Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 16:40:58 +0200 From: Erik Hoogcarspel <jehms-AT-xs4all.nl> Subject: Re: [BOU:] Hello and question re Bourdieu and altruism David Brake wrote: > I am a PhD student at the London School of Economics studying weblog > and personal home page creation using field theory and I am delighted > to find this mailing list which I am sure will be very helpful in my > wrestling with the application of Bourdieu to my field of study. > (Note: I can read French reasonably well but am not all that fluent in > writing it. By coincidence however my wife is French! I assume this > list is predominantly in English...) > > My first question is how can I account for altruistic behaviour in a > field? A number of personal home pages appear to have been created > solely to help others because the Internet acts as a "force > multiplier" enabling people to help large numbers of others with > little effort of their own. Bourdieu, however, appears very skeptical > of altruism (eg. Outline of a theory of practice p. 22 - altruism's > purpose is "to compound the satisfactions of enlightened self > interest with the advantage of ethical impeccability"). Does he > discuss altruism in any more detail elsewhere? Do you think one can > consider something a field that contains altruistic behaviour? > > If people are interested and would like to know more I have written a > short (3000 word) paper addressing this problem but I don't feel I > have come to a satisfactory solution. > > Does anyone have any ideas? And is anyone else out there applying > Bourdieu to studies of the Internet or personal web publishing in > particular? > You'll find the most elaborate answer probably in 'Raisons Pratiques' (Ed. du Seuil - Paris 1994 - sorry, I don't know the English title and even not if it has been translated) ch. 5: "Un acte désinteressé, est-il possible?'('Is a desinterested act possible?'). hth erik ********************************************************************** Contributions: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Commands: majordomo-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Requests: bourdieu-approval-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
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