From: "rocamora agnes" <agnes-AT-rocamora.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Homology 
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 17:58:15 -0800


Simon,

If I have understood you correctly - "the neatness of homological relations
.... is determined by relations between fields" - I think you are here
explaining something with that something I want to see explained (homology
explains homology). It is precisely this relation between fields, the
relation of homology, I want to understand. As Don wrote the key question is
"*Why* do things map onto each other?".
I do accept that the relation between class and cultural taste often works
the way Bourdieu says it does but again I cannot understant how he can
explain, if he sticks to a class habitus, why the young people he
interviewed do not have this taste for necessity
which he normally attributes to the working class, their class. How can
Bourdieu's notions of habitus and homology be used to make sense of patterns
of consumption which are often more complex than the ones described in
Photography, Distinction or Le Couturier?
Also, the fact that these young people decide to steal certain makes rather
than
other as Carsten mentions, does not explain Bourdieu's homology either
(youth culture (like
popular culture) he also says does not exist). Their taste is socially
differentiated but (sorry to insist) it does not mean that it is a taste for
necessity, that is, a taste for "functional" and "cheap"
clothes; a "modest taste" (Distinction: 378).


-----Original Message-----
From: Simon Beesley <simonb-AT-beesleys.freeserve.co.uk>
To: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
<bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Date: Tuesday, January 25, 2000 7:57 AM
Subject: Re: Homology


>John,
>
>After re-reading various sections in Distinction, I think we've been making
>heavy weather of the homology question. It's quite clear that Bourdieu
>refers to homologies between 'relatively autonomous' fields; to put it at
>its simplest, homologies between class and the
tastes/distinctions/aesthetic
>preferences specific to class. On this score, there is no arguing with
>him -- it's obviously the case -- which is why much of Distinction seems to
>be redundant in that it states correlations everyone accepts, but is none
>the less necessary since most feel their tastes and aesthetic preferences
>are shaped solely by criteria intrinsic to the objects (i.e. aesthetic
>criteria). For my part, I can't see that the two are mutually exclusive;
>that is, one can accept the determinations of class habitus and at the same
>time be comfortable with one's aesthetic judgements.  Or rather the two are
>entirely separate and, on top of which, Bourdieu's theory is by no means
>asserting rigid determinations.
>
>So I misunderstood Agnes when she wrote:
>
>"I still cannot stop being sceptical about Bourdieu's neatness of
>homological relations, especially in the fields of production and
>consumption (homology between the position of agents in the field of class
>relations and the position in the field of production of the objects they
>consume: to a low position corresponds the consumption of a 'low' object or
>to an avantarde position correspond the consumption of an avantgarde
objects
>etc. as is clearly expressed in Bourdieu's Le Couturier et sa Griffe)."
>
> The "'low'" here does not indicate Bourdieu's commitment (or lack of
>commitment) to objective aesthetic judgement; it serves only to demarcate
>the object. And as to the question of the neatness of homological relations
>or the "almost miraculous encounter" and "elective affinity" between
>cultural object choice and social class, presumably his emphasis is mainly
>rhetorical and in fact, assuming a lack of autonomy between the fields,
such
>neatness is more or less pre-ordained, and is, rather, determined by
>relations between fields.

>
>- Simon
>
>
>
>
>
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