Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 22:29:45 -0500
From: Jay Lemke <jllbc-AT-CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: aesthetic and scientific labour?



I have been following the discussions of aesthetic labour, products, and
fields with interest in my available spare (very spare!) moments.

A few postings have mentioned aesthetic and scientific or art and science
in the same phrase, and this raises for me indirectly a related question:
Would we say all the same things, mutatis mutandis, of scientific labour?

In an related debate in which I have participated elsewhere, it has been
suggested that Bourdieu's analysis of linguistic habitus and its symbolic
capital is overly focussed on the most 'arbitrary' features of linguistic
productions, such as 'accent' and the cache of stylish words, and
correspondingly neglects the functional dimensions of language, such as the
intrinsic usefulness of certain kinds of grammatical constructions or
semantic relationship for particular social and intellectual purposes. It
may be that the political economy of what has no intrinsic function except
to index the possession of a cultural capital valued on its own market is
quite different from that of a habitus which has direct and non-arbitrary
value for some production which is valued on quite another, and perhaps
more substantial market. As for instance being able to use a particular
type of mathematics may be judged not only in terms of its fashionability
value in the mathematics market, but also in terms of its utility in
designing technologies or modeling currency fluctuations, which are in turn
valued by quite different markets and fields. Whereas the ability to speak
a particular dialect of French may be valued only in a linguistic market,
relatively unconstrained by any utility in relation to other more powerful
markets or fields.

So also one could ask whether aesthetic labour and productions,
mathematical ones, and theoretical scientific ones -- all somewhat similar
as pure discourse constructions -- should indeed be treated in parallel
fashion when the basis of their valuation in a larger range of coupled
markets and fields is fully taken into account? I think, for instance, of
Bruno Latour's emphasis on the interlinked networks in which cultural
practices contribute, and the ways in which theories and technologies
influence one another's value. Could it be that both the case of direct
production in the financial capital market, and the 'esthetic' case, are
atypical, requiring consideration only of their own markets? while more
typical would be those fields of cultural capital such as education, or
technoscience, in which we must go beyond their own fields and markets to
account for valuation?

JAY.

---------------------------
JAY L. LEMKE

CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC-AT-CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
---------------------------
**********************************************************************
Contributions: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Commands: majordomo-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Requests: bourdieu-approval-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu