Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 05:21:43 -0500 (EST)
From: Shawn Lindsay <slindsay-AT-indiana.edu>
Subject: Re: Bourdieu and de Certeau



Jonathan, first of all let me acknowledge that I am reading Bourdieu and 
de Certeau in translation.  De Certeau's critique of Esquisse covers 
several essays that are found in The Logic of Practice (Stanford, 1990).  
Thus I'm uncertain as to how well my copy of Outline mirrors the original 
Esquisse.  Nevertheless, the crux of de Certeau's argument seems to be an 
examination of the textual practices that enable (or necessitate) the 
construction of "habitus."   More specifically,  De Certeau explores the 
tensions between a poetic, descriptive "ethnology" (American 
anthropologists would prefer the term "ethnography" in this case) and a 
totalizing, objective sociology.  De Certeau's interpretation ventures  
beyond the obvious sorts of comments on the "constructed" and 
metaphorical nature of ethnographic representations.  The very movement 
between disciplines or  modalities of discourse is grasped as a metaphor, 
and finally a form of dwelling (1984:51-52).  This is the premise de 
Certeau uses to launch an attack on "habitus," "an invisble place where, 
as in the Kabylian dwelling, the structures are inverted as they are 
interiorized, and where the writing flips over again in exteriorizing 
itself in the form of practices that have the deceptive appearance of 
being free improvisations" (58).   
 
De Certeau's cleverness speaks for itself.  Admittedly his writing 
sometimes leads us off  the hermeneutic deep end, but at the same time it 
prompts  a reflexive re-appraisal of ethnography's conditions of 
possibility, and is valuable for that reason.  While I'm not entirely 
persuaded that "in Outline the problematic of place seems to win out over 
the problematic of practices" (55), I do feel I know where de Certeau is 
coming from.   

Well, in a nutshell, I've elaborated. 

 I'd love to read comments from more knowledgable people.  

Shawn. 

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