File spoon-archives/bourdieu.archive/bourdieu_2003/bourdieu.0307, message 3


From: "Peter King" <king.p-AT-fc.org.nz>
Subject: RE: [BOU:] On Sewell's Critique of Bourdieu in  "A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency, and Transformation"
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2003 11:57:38 +1200



It is my understanding that Bourdieu represents social transformation as
a transformation of practices, and this is dependent upon the actions of
those who are in "direct or indirect possession of a discourse capable
of securing symbolic mastery of the practically mastered principles of
the class habitus." (Outline, page 83).  

So although the dispositions constituting the habitus are acquired and
applied without any or much thought being given to them (practically
mastered), they are able to be identified, analysed and understood by
those, or we, who hold them (rendered conscious).  (In the same way that
outsider anthropologists/sociologists learn "the rules of the games"
which they have not acquired during their own socialisation(s))

It is this conscious knowledge (also class consciousness) that enables
agents to understand and resist the dominant discourses which underlie
the ongoing social transformation (transformation of practices)
associated with globalised capitalism.

The key to any counter-transformation of practices must be a critical
mass of critical practical symbolic mastery (command might be a better
term) by agents of their own habitus and the associated dispositions.


Cheers,

Peter



Dr Peter King
Senior Researcher
Social Policy Research Unit
The Family Centre
P.O. Box 31 050
Lower Hutt
NEW ZEALAND

Phone: 64 4 569 7112
Fax:      64 4 569 7323
Email:   king.p-AT-fc.org.nz


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
[mailto:owner-bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu] On Behalf Of Bryan
Atinsky
Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2003 1:37 AM
To: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: [BOU:] On Sewell's Critique of Bourdieu in "A Theory of
Structure: Duality, Agency, and Transformation"

I have a question about the place of 'agency' in Bourdieu's works, and
especially in regard to the critique of Bourdieu in Sewell, William H.
Jr.
1992 A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency, and Transformation.
American
Journal of Sociology 98(1):1-29.

I am no expert on Bourdieu, but after having done a pretty thorough
reading
of "The Logic of Practice", "Distinction", a partial reading of "Homo
Academicus", "Practical Reason", plus other works and articles,
including
his interview with Terry Eagleton in Zizek's "Mapping Ideology" called
"Doxa
and the Common Life," though I find so much of Bourdieu's work
indespensible
to undertstanding the processes, structures and 'generative schemes'
that
create social spaces, spatiality and temporality, identity, class, etc.,
I
also find his work frustrating in its lack of a place for agency
internal to
the habitus, capital, field equation.

When I recently read Sewell's article (from 1992), I couldn't help but
agree
with his critique of Bourdieu in this regard.  For instance:

"Bourdieu's habitus retains percisely the agent-proof quality that the
concept of the duality of structure is supposed to overcome.  In
Bourdieu's
habitus, schemas and resources so powerfully reproduce one another that
even
the most cunning or improvisational actions undertaken by agents
necessarily
reproduce the structure....Although Bourdieu avoids either a traditional
French structuralist ideal determinism or a traditional Marxist material
determinism, he does so only by erecting a combined determinism that
makes
significant social transformations seem impossible. But is this powerful
implication of stasis really warranted? After all, the Kabyle society in
which Bourdieu carried out his fieldwork produced a momentous
anticolonial
revolution shortly after Bourdieu returned to France to analyze his
data."
(Sewell: 1992; 15)

In the interview with Terry Eagleton: "Even in the most economistic
traditioni that we know, namely Marxism, I think the capacity for
resistance, as a capacity of consciousness, was overestimated.  I fear
that
what I have to say is shockingfor the self-confidence of intellectuals,
especially for the more generous, left-wing intellectuals.  I am seen as
pessimistic, as discouraging the people, and so on.  But I think it is
better to know the truth; and the fact is that when we see with our own
eyes
people living in poor conditions...it is clear that they are prepared to
accept much more than we would have believed...It doesn't mean that the
dominated individuals tolerate everything; but they assent to much more
than
we believe and much more than they know.  It is a formidable mechanism,
like
the imperial system -- a wonderful instrument of ideology, much bigger
and
more powerful than television or propaganda.  That is the main
experience I
want to convey.  What you say about the capacity for dissent is very
important; this indeed exists, but not where we look for it -- it takes
another form." (Bourdieu in Zizek: 1994; 268-269).

Now, I think what he says here is important  and needs to be taken into
consideration, and he does allude to the capacity for dissent, but it
seems
to me that the answer is always external to his statements.  It always
remains a generalized and elusive notion in his works (as far as I have
seen).

So what I want is for you to tell me that I am wrong.

Bourdieu's approach/theory is such a great tool, I would hope to be able
to
use it also for an understanding of the ways in which agency functions
as a
transformative element in the complex of social practices.


Thank you,

Bryan




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