File spoon-archives/bourdieu.archive/bourdieu_1999/bourdieu.9905, message 56


Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 18:46:00 +0100 (BST)
From: Karl Maton <kam13-AT-hermes.cam.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Bourdieu's health



> What a wonderful exemplification of the theory of practice of this great
> genius our dissonant discourses are.  We have created a field of
> struggles in which we are battling to assert a truth and for the right
> to assert what that truth is.  Unfortunately, we have all forgotten
> another aspect of the theory as we each vie with one another from the
> position of our taken-for-granted worlds, that in our practice as
> analysts we must eschew the taken for granted and reflect continually on
> where we ourselves are positioned in the field of struggles.

Actually, I thought that's all that has been said ... most of what has
been written has been reflexive discussion of the whole issue of what is
going on when asking the question and the position of various people and
academics as a whole when asking the question, etc. etc.  

Can someone not ask a simple question of concern regarding someone's
health, based (if I recall) on wishing to confirm or deny hearsay.  

The denial of the question and it's replacement by field questions is a
perfect exemplification of how the reflexive issue, whilst a very good
corrective to unreflexive social science, can lead, when left on its own,
to questions about questions about questions in an infinite regress.  It
exemplifies the way in which the sociology of knowledge, when left by
itself, may disappear up its own behind (for want of a better
description).  (And I say that as someone who would desbribe themselves as
a sociologist of knowledge). 

With best wishes,

Karl

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Karl Maton
School of Education, University of Cambridge
17 Trumpington Street, Cambridge, England  CB2 1QA
 Tel. + 44 (0) 1223 336288
 Fax: + 44 (0) 1223 332894
Email: kam13-AT-cam.ac.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Sick down to my heart ... but that's just the way it goes'


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