Notes on: Bourdieu, P. (1985) The Social Space and
the Genesis of Groups. Theory and Society
14 (6): 723 – 44
Dave Harris
A theory of social space breaks with Marxist
theory. It stresses relationships rather than
substances, that is notions of real groups which
are claimed to be defined in terms of number or
limits or members. It breaks with 'the
intellectualist illusion' that the theoretical
class is a real class, 'an effectively mobilised
group'. There's also a break with economism, and
finally with objectivism that goes with
intellectualism and that ignores the symbolic
struggles going on in the different fields, over
the very representation of the social world and
hierarchies within each fields and among them.
(723). It is possible to revamp Marx to make it
more compatible, by referring to position as a
matter of relations of production, but it is
necessary to go the opposite way.
Sociology should be seen as a social topology, the
social world as a space with several dimensions as
principles of differentiation or distribution,
with properties that can confer strength or power
on those that hold them. Agents are defined by
their relative positions within that space. Each
of them has a position or a class of neighbouring
positions, that is a region. No one can occupy two
opposite regions of the space. Since these are
active properties we can also talk of 'a field of
forces… a set of objective power relations that
impose themselves on all who enter the field and
that are irreducible to the intentions of the
individual agents or even to the direct
interactions among the agents' (724).
We are talking about various kinds of power or
capital, which may exist in objectified forms as
material properties, or be embodied and legally
guaranteed in the case of cultural capital. It can
represent accumulated products of past labour in
the form of mechanisms. Like aces in the game of
cards, capital can define the chances of profit in
a given field. The same goes with cultural
capital, which provides a chance of profit in all
the games in which it is effective [I think this
is actually an extract from Distinction].
We have economic cultural and social capital as
well as symbolic capital in the form of 'prestige,
reputation, renown et cetera'. It is possible to
see that each agent has a position in all possible
spaces of competition. Each field has its own
logic and its own hierarchy, but there is also a
'hierarchy among the different kinds of capital'
and a 'statistical link between different types of
assets'.
So we get a position defined in terms of a system
of coordinates, values of different variables.
Agents are located in the space according to the
overall volume they possess, and secondarily
according to the composition of their capital —
the 'relative weight of the different kinds of
assets within their total assets' [then another
extract follows]. These different distributions of
different kinds of capital embodied or
materialised become instruments to appropriate
social labour, define power relations,
institutionalise social statuses, achieve social
recognition or legal guarantee and thus determine
actual or potential powers and the chances of
access to profit. Agents acquire information and
knowledge of these conditions and their relations
especially those who occupy intermediate or middle
positions, situated between the two poles of the
field.
It is possible to separate out classes in a
logical sense — 'sets of agents who occupy similar
positions and who, being placed in similar
conditions and subject to similar conditionings,
have every likelihood of having similar
dispositions and interests and therefore of
producing similar practices and adopting similar
stances' (725). This is a class on paper,
something like theoretical existence, like
botanical classification, not an actual class, not
'a group mobilised for struggle' at best a
'probable class' easier to mobilise than other
sets. We have an objective space which determines
compatibilities and proximities, but these are not
real groups. We are talking about a space of
relationships, 'as real as a geographical space',
and similarly requiring work and effort to move up
and travel within it. There can be organised
movements of mobilisation. Agents closer in social
space are probably more easier to assemble, but
alliances are never necessary or inevitable, and
'alliance between those most distant from each
other is never impossible' (726) thus mobilisation
among workers rather than with bosses is easier,
but in an international crisis, national identity
can provide a grouping [what about race?].
The social world can be 'uttered and constructed
in different ways' according to different
principles of vision and division 'for example
ethnic divisions'. Again those grounded in the
structure of space based on capital distribution
'are more likely to be stable and durable' while
other forms of grouping are 'always threatened by
the splits and oppositions linked to distances in
social space' There is always a possibility of
organising according to other principles of
division 'ethnic or national ones, for example'
although these are generally linked to the
fundamental principles — 'ethnic groups themselves
being at least roughly hierarchised in the social
space, in the USA for example (through seniority
in immigration)'.
Marx does talk about the difference between class
in itself in class for itself, but describes the
movement as either totally determinist or totally
voluntarist. In practice, is always necessary to
'integrate the agents' representations of the
social world' (727), their social representations
and identity. These are objectively socially
structured [patterned in various probable
combinations of taste, for example] and also
subjective, based on previous symbolic struggles
themselves the result of symbolic power relations.
There is always some indeterminacy, however
because we are talking about statistical
connections and connections that vary over time.
That's why we get a plurality of worldviews and of
points of view, and continuing symbolic struggles
over legitimacy, as well as various 'cognitive
"filling in" strategies' (728) that involve going
beyond directly visible attributes to refer to the
future or the past. Much of this goes on below the
level of explicit representation and verbal
expression, in the form of a 'practical mastery of
the social structure', resulting in what Goffman
calls the sense of one's place, and
internalisation of objective structures, a sense
of taking them for granted, accepting limits,
especially characteristic of those who are
dominated and to have to accept their position as
realistic.
The structuring principles of a worldview 'are
rooted in the objective structures of the social
world: power relations are also present in
people's minds in the form of the categories of
perception of those relations' (729) however there
is always indeterminacy and fuzziness and a
certain 'practical, pre-reflexive and implicit
nature of the schemes of perception and
appreciation' and it's this that offers a space
for political action and political struggle.
Entities can be made to exist explicitly, rendered
visible, including people's disquiet or their
expectations, the commonsense of groups can be
made explicit, in struggles over the meaning of
the social world and social identity. This goes on
in all sorts of forms including 'eulogy, praise,
congratulations, compliments, or insults,
reproaches, criticisms' and so on. An early form
of political power involves the ability to name,
to make exist by naming as in Kabylia, and later
this becomes a concern for professional
specialists.
The legitimacy of a mode of perception is an
important prize in social struggles. It does not
happen automatically as the implicit becomes
explicit and it can be expressed in very different
ways, through 'more immediately visible
differences (e.g. those between ethnic groups)'
[colour prejudice?] (730). However socially known
and recognised differences require subjects
capable of perceiving differences and seeing them
as significant, someone who can make distinctions
that are regarded as significant. This is achieved
through a symbolic system. This is organised
itself 'according to the logic of difference, a
form of 'significant distinction' what emerges is
'a space of lifestyles… groups characterised by
different lifestyles'
[Another chunk of Distinction] We are not
talking about deliberate conspicuous consumption,
since all consumption and practice can be visible
and distinctive and if it is recognised it becomes
a sign of distinction. These can be intentionally
underscored by the 'stylisation of life'. The
point is to produce separations as legitimate
differences, even natural differences]
[Lots of references here to the Weberian category
of Stand rather than class — 'the
class constructed by an adequate division of
social space, when perceived through categories
derived from the structure of that space' (731)].
Symbolic capital, itself 'another name for
distinction' [status] is a form of capital itself
which is perceived by someone internalising a
particular structure of its distribution which
makes it self-evident, it is a symbolic
transfiguration of 'de facto differences' and as a
result we get ranks orders and grades, 'symbolic
hierarchies' the result of schemes of
construction, for example arising from pairs of
adjectives found in most social judgements. These
in turn result from internalising structures and
when they are granted legitimacy, the everyday
world appears as self-evident, resulting from the
'quasi-perfect coincidence of objective structures
and [in a human sense] embodied structures'.
Like all capital, symbolic capital is connected by
constraints that dominate other fields like the
social field, 'so that objective power relations
tend to reproduce themselves in symbolic power
relations, in views of the social world that help
to ensure the permanence of these power
relations'. Agents gain the power to impose a
legitimate view of the social world proportionate
to their symbolic capital, a quality of being
known and being recognised, which Bourdieu says is
the 'etymology of nobilis', a matter of
visibility. Ironically, these are the people best
placed to change the vision although 'those least
inclined to do so'.
There is a symbolic struggle over the production
of common sense over legitimate naming and agents
use the symbolic capital they've acquired in
previous struggles, or the power they possess over
various 'instituted taxonomies… Such as
qualifications' (732). We can arrange symbolic
strategies used to impose visions of the social
world and the position of agents within it between
two extremes: at one end is 'the insult', an
attempt to impose a point of view which involves
the risk of reciprocity; at the other end
'official nomination' with all the strength of the
collective, a delegated agent from the state
monopoly of symbolic violence, an authority from a
personal capacity in a role, an authorised
spokesman, someone entitled and qualified, with an
official identity produced and supported by the
state.
Symbolic property rights appear in France in the
form of titles of nobility educational
qualifications or professional titles. Nobility
requires that someone is not just known but
recognised by an official tribunal, valued
universally, sometimes underpinned with legal
backing. There is symbolic scarcity of titles. The
rewards are not the same as the rewards of labour
and there are differences in remuneration. The
title is more durable. And can be used separately
to defend the value of work. Classifications
involving titles are crucial in struggles over
power and knowledge and the role of official
naming, correct classification. They act as trump
cards.
Again the field is indeterminate to some extent,
and open to question in terms of its principles of
legitimacy, but the strength of the participants
still depends on the position, and the structure
of the field is still relevant. It is therefore
necessary to establish knowledge of the space of
objective relations between different positions
and the effects on the habitus of the occupants
and their various stances towards the space itself
and its regions. This helps understand how agents
can conserve or modify the space in which they
work, especially how they can form groups to
defend their members' interests, by struggling
over classifications [dreadful jargon and
deployment of classical terms here].
It is possible to identify a political ambition in
terms of producing 'the correct classification'
(735), as in Marxism, which is both and is an
ought but Bourdieu says that instead he wants to
'objectify the ambition of objectifying, of
classifying from outside, objectively, agencies
struggle to classify others and to classify
themselves'. Sociologists can classify and make
divisions, for example 'for the purposes of
statistical analysis', but that is so as to
'objectify all forms of objectification'. He also
seems to flirt with the claim that you can do this
in a spirit of neutrality, but seems to recognise
this as something 'positivistic, bureaucratic' at
least when it comes to arbitrating in the
struggles. It all seems to end in pathos that the
whole enterprise is 'a space in a game in which
the social scientist too is caught, like all those
who argue about the social classes'
Generally, those who are dominated in the social
space are also dominated in symbolic production,
and it is not at all clear where they could get
suitable instruments to express their specific
viewpoint, except from a fraction of committed
professionals who help them challenge
representations — what Marxists call
'"consciousness from outside"' (736), a
contribution from intellectuals to break with the
dominant view. This can only arise, he thinks,
from a homology between 'the dominated position of
the producers of cultural goods within the field
of power... and the position in social space of
those agents who are most completely dispossessed
of the means of economic and cultural production'
[he means alienated and marginalised
intellectuals?]. This however has to modify
the usual one-dimensional view of the social world
in which there is only one opposition between the
owners of means of production and the sellers of
labour power.
This is a result of Marxist economies, which
ignores the social space as multidimensional, 'an
open set of fields that are relatively
autonomous', and where the occupants of the
dominated positions are always engaged in
struggles of different forms although not
necessarily as antagonistic groups. There can be
'homologies between positions within different
fields'(737), experiencing a universal
relationship between dominant and dominated and
leading to alliances. They include 'homology of
position between intellectuals and industrial
workers', leading to ambiguous alliances. This is
not an identity of condition, as the ultraleft in
the 60s thought, however because 'the principle of
differentiation is different each time' as are the
stakes, and the strength of the domination [so
what remains of the apparent 'universal content of
the relationship between the dominant and the
dominated'?].
We need a better analysis of specific interests,
for example those that representatives have in
both the political field and in the subfields of
their union, for example, especially among those
who represent the managerial class of the labour
aristocracy and who face contradictory
imperatives. They are often forced to resort
'variable geometry concepts such as "the working
class," "the people," or "the workers"' (738).
More normally however, they have to adjust to
different forms of demand [starts to look like
role conflict here, but this is a form of
'quasi-automatic' adjustment]. They have to offer
political products which appear to be suitable to
those who mandate them but which also have a
certain 'structural duplicity' in that they are
often 'aimed at competitors within the field'
[another kind of role conflict]. There is a whole
history behind political stances assumed by
spokespersons, including the product of previous
struggles as well as the agents who are to be
represented and their interests are to be
expressed — 'the whole history of the social field
is present' including parties, unions and the
disposition of various agents, collective
identities and other representational bodies, each
of which has a social identity, sometimes embodied
in institutions, developing after long struggles
within and outside of the political field. There
has been a process of naturalisation as well as a
long historical labour.
There is also the process of institution, the
process of delegation where mandated
representatives receive power from the group. This
has been expressed as 'the mystery of "ministry"'
(740), and there is a history of representation
here, where a spokesperson gets the full power to
speak and act in the name of the group. There is a
circular process here where groups can exist only
once spokesman act. There is also the risk of
political alienation since isolated agents can
never constitute a group and must always risk
giving way to a group. The spokesman is a metonym.
Politics shows best symbolic efficacy, how signs
produce social things and groups. It shows how
anything that can be symbolised can be seen as
really existing, including things like a working
class, or the people, or any other group in
question, it operates through 'the magical
operation that is inherent in any active
naming'(741).[deliberate implied reference to
Durkheim on magic or reigion here I think]
So a class exists insofar as mandated
representatives are authorised to speak in its
name, and so make it exist as a real force in a
political field. Things like the working class
these days are only 'an existence in thought', 'a
working class in representation', existing in the
minds of people and groups vitally interested in
believing that it exists and identifying with it.
It is not a self acting class as in Marx. It has a
magical reality, the result of a huge labour of
theoretical and practical invention, and a core of
mandated representatives, the result of a Marxist
theory effect. Paradoxically, though Marxism is
incapable of progressing any further because it is
least able to grasp the social world [I think]
(742)
|
|