From: flame1975 <flame1975-AT-telstra.com>
Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2003 17:26:53 +1000
Subject: Re: [BOU:] Where's the agency in agent?


Tom,

I totally agree with you. I got carried away confusing my analysis for 
what was being analysed. 

My point about there being a "gap" was supposed to be  all 
about "structuralist analysis inevitably produces fuzzy, imprecise, or 
probabalistic predictive statements" ... and denying :

"habitus, schemas and resources so powerfully reproduce one another 
that even the most cunning or improvisational actions undertaken by 
agents necessarily reproduce the structure ... is this powerful 
implication of stasis really warranted?"
(Sewell: 1992; 15) cited in  [BOU:] On Sewell's Critique of Bourdieu 
in "A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency, and Transformation", Bryan 
Atinsky, Monday, June 30, 2003 11:37 pm

I set out to say the powerful implication of stasis /was/ unwarranted 
because to see Bourdieu as implying inexorable & perfect reproduction 
was to mistake the analysis for what was being analysed, and was being 
blind to the details which an analysis of field, habitus, capital etc 
cannot reveal. 

That I then got overexcited and suggested there was no structural 
determination in those invisible moments is - well - embarassing. I 
made the very same mistake by arguing that whatever the structural 
analysis couldn't show you could not be explained by the structures.

With Tom's help, I wonder if I could now argue that the sheer 
complexity of the confrontations between the complex of structures that 
share social spaces limits the science of them to "fuzzy, imprecise, or 
probabalistic predictive statements" and that this is appropriate 
defense against the charge of determinism & stasis.

And returning to my earlier examples, I think that some of the least 
predictable confrontations are those involving some degree of novelty, 
and that these make fields and habitus (each habitus in a field is a 
structural variant of others)  'in your face' DYNAMIC, and difficult to 
mistake as static...

1) By something like "self-awareness" or the human sciences, agents can 
make conscious knowledge of the unconscious structures (be that flawed, 
incomplete or false)... and this knowledge can't be put back in the box 
once created - it must change the way things are

2) encounters with other structures (habitus or fields) will provide 
some unexpected and 'not quite sensible' results from the world - and 
the 'irrational' behaviour of these alien structures must be 
rationalised somehow  - thus irrevocably altering (however subtly) the 
habitus (and field?) of the agent

3) there is actually something ' "outside" of these social and mental 
structures ' - we are embodied and there is a real world there - 
including natural phenomena & the institutionalised histories of 
fields - and sometimes it forces us to change - so matter how much we 
wish we could just keep on going on like its 1969,  many big, small and 
medium sized things have changed - and (as difficult as it is) if a 
habitus doesn't cotton on and change - it will probably get 
disadvantaged to death

4) that thing about artists - where the scientist/philosopher becomes 
aware of that there's nothing outside the structure and seeks to know - 
as the artist becomes aware of the structures they get involved in the 
game of "how much fun would it be to break conventions" and "how stupid 
are those idiots for breaking with the sacred conventions" - and this 
is, still to me, the most important type human behaviours. 

_-_-_

As for: 

"The capacity for dissent, by contrast, refers to the chances that an 
agent or group will overturn or transform some existing structure of 
power." (Tom)

Surely all the wonder in the world is on how things are ever kept 
stable, and not how on earth things could ever change? Same question, 
just a little more with the optimism though.



Cam

----- Original Message -----
From: Tom Medvetz <tmm-AT-socrates.berkeley.edu>
Date: Sunday, July 6, 2003 3:16 am
Subject: Re: [BOU:] Where's the agency in agent?

[SNIP]

The reason a structuralist analysis inevitably produces fuzzy, 
imprecise, or probabalistic predictive statements is that the 
analysis itself is imprecise (much like a map, which cannot reproduce 
every detail of the terrain it summarizes).  In principle, though, a 
very fine-grained analysis could produce more determinative 
predictions.  Practice is the (always intelligible) product of a 
confrontation between a socialized subjectivity and a social 
structure.  There is nothing "outside" of these social and mental 
structures.

[SNIP]



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