Showing papers on "Field (Bourdieu) published in 2005"

Bourdieu and the Journalistic Field

Abstract: Acknowledgments. List of Contributors. Chapter 1 Introduction: Field Theory as a work in Progress - Rodney Benson and Erik Neveu. PART I: THEORETICAL ORIENTATIONS. Chapter 2 The Political Field, The Social Science Field, and the Journalistic Field - Pierre Bourdieu. Chapter 3 The Double Dependency: The Journalistic Field Between Politics and Markets - Patrick Champagne. Chapter 4 Sub-Fields of Specialized Journalism - Dominique Marchetti. PART II: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES. Chapter 5 Mapping Field Variation: Journalism in France and the United States - Rodney Benson. Chapter 6 The Contaminated Blood Scandal: Reframing Medical News - Patrick Champagne and Dominique Marchetti. Chapter 7 Economic Journalism in France - Julien Duval. Chapter 8 Media Consercration of the Political Order - Eric Durras. Chapter 9 Channeling into the Journalistic Field: Youth Activism and the Media Justice Movement - Eric Klinenberg. PART III : CRITICAL REFLECTIONS. Chapter 10 Bourdieu, the Frankfurt School and Cultural Studies: On Some Misunderstandings - Erik Neveu. Chapter 11 Autonomy from What? - Michael Schudson. Chapter 12 Two Approaches to Comparative Media Research: Field Theory and Differentiation Theory - Daniel C. Hallin. Select Bibliography. Index

A question of autonomy: Bourdieu’s field approach and higher education policy

Abstract: The concept of field forms the centre of Pierre Bourdieu’s relational sociology and the notion of ‘autonomy’ is its keystone. This article explores the usefulness of these underexamined concepts for studying policy in higher education. It begins by showing how Bourdieu’s ‘field’ approach enables higher education to be examined as a distinct and irreducible object of study. It then explores the value and limitations of this conceptualization through analyses of policy during two contrasting moments of transition in the same field. First, the insights offered by a field approach are illustrated by analysing the new student debate over the creation of new universities in early 1960s English higher education. This shows how the field’s relatively high autonomy shaped the focus and form of policy debates by refracting economic and political pressures into specifically educational issues. Second, considering contemporary changes in policy highlights how the erosion of the social compact underpinning higher educ...

Explorations in the Deictic Field

Abstract: This paper focuses on the ways in which speakers make reference to themselves, to one another, and to objects in the everyday settings of talk. Drawing on research in linguistic anthropology, sociology, and linguistics, it proposes an approach to language based on the concepts of communicative practice, deictic field, and socially constituted objects of reference. Found in all human languages, deictics are expressions like English this, that, here, and there whose meanings depend strictly on the occasions of their use. This paper critically examines current approaches to deixis, proposes an alternative framework based on the sociological concept of field, and applies this framework to deictic practice in Yucatec Maya. Drawing on the work of Buhler, Goffman, and Bourdieu, it adapts the field concept to the semiotic structure of deixis. The result is an analysis of deictic practice as an emergent construal of socially embedded deictic fields involving practical equivalences, counterpart relations among obje...

Globalising policy sociology in education: working with Bourdieu

Abstract: The paper uses Bourdieu to develop theorising about policy processes in education and to extend the policy cycle approach in a time of globalisation. Use is made of Bourdieu’s concept of social field and the argument is sustained that in the context of globalisation, the field of educational policy has reduced autonomy, with enhanced cross-field effects in educational policy production, particularly from the fields of the economy and journalism. Given the social rather than geographical character of Bourdieu’s concept of social fields, it is also argued that the concept can be, and indeed has to be, stretched beyond the nation to take account of the emergent global policy field in education. Utilising Bourdieu’s late work on the globalisation of the economy through neo-liberal politics, we argue that a non-reified account of the emergent global educational policy field can be provided.

The sociology of Bourdieu and the construction of the 'object' in translation and interpreting studies

Abstract: This article introduces Bourdieu's sociological perspective and its relevance to translation and interpreting studies. It discusses Bourdieu's key concepts – habitus, field, capital and illusio – and their contribution to theorizations of the interaction between structure and agency in sociological and philosophical debates. Considerable attention is paid to the relationship between Bourdieu's reflexive sociology and the emergent interest in the ethnographic tradition within translation and interpreting studies, particularly the influence of the interpretive approach of Geertz and the subsequent work of Clifford and Marcus within the culturalist paradigm. The question of methodology is addressed in relation to Bourdieu's reflexive sociology and the construction of the 'object' of sociological research. The article further explores how Bourdieu's concepts may be made to work empirically within translation and interpreting research and how much this depends on embracing Bourdieu's ontological and epistemological stance. Bourdieu's work is briefly explored in relation to other sociological theories that have begun to emerge as relevant to translation studies, in particular the work of Latour and Luhmann, and additional future directions for research within the sociology of translation and interpreting are suggested.

Social Capital and Entrepreneurship

Abstract: We offer a critical review of the concepts and principles of social capital and social networks as applied to entrepreneurship. Our review is intended for junior scholars and graduate students in the field of entrepreneurship who wish to learn the basic vocabulary of social network and social capital analyses. We illustrate several interesting research questions and a toolbox of methods to answer them. First, we use a popular new website, Friendster, to show the potential power of social capital accessed via social networks. Then, we show that the potential of social networks often cannot be realized because of various socio-cultural constraints. Taking account of these constraints, we offer three empirical generalizations about social networks and show how the concepts of homophily, social boundaries, and bounded rationality provide a framework for understanding the observations. As we discuss each generalization, we discuss some well-established theoretical contributions and empirical findings from the social capital and social networks literatures. Throughout the text we explain various research designs for studying social networks and issues raised in trying to use them. We conclude by noting the tension between the properties of social networks used in entrepreneurship researchers' models and the limited perspective on networks available to practicing entrepreneurs.

Unexpected Allies: How Latour’s Network Theory Could Complement Bourdieusian Analyses in Translation Studies

Abstract: Whereas Bourdieu assumes that society can only be explained by analyzing practices and relating them to their authors’ position in society as well as to their own trajectory in their field, Latour claims that to understand a society one must, above all, analyze the way humans and non-humans interact, i.e., how the artefacts that circulate in this society (starting with scientific and technological ones) are produced. As such, Latour favours the study of science in the making, which can be done, primarily, through ethnographic analysis of research labs. This article explores how Bruno Latour’s actor-network’s theory could complement Bourdieusian analyses in translation studies, allowing us to move further in the development of a more agent- and processoriented type of research. The paper presents the key concepts, goals and achievements of Latour’s approach and analyzes the way his framework relates to – or confronts – Bourdieu’s sociology. It also discusses three major limits to the polysystemic f...

Globalizing policy sociology in education: working with Bourdieu

Abstract: This paper uses Bourdieu to develop theorizing about policy processes in education and to extend the policy cycle approach in a time of globalization. Use is made of Bourdieu's concept of social field and the argument is sustained that in the context of globalization the field of educational policy has reduced autonomy, with enhanced cross-field effects in educational policy production, particularly from the fields of the economy and journalism. Given the social rather than geographical character of Bourdieu's concept of social fields, it is also argued that the concept can be, and indeed has to be, stretched beyond the nation to take account of the emergent global policy field in education. Utilizing Bourdieu's late work on the globalization of the economy through neo-liberal politics, we argue that a non-reified account of the emergent global educational policy field can be provided.

Pierre bourdieu and the practices of language

Abstract: This paper synthesizes research on linguistic practice and critically examines the legacy of Pierre Bourdieu from the perspective of linguistic anthropology. Bourdieu wrote widely about language and linguistics, but his most far reaching engagement with the topic is in his use of linguistic reasoning to elaborate broader sociological concepts including habitus, field, standardization, legitimacy, censorship, and symbolic power. The paper examines and relates habitus and field in detail, tracing the former to the work of Erwin Panofsky and the latter to structuralist discourse semantics. The principles of relative autonomy, boundedness, homology, and embedding apply to fields and their linkage to habitus. Authority, censorship, and euphemism are traced to the field, and symbolic power is related to misrecognition. And last, this chapter relates recent work in linguistic anthropology to practice and indicates lines for future research.

Feminists re-reading Bourdieu: Old debates and new questions about gender habitus and gender change

Abstract: There is a revival of interest in Bourdieu's work and this article examines dominant trends within feminist re-engagements. It considers the insights into gender identity afforded by ‘habitus’ and ‘social field’, distinguishing between analyses of 'gender habitus', and the potential of habitus and social field for feminist analysis of change. Feminist responses to Bourdieu continue to be divided on the extent to which social field structure determines habitus, and there is a tendency to represent the relationship as too seamless and coherent. Drawing on debates within recent feminist sociology, notably the work of Lois McNay and Lisa Adkins, this article argues instead for greater acknowledgement of the instability of gender norms and the contradictory effects of crossing different social fields. A feminist rethinking of the relationship between gender change, habitus and social field is suggested, which arises from a more contextual analysis of the varying degrees of correspondence between habitus and field. This addresses the co-existence of change and continuity in gender relations and identities, and aims to move such debates beyond questions of either freedom or reproduction.

Activity-oriented approaches to ergonomics : some traditions and communities

Abstract: In today's world, activity-oriented approaches is a vast field of developing theoretical and empirical research. Interest in activity theories, which was long restricted to a small circle of specia...

A Bourdieusian Theory of Translation, or the Coincidence of Practical Instances: Field, ‘Habitus’, Capital and ‘Illusio’

Abstract: This article attempts to adapt Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological theory of symbolic goods to translation by highlighting points of convergence between the reflections of the sociologist and questions

Key concepts in critical social theory

Abstract: Alienation Alienation Anomie Body-Subject Body-Power/Bio-Power Capital (in the work of Pierre Bourdieu) Citizenship Colonization of the Lifeworld Crisis Cycles of Contention Deconstruction Discourse Discourse Ethics Doxa Epistemological Break Field Freedom Globalization Habitus Hegemony Hexis/Body Techniques Humanism and Anti-Humanism Hybridity I and Me Id, Ego and Superego Ideal Speech Situation Identity (personal, social, collective and 'the politics of') Ideology Illusio Imaginary, Symbolic and Real Intersubjectivity Knowledge Constitutive Interests Lifeworld Mirror Stage and the Ego New Social Movements Orientalism Patriarchy Performativity Power Power/Knowledge Public Sphere Racism(s) and Ethnicity Rationality Realism Recognition (desire and struggle for) Relationalsim (versus Substantialism) Repertoires of Contention Repression (Psychoanalysis) Sex/Gender Distinction Social Capital Social Class Social Constructions/Constructionism Social Movements Social Space I (Bourdieu) Social Space II (Networks) Symbolic Power/Symbolic Violence System and Lifeworld Unconscious (The)

Adult participation sports as cultural capital: a test of Bourdieu's theory of the field of sports.

Abstract: This study extends recent tests of Bourdieu’s theory of sports as cultural capital using data from the 1998 US National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) on adult Americans’ frequency and intensity of participation in 15 sports. Most of the previous tests of Bourdieu’s theory have been limited to general measures of sport participation, and have provided general support for the thesis that sports operate as cultural capital. The NHIS data allow inferences about the principles of distinction dividing social classes in the field of participatory sports. More extensive tests of the ‘prole’ and ‘omnivore’ theses are also presented. The analysis shows that many sports are highly class exclusive and that the principles of exclusion fit closely with Bourdieu’s theory of the relational structure of the field of adult participation sports. The dominant classes use strenuous aerobic sports, moderate levels of weight-training, and competitive sports that restrict direct physical domination and/or are aerobically strenu...

An economy of gendered practices? Learning to teach physical education from the perspective of Pierre Bourdieu's embodied sociology

Abstract: This paper draws on Pierre Bourdieu's embodied sociology to construct a conceptual view of gender relations in Physical Education (PE) in England and Wales as one of a cultural economy of gendered practice. The argument presented retains, considers, and applies the interdependent concepts of field, habitus and capital that lie at the heart of Bourdieu's theoretical gaze. A process is then articulated that draws attention to a multi-stage cycle of the gendered cultural economy of practice. Over a period of engagement with the overlapping fields of PE, sport, and education, a gendered habitus is generated that becomes recognized as physical capital. This capital then becomes converted in the dual sense that it contributes strongly towards the formation of a sporting social identity and powerful scheme of valued, internalized dispositions for action that both qualify and pre-dispose the individual for entry into future fields of physical activity and sport. Having entered the de-limited field of Physical Edu...

Studying Africa : A guide to the sources

Abstract: Studying Africa is an introduction to the basic handbooks and standard works on contemporary Africa. The first part of the book is a guide to searching for literature and facts within the field of ...

Approaches to Class Analysis: Foundations of Pierre Bourdieu's class analysis

Abstract: At the time of his death in January 2002, Pierre Bourdieu was perhaps the most prominent sociologist in the world (see Calhoun and Wacquant 2002). As the author of numerous classic works, he had become a necessary reference point in various “specialty” areas throughout the discipline (including education, culture, “theory,” and the sociology of knowledge); he had also achieved canonical status in cultural anthropology as a result of his studies of the Kabyle in northern Algeria during the war for independence and its aftermath. Nevertheless, Bourdieu's prominence increased exponentially during the 1990s, when he became a highly visible participant in political struggles against the neoliberal orthodoxy that was coming to dominate political discourse in Continental Europe (see Bourdieu 1998a; 2001a). Social class constitutes a fundamental analytic category in much of Bourdieu's research – so much so that he is routinely included in lists of leading contemporary class theorists. Yet despite its centrality, the particular understanding of this concept that animates his work remains murky in the secondary literature.

Architecture of Sysperanto: A Model-Based Ontology of the IS Field

Abstract: The challenge of defining the domain and core concepts of the IS field is a perennial topic at major IS conferences. This paper describes the architecture of Sysperanto, a model-based ontology of the IS field. Sysperanto is being developed as part of an ongoing effort to create methods that typical business professionals can use to analyze systems and system-related projects for themselves at whatever level of depth is appropriate. The name Sysperanto is meant as a metaphor combining generality (covering the IS field), vocabulary (identification of terms), and structure (internally consistent organization) to create an ontology more powerful and useful than a list of keywords or propositions. Sysperanto’s architecture provides an organizing framework for codifying the disparate and inconsistent propositions, methods, and findings that constitute the current state of IS knowledge and, in combination, form a major obstacle to knowledge accumulation and use in the IS field. Instead of yet another discussion of whether the IS field lacks a conceptual core and what might be the consequences of such a shortcoming, this paper proposes an architecture and preliminary details of a plausible set of core concepts for the IS field. It starts by summarizing Sysperanto’s goals and explaining why work system concepts, rather than information system concepts, are the core of Sysperanto. It presents Sysperanto as a terminological ontology and explains the underlying meta-model. The meta-model is designed to support tools for analyzing systems from a business viewpoint and to help in codifying and organizing knowledge in the IS field. It uses a conceptual map based on extensiveness and guidance in application to compare Sysperanto with other efforts to organize ideas in the IS field. It may be several years before a complete version of Sysperanto is tested through its use in a formal method for analyzing systems or through comparison with other attempts to codify knowledge in the IS field. Nonetheless, its architecture is well enough defined to be compared to the architecture (or lack of architecture) in previous and future approaches for understanding and organizing the basic concepts about information systems.

Barriers to the Adoption of Sustainable Agriculture on Rented Land: An Examination of Contesting Social Fields*

Abstract: While over half of the cropland in the United States is rented, interest in land tenancy within sociological circles has been sporadic at best. In light of the prevalence of rented land in agriculture—particularly in the Midwest—it is vital that further research be conducted to investigate the effect that the rental relationship has upon the various aspects of rural life. This paper takes a step in this direction by examining the social dynamics among landlords, tenants, and agricultural agency professionals to better understand how those dynamics affect the adoption of sustainable agricultural methods on rented land. This paper is theoretically informed by the writings of Pierre Bourdieu, particularly his theory of practice and his concepts of “habitus” and “field.” Toward this end, I argue that multiple (yet overlapping) social fields make up the social body of production agriculture, leading to contestation and field reconstruction. In developing this argument, a strategy for change is presented in accordance with the conceptual postulates of Bourdieu's theory of practice to promote a more widespread utilization of sustainable agricultural practices on rented land.

How to be a (recognized) translator: Rethinking habitus, norms, and the field of translation

Abstract: Focusing on translators as a cultural-professional group, this article mobilizes the Bourdieusian concepts of field and habitus for explaining the tension between the constrained and the versatile nature of translators’ action, as determined by their cultural group-identification and by their position in their specific field of action. Emphasizing the basic parameter of status contests and struggle for symbolic capital, it elaborates on three important aspects of translators’ differentiating self-images and strategies of action, using examples from the field of Hebrew translation in contemporary Israel: (1) the variability of strategies translators employ while playing either conservative or innovative roles, as cultural custodians or cultural importers, in specific historical contexts; (2) the dynamic construction and stratification of the field of translation, which results from the endeavor to establish its autonomous source of prestige, oscillating between impersonal professional status and an artistic-like personal “stardom”; and (3) translators’ preferred models of self-fashioning, according to which they select and signify the facts of their life-conditions and use them for improving their status and terms of work.

Bourdieu and Social Work

Abstract: Despite occasional ritualistic invocations of his key concepts and references to certain famous texts, the discipline of social work remains largely unaware of the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. This essay seeks to show that Bourdieu contributed more than just a set of such terms as “cultural capital” and “habitus”; he also provided a new relational approach to the study of fields of domination and struggle, a new way of thinking about how power operates within social life. The article demonstrates as well the potential usefulness of his approach, which diverges significantly from much of the research currently being done in social work. Focusing upon the field of homeless services in New York City, the work illustrates how one might conduct a field analysis in Bourdieuian terms. It also explores how use of such an approach might lead to alternative ways of understanding social work systems and practices.

Re-placing Objects: Historical Practices for the Second Museum Age

Abstract: The very existence of an object in a museum demonstrates that the past (and what we have made of it and in it) does not die.An object is best viewed as indicative of process, rather than static relations, and this process is ongoing in museums as elsewhere, so that there is a series of continuous social relations surrounding the object connecting 'field' and 'museums.'

Conceptualizing Research in Educational Leadership

Abstract: How field members design research and from this develop data collection methods is located in particular knowledge claims. This article presents a typology of knowledge and knowing, and argues that...

Cross‐field effects and temporary social fields: a case study of the mediatization of recent Australian knowledge economy policies

Abstract: This paper utilizes Bourdieu’s conceptual frame to examine the mediatized effects of policy processes concerned with the growth and support of knowledge industries in Australia. These policies span education, science, research and other knowledge industries (such as venture capital firms and intellectual property law). The paper argues that some policy processes are best represented as temporary social fields. The nature of these fields can be described by the kinds of cross‐field effects that they produce. A case study of an Australian knowledge economy policy, The chance to change, and associated policy processes demonstrates the broad analytic capacities of Bourdieu’s conceptual frame for policy analysis, when combined with the concepts of cross‐field effects and temporary social field developed here.

Decision-Making in High-Velocity Environments: The Importance of Guiding Principles

Abstract: This paper presents a field study of decision-making processes at two organizations operating in high-velocity environments. It reviews existing literature on managerial knowledge structures and de ...

Bourdieu's theory of practice and its potential in nursing research

Abstract: Aims. This paper seeks to consider the utility of Bourdieu's Theory of Practice in nursing, and considers specifically its use as a framework for research exploring nurses’ conceptualizations of illness and the patients in their care. Bourdieu's work uses the concepts of field, capital and habitus to explain interactions within the social world. This paper describes these concepts and their relationship with nursing is discussed using dementia care as an example. Background. The work of French scholar Pierre Bourdieu has contributed to debates throughout the social sciences, but has had relatively little attention in the nursing literature. Pierre Bourdieu's work developed against a backdrop of change in the academic world. The emergence of the social sciences and the debate around objective and subjective styles of research were influential in the development of his Theory of Practice. Discussion. The importance of the conceptualization process is discussed, and the considerable potential influence of conceptualization on patient care is highlighted. Reflexivity is a cornerstone of Bourdieu's work, and is an important feature of nursing research. Examples of health care research using his work as a framework are discussed, and some of the challenges of the approach are outlined. Conclusions. The use of Bourdieu's Theory of Practice as a research framework could allow nurse researchers to explore the interactions of nurses with the structures, agents and symbols of illness within the field of care. This work could enhance understanding of how nurses view and react to patients in their care, and promote the development of practice innovations and policy change. The theory may, therefore, have much to offer future nursing research.

An Ontology for the Ethnographic Analysis of Social Processes Extending the Extended-Case Method

Abstract: The central concern of this article is the relationship between ethnography and social theory. With the help of 'consequent processu alism', a social ontology that centers on the co-constitution of people, cultural forms, social relations, and the built environment, this essay makes an argument for what should be at the core of social theorizing: the principles underpinning the dynamics of processes in the nexus between actions and reactions, igniting social formation in webbed flows of effects across time and space. The article shows how conse quent processualism is able to implode time-honored, reifying concep tual dichotomies, such as micro-macro, event-structure, agency-social structure, to open new vistas on the social. Building on consequent processualism, the essay argues on the one hand for the significance of theory for the practice of ethnography in identifying and delimiting fruitful field sites. Conversely, it advocates ethnography as the method of choice for developing social theory.