File spoon-archives/bourdieu.archive/bourdieu_2004/bourdieu.0402, message 19


Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 20:24:11 +1100
From: Cameron Mann <csmann-AT-bigpond.com> (by way of Cameron Mann <csmann-AT-bigpond.com>)
Subject: [BOU:] Fields can't be erased, only deserted


(reposted... it hasn't appeared after 24+ hours... apologies if it comes twice)


Chris wrote/asked:

"What i'm having a little trouble with is this: if participation in a field
requires buying into its legitimacy (i.e. the basis for producing symbolic
capital), how does one enter into a field and yet not take on it's doxa?
Wait, let me rephrase: i think it's possible to use a field and be in a field
without buying into its legitimacy (i.e. indigenous lawyers do it all the
time), but i can't tell if Bourdieu fails to deal with this issue and thus is
a weakness of his theory, or if I've just missed or misinterpreted where he
deals with it. Ultimately i guess, my question is this: can the struggle over
capital ever involve attempting to overthrow the entire field rather than
(say) radically change it?"

Chris, I have to guess the indigenous lawyers (allegedly) participate in 
the (Canadian?) legal system "without buying into it's legitimacy" by 
arguing that the established courts/laws do not have the jurisdiction, or 
rights or authority to exert their influence on certain people or places. 
But saying the courts and laws are not legitimate is a long way from 
rejecting the legitimacy of the legal field.

To prescribe and proscribe practices from certain people, times or places 
is to take a stance on the rule of law, and to thus be a part of a legal 
field. It is not saying that there are not and can not be rules (with 
sanctions). Indeed, since each agent needs to answer 'What should I do 
now?', ethics goes wherever people go, and I find it difficult to imagine 
how every move to the 'communal ethics' of laws and rules could be 
resisted. If that were achieved, then this state of lawlessness would still 
be a stance in the legal field (perhaps, that only the conscience or 
after-world has the authority to determine proper behaviours that have at 
other times been determined by rules/laws [ie, the law of lawlessness]).

I can see the indigenes to the left of me, and the 
courts/lawyers/universities to the right, both groups screaming "You're not 
legitimate"  at each other.  I can't imagine them trying to prove their 
cases in any other way that with appeals to reason, rights, authority, 
repsonibilities, truth and justice, and can't imagine these arguments being 
anything other than part of a legal field. A legitimate part of the legal 
field could only be delegitimised from a position (however novel or 
unconsecrated) within the legal field.

I think that it is NOT possible to use a field and be in it without buying 
into its legitimacy. And thus, it is not possible for indigenous lawyers to 
do it all the time.

Par was making the point that the 'capital' about which a field is 
established is an object of struggle. Exactly what it is, exactly what its 
for, exactly who's got it, exactly who needs it, etc all subject to 
struggles within the field.

To overthrow the entire field is to say that the capital is nothing, has no 
function or purpose, is possessed by no one, is not needed etc. You can't 
just "pop" a field out of existence by arguing that it isn't there - that 
very discussion would keep it there. The nearest a field would get to being 
overthrown is to have everybody leave it, and thus prove (in practice) that 
the field is pointless.

Even this would rarely (never?) be a complete success however. There's 
still likely to be someone somewhere with a conscious interest in the 
field. The field itself would have left its marks on the world in some way 
(institutionalised history: a book, a procedure, some words etc) and on 
some agents (embodied history: some questions, some perceptions etc).

Where did all the fields and their capital go during the Dark Ages when 
everything was forgotten? Where did they all come back from when reborn in 
the Renaissance? (apologies for my Eurocentric indoctrination).

Cam
--------------------
csmann-AT-bigpond.com

"what you do for now, will it do for now?" - SFK
                                                                       

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