From: "Pam Stello" <stello-AT-socrates.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: [BOU:] Subfields and other sundry items
Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 01:24:31 -0700


Glen,

Your post reminds me of your idea in an earlier post of performance as (a
lack of) genius when I wrote about the commodification of genius and
questioned how this would work as an economy. My thought is that Bourdieu is
writing about classes and he reduces agents to classes. He is not writing
about individuals. This might be related to the point Anja raised that he
worked out his original theory in a pre-commodified society. Today in a
commodified society, individuals (image, name) are discoursed with (a lack
of ideal) performances changing all the tiem and this is an individualizing
process that may lend a way to think about the clerics radical different
common sense as an individual? I think Bourdieu underestimated as you say
the sources for change in the habitus, media as a source of new symbolic
economies, new individuals as commodities being discoursed with new (lack
of) ideal performances being one example and because he wasn't addressing
commodification this too may be part of why he overestimates agreement about
the dominant norms.

Pam


----- Original Message -----
From: "Glen Fuller" <g.fuller-AT-uws.edu.au>
To: <bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 8:33 PM
Subject: RE: [BOU:] Subfields and other sundry items


> Chris,
>
> I agree with you here:
>
> My problem with fields in general is that they seem to be quite
> deductive in some cases.  In other words, he seems to have a particular
> objective set of relations in mind prior to going in and analyzing them.
> It is probably somewhat unfair to characterize it in this way, because I
> haven't read all of his stuff (hell, who am I kidding; I haven't read
> most of his stuff, even in English).  And yet, a problem remains: if we
> look at the multiplicity of structures within which our 'selves' are
> located for any particular person or community, presenting a small
> number of dominant social field requires an oddly sterile notion of
> identification/identify formation.  And although Bourdieu has a rich
> notion of habitus, he either underestimates the multiplicity of sources
> through which one's habitus is formed, or he severely overestimates the
> amount of 'value-agreement' about what constitutes normality (within
> one's location in different social fields) in society-at-large.  This is
> particularly problematic in a place like Canada.
>
> ------
>
> And particularly problematic in a place like Australia. It is a bit like
> the distinction Stratton make between Official Multiculturalism and
> everyday multiculturalism in Australia in his book Race Daze. Another
> way to think about it, is that it seems that for Bourdieu (using the
> terms of the argument of Lefebvre in the Production of Space) there is
> no longer a 'contradictory space' only a 'differential space'. Another
> example:
>
> I have been watching the news coverage of the first trial of the Bali
> bombing. The person on trial has been called the smiling assassin,
> because he is always smiling. Also a cleric has been interviewed as
> saying that for Islamic followers the bomber should be considered a
> hero. Now, straight away I must point out (and underline) I am not at
> all interested in making any truth claims about anything that has been
> represented on the TV news as being aligned with particular groups. I am
> using this example to highlight what you could call the irreducible
> variance in common sense.
>
> Firstly, with the practice of 'smiling'. Smiling means very different
> things to (most) 'Australians' than it in Bali. I can't remember the
> exact piece of research, but someone went into Indonesia and carried out
> ethnographic work, he witnessed the behaviour and practices of a man
> immediately after the death of this man's wife. The man who had just
> lost his wife wore an emotional 'mask,' even though he was greeting
> people for his wife's wake he made a formal apology for his wife's
> absence and all the while smiling.
>
> Secondly, the cleric's comments mark out an extraordinary difference in
> the understandings of the terrorist/heroic acts. This is not just a
> distinction from which precipitates symbolic capital, it is the
> performance of a different 'common sense'.
>
> Ciao,
> Glen.
>
>
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