Pierre Bourdieu

Criticizing Culture

I don’t want to re-state by rote the brilliant theory of reflexivity and the theory of culture of Professor Pierre Bourdieu, which has been done by others too many times. Actually, there is no way to refuse to state a short but articulacy obvious abstract as an introduction to my own words. So as far as I can I’ll try to give a concise but obvious sketch of his key concepts and the integral definition of relation between those concepts.

Pierre Bourdieu has embodied a critical theory of culture in order to show how culture in modern society do socialized people in an unequal and stratified condition and how power transformed legitimately in underlined social structure of one society without any considerable resistance; than, In his idea, Habitués, among different fields of capital, reproduce in society intergenerational-ly and in an unequal situation.

Bourdieu also conceptualized “Capital” to show how people identified themselves [or, habitués justified oneself in social field] and classifying the social phenomena throw an ongoing and continues permanent conflict in the “Field”, which reproduce social inequality and the power of the dominancy.  As John Scott has been put in the habitués is: “those deeply seated, enduring and transposable dispositions that are derived from previous socialization, that are embodied as well as cognitive and that operate to generate and organize practices.” (Scott, 2007: 43) And as Bourdieu has been mentioned in the book, Outline of a Theory of Practice (1972, Cambridge University Press), ”…only insofar as one does things is it possible to knew about things.” (Richard Jenkins, 1992; 42)

By collocation of concepts such Habitués, Field and Capital and the way practice occurs in structured arenas of conflict, it should be mentioned that in Bourdieu’s idea practice “[…] stem from the intersection between habitués and field.” (Scott, 2007; 43)

To explain the practice, Bourdieu talk about the logic of practice, in which he highlighted some concepts such as: in-calculation of disposition, distinction, time and etc in relation to the concept of practice:

First, “all…practices embody interests and function to enhance social distinctions.” (Scott, 2007; 42)

Second, while “ practice is accomplished without conscious deliberation for the most part, [But] it is not without its purpose(s)” (Richard Jenkins, 1992; 43) and “All the practice and products of a given agent are objectively harmonized among themselves, without any deliberate pursuit of coherence, and objectively orchestrated, without any conscious concentration, with those of all members of the same class” (Richard Jenkins, 1992; 48)

Third, “Practice as a visible, ‘objective’ Social phenomenon cannot be understood outside of time [space].” (Richard Jenkins, 1992; 42)  Here, also, we’ve already lead to a process of adjustment of dispositions, as a Socialized tendency or habitués, inscribed in objective condition which later he called it [the process] History.

As a culmination of those quotations that suggests how we shall consider the logic of practice; it should be added that practice is defined in the context of interaction between subjective agents and objectified structure; Where, methodologically, Bourdieu has been distincted from his contemporary theorist collogues.

Needless to say, he was reputed for denying the dualisism and proposing the dialectical relation between Subjective arena and objective structure. His anti-dualistic approach is one of the key differences of his methodological approach- that called methodological relationism- they also call him post-structuralist. He called his theory Genetic Structuralism.

I shall mention that his Agonistic approach to society show us his deeply root in conflict theory. He believes that power, conflict, social stratification and social distinction is a basic dimension of social life. In his idea, people seeking capitals in order to recognize their selves, their identity, and promote their social position. Distinction mostly shows it self in the concept of taste- one’s habitués preference which based on his/her social capital in different social fields. So than Bourdiue’s theorizing of culture has been culminated in sociology of power.

“Bourdieu’s analysis of how symbolic classifications obscure class power and provide the tools for social distinctions represents a key contribution to contemporary sociologies of culture and stratification.” (Scott, 2007; 45)

He proposed “reflexive approach” as a main consequence of his cultural criticism. Bourdieu believes that modern society as “an array of relatively autonomous but structurally homologous fields of production, circulation and consumption of various forms of cultural and material resources […](Scott, 2007; 43) which is already based on symbolic power of dominant power which intergenerational-ly reproduce class differences, wont let his actors to rethinking about their disposition, taste, knowledge, and finally, their position in one particular social field.