by this 
>expression. 
>
>So, armed with my copy of Thrift 1996 I'll have a go at that. He also 
>refers to  such theory as non-representational theories, in which the 
>'focus is 'external', and in which the basic terms and objects are forged 
>in a manifold of actions and interactions' (Thrift, 1996, p.6).
>
>Of these non-representational theories he says there are several main tenets:
>
>1) They throw a critical light on representational theories
>
>2) They valorize practical experience. That is they concern 
>thought-in-action, presentation rather than representation.
>
>3) They emphasize the particular moment of action, but do not divorce 
>this moment of action from context
>
>4) They concern thinking with the entire body, rather than just the visual
>
>5) They invite scepticism re the linguistic turn, suggesting that this 
>has tended to divorce theory from practical reality
>
>6) They involve a different (non covering-law I guess) understanding of 
>explanation, in which explanation is about getting to know something, 
>getting a  handle on something, and in which theories/models are tools. 
>(Kind of late-Wittgenstein?)
>
>The above points are those that Thrift makes about non-representational 
>thinking. He then, later in the chapter, kind of re-iterates this in 
>terms of  'modest theory'. Much the same it seems. However, he then makes 
>the following  points about such modest theory:
>
>1) ONTOLOGY
>- a weak ontology that sees order as produced or not through action. An 
>energetic ontology apparently.
>
>2) EPISTEMOLOGY
>- a weak epistemology, of situated knowledges, where closure is not sought.
>- 'if a concept depends on a pattern of life, then there must be some 
>indefiniteness to it' (Wittgenstein, Thrift p.32)
>
>3) ETHICS
>- doesn't like ideal theories of ethics (I, as it happens, still do!), 
>but prefers 'the authority of the present case'.
>
>4) THE HUMAN SUBJECT
>- multiple, dynamic but only partially decentred
>
>5) THINGS
>- the importance of looking at things and they ways in which they are 
>used to avoid too much subject-object distinction. 
>- here he goes into Actor-Network theory in which anything (I think) is 
>conceptualized as having agency.
>
>6) CONTEXT
>- a radical contextualism, that does not become a parochial 
>particularism. Rather, the local is made up of intersections of wider 
>dynamics/social relations.
>
>I'm afraid, given other pressures on my time and my lack of expertise, 
>that that's the best I can do with modest theory at the moment. A modest 
>effort.
>
>I do however have another question for the list. It's one I've asked 
>before in different forms I suppose, but one that still bugs me. It is, 
>basically, if meaning derives from practice then how can we theorize 
>practices without losing their meaning? Further, what is the point of 
>theorizing practice?
>
>I feel I have some answers, about making the world more intelligible, 
>but can't articulate them very well so any help would be much 
>appreciated. Perhaps that the point: that some things can be 
>done/practiced but not said?
>
>I have some more Bourdieu, some de Certeau, Merleau Ponty, Lefebvre and 
>Deleuze/Guattari that I'm planning on having a look at soon in search of 
>an answer (not very likely, I know) but would appreciate any thoughts.
>
>Sorry about the length of this, but someone did ask.
>
>see you,
>alan
>
>*****************************************************************************
>Alan C. Hudson,
>
>Department of Geography,		and		Fitzwilliam College,
>University of Cambridge,				Cambridge,
>CB2 3EN,						CB3 0DG,
>United Kingdom.						United Kingdom.
>
>Tel: 	+ 44 (0) 1223 333349 (Department - Direct line)
>Tel:	+44  (0) 1223 333399 (Department - General Office)
>Fax: 	+ 44 (0) 1223 333392 (Department)
>E-Mail: ach1005-AT-cam.ac.uk
>*****************************************************************************
>
>
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