File spoon-archives/bourdieu.archive/bourdieu_1996/96-12-01.092, message 6


Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 11:00:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dan Schubert <schubert-AT-dickinson.edu>
Subject: symbolic violence in late capitalism


bourdieuians,

	a few days ago i forwarded an announcement about a conference 
being organized by richard harvey brown that will be held at the 
university of maryland in april.  i'm organizing a session for the 
conference called SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE IN LATE-CAPITALIST SOCIETIES.  i'd 
like to use this opportunity to invite papers from bourdieuians for the 
session and also to ask a question of list members.

	if you'd be interested in doing a paper for the session, which is now 
about half-filled, feel free to submit an abstract directly to me via email, 
or mail a copy to me at:

	department of sociology
	dickinson college
	carlisle, pa  17013
	usa

	
	now for my query.  many of bourdieu's illustrations of symbolic 
violence seem to come in his descriptions of the genesis and expansion of 
the nation-state.  i'm thinking, for example, of descriptions of the 
consolidation/colonization of france such this one that appears in LANGUAGE 
AND SYMBOLIC POWER (p.46):

	  "the `dialects', which often possessed some of the properties 
attributed to `languages',... and literary languages... gave way progressively,
>from the fourteenth century on... to the common language which was developed in
Paris in cultivated circles and which, having been promoted to the status of 
official language, was used in the form given to it by scholarly, i.e. written,
uses."

	would the notion of symbolic violence have the same importance in 
descriptions of late-capitalist (yes, i know i'm doing my own symbolic 
violence by naming in this way) societies?  i know, as the push in the 
u.s. for a national language illustrates, that the processes of state formation 
and consolidation continue, but i'm wondering if there is anything about 
late-capitalism or its new technologies that would make b's notion of 
symbolic violence less useful or even obsolete.  (i suppose i'm trying to 
expand on nicholas garnham's attempt to extend bourdieu [in CRITICAL 
PERSPECTIVES] for media studies, although i must say that i think garnham is 
very unfair to b in this essay.)   is late-capitalism simply another type of 
field, or is it something qualitatively different that demands modified 
scientific approaches?

  any thoughts?


best,
dan

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