Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2003 14:35:06 +0200
From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Anja_Wei=DF?= <anja.weiss-AT-gmx.de>
Subject: Re: [BOU:]'objective class interest'


Hello,

I was on vacation, so I only read your mails now. (And my last name is 
"Weiss" not Anja)

I apologize for using the term "objective class interest" which is 
incorrect and which Bourdieu himself never used. It is an abbreviation 
which I am using in my own head to shorten Bourdieus expressions: 
"objective affinities between people" (138) or "classes on paper" (129) 
in "Social Space and Symbolic Power"  In: "In Other Words" (1990) 
Stanford, pp. 123-139.

In this article Bourdieu outlines the theory behind "Distinction" and he 
shows how he fights and transcends the contradictions betweeen 
objecitivism and subjectivism in sociology. While Hiro is right, that 
Bourdieu talks of class only if a group of people is represented as a 
group with common interests, he also argues, that this act of 
representation depends on "objective affinities between people"  which 
these people may not have been aware of, before this act of 
representation turns them into a "class".
"Evidently, the construction of groups cannot be a construction ex 
nihilo. It has all the more chance of succeeding the more it is founded 
in reality: that is, as I have said, in the objective affinities between 
people who have to be brought together."  (138).

A class on paper does not have to parallel a "real class" but by talking 
of classes on paper, sociologists try to find out more about the 
objective structures underlying subjective self-representations of 
social groups.

As sociologists are also actors in a field structured by power they may 
also be wrong. This is what I found interesting about Michael's 
argument. When comparing Christian fundamentalism to other expressions 
of group interest, one could easily argue with Bourdieu that different 
groups are fighting about symbolic power. Sociologists will be 
interested in the link between a self-representation and objective 
affinities between groups however. Traditionally a religion will not be 
accepted as a representation of a class interest. I think this may be 
due to a leftist bias in sociology, which accepts only very specific 
notions of "objective affinity", i.e. economical ones. With a more 
culturalist approach to social inequality (which is favoured by 
Bourdieu) Christian fundamentalism could possibly be seen as a 
representation of a class interest

Regards
Anja.

-- 

Dr. Anja Weiss
GRA-Project Highly skilled migrants.
The transnationalisation of social inequality.


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