From: "Glen Fuller" <g.fuller-AT-uws.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [BOU:] Size doesn't matter
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:27:11 +1100


Cam,

> "(An  analogy is the confusion often felt by people over what the field is
> ...  it can be something tiny through to something global)."
>
> The way I can understand what you have written, you seem to detect a
'real'
> difference between the larger/global fields and a smaller field. I am not
> sure that this is very helpful or sustainable. I believe the differences
> between larger and smaller fields come from the size of their populations,
> and the length/depth of the history institutionalised in the fields (and
> embodied in their agents).

I agree with you to the point of the difference between global and local
fields and the length/depth of the history institutionalised in the fields
(and embodied in their agents), but there is also the question of what John
Urry calls 'proximity'. Urry (with Mimi Sheller in one article) talks about
the role of eye contact. It is not to privilege the immediacy of experience,
but to remember that it can do funny things and affect broader social
relations. So what I meant by the 'entire' social field was an idealised and
abstracted positional grid of relations seemingly unaffected by relations of
proximity. Even then I realise what I am writing isn't entirely correct as
the affects of proximity can very well be built into the field (and
habitus), such as a cruising strip where car dudes drive along knowing they
will be looked at (Hebdige's 'hiding in the light'), or even the 'proximity'
(direction) of Mecca for Islamics. So to go Deleuzian, it is not a question
of scale but of intensity, so that size doesn't matter.

> In the end, however much you concentrate on "the micro-structural politics
> of finding (and legitimising) a cultural 'Archimedean' point to rotate the
> field's 'coordinates' to the interested party's own devices," the
practices
> you analyse will always be lacking a degree of logic unless you
acknowledge
> the involvements of relative amounts of capital (the hierarchies),
> displacements, and embodied & institutionalised histories that you more
> easily see in a highly regimented social field.

For sure, I was using a moment of crisis (a debate in a
letters-to-the-editor section of a car mag) as a matrix for partially
figuring out the nature of the hierarchies, etc. both the challenged
establishment (institionalised history) and the challenging revolters. What
is really very interesting is that the mag is new and the dominant
(editorial) 'voice' within the subfield is challenging to the broader field,
but there are those writing in to re-challenge (if that makes sense?) the
subfield.

Thanks Cam, yours was a good post, very helpful in trying to sought out my
ideas.

Ciao,
Glen.

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