Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 10:45:05 +1000
From: Trevor Gale <t.gale-AT-cqu.edu.au>
Subject: Re: discourses and positions


Hi all,

I have recently signed on to the list. This is my first contribution.

I have to confess to not being very familiar with Laclau & Mouffe's work,
and probably not as familiar with Bourdieu's as I'd like to be, but it
seems to me the first thing to note in the 'issue' raised by Torgeir and
Pat is that these theorists are not necessarily responding to one another.
In other words, the comparison is constructing the conversation, they are
not doing it themselves. This is not to say it is not valid to do this,
just that it necessarily has limitations, one being we, as constructors,
have to speak for them. Second, Bourdieu and Laclau & Mouffe use different
theoretical tools to analyse and explain the same social world. It might
not be helpful to look for theoretical equivalences. That said, ...

Third, discourse is not a term about which everyone happily agrees and some
even use it in multiple ways. Foucault (1972: 80), for example, admitted to
using it in at least three different ways. Indeed, he was pleased that he
was able to add to its meaning rather than 'pin it down' or reduce its
meaning. I think this is Bourdieu's criticism of some discourse analysis
that he sees as restrictive, that is "taken in isolation" and therefore
leads to "indefensible forms of internal analysis". Laclau & Mouffe's
comments also would seem directed at broadening out the definition of
discourse and its frame of reference.

Fourth, I don't think there is any conflict in what Boudieu and Laclau &
Mouffe say in the quoted passages. I don't think, for example, that
Bourdieu would have any problem with Laclau & Mouffe's rejection of "the
distinction between discursive and non-discursive practices". He does,
afterall, speak of "the space of works or discourses" which he theorises
within the field of stances. I think his point is that these practices are
related to fields of positions, that there is a relationship between
stances and positions and to broader fields of power (Bourdieu & Wacquant,
1992: 104-5). It reminds me in some ways of C.W. Mills' sociological
imagination and the relationship between private troubles and public issues.

There are discourse analysts who would also have no problem with this,
those who want to broaden out what is meant by discourse, Foucault, for
example. I also think this is at the heart of James Gee's distinction
between Discourse (first letter capitalised) and discourse; the former
encompassing broad notions of what discourse involves and the latter more
narrower linguistic versions. So, maybe Laclau & Mouffe's is of the former
kind, broad and encompassing. I don't think Bourdieu would have problems
with that. My only concern is that when we speak about discourse not
everyone is speaking about the same thing. I guess that was also Gee's
dilemma. I tend to 'resolve' it, in part, by also speaking of ideology.

Trevor

>Thore,
>
>is Bourdieu making the suggestion that there is more to life
>than,discourse/language whereas Laclau and Mouffe deny this? Is
>Bourdieu,arguing that social relations between groups can be analysed in
>themselves or alongside discursive statements etc, in this case the
>relations between the producers of culture and the consumers of culture?
>I'm confused. Is the aim to ground discourse in the individual by
>joining it up with class? That sounds like a very familiar strategy.
>Have i picked this up right?
>
>cheers,
>
>pat quinn
>
>Thore Svendsen wrote:,> ,> Hello all,> ,> At the risk of flogging a dead
>horse, I have an issue I would like to raise,> with those of you who
>might be interested in analogies between Bourdieu's,> texts/analysis and
>those of Laclau and Mouffe. Well, ehrm, that's what I'm,> busy doing,
>and I stumbled into an issue I wondered if you would comment on.,> ,>
>Bourdieu says in the preface to Homo Academicus (thanks George!) that
>one,> cannot "seek the source of the understanding of cultural
>productions in,> these productions themselves, taken in isolation and
>divorced from the,> conditions of their production and utilization, as
>would be the wish of,> _discourse analysis_, which [...] has nowadays
>relapsed into indefensible,> forms of internal analysis. Scientific
>analysis must work to relate to each,> other two sets of relations, the
>space of works or discourses taken as,> differential stances, and the
>space of the positions held by those who,> produce them" (xvii).,> ,> He
>appears to make a case for a domain outside discourses here, a space,>
>which appear to have relative dominance to the cultural field, a known
>theme,> from i.e. Distinction. Laclau and Mouffe on the other hand,
>"rejects the,> distinction between discursive and non-discursive
>practices" (Hegemony and,> Socialist Strategy 107).,> ,> Are we
>confronted with two opposing definitions of discourse here?,> ,>
>Regards,> Torgeir,> ,>
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