Culture and Power: Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu

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DAVID SWARTZ

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THE

S O CI O L O GY

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PIE RRE

B O U R DI E U

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The

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University

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of Chicago

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Press

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Chicago

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I I I

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& London

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C ON T E N TS The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 1997 by The University of Chicago

Acknowledgments

All rights reserved. Published 1997 Printed in the United States of America 06 05 04 03 ISBN ISBN

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3

(CLOTH): 0-226-78594-7 (PAPER) : 0-226-78595-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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Swartz, David, 1945Culnll'e and power: the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu

/

David Swartz. cm. p. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN I.

0-226-78594-7.

Bourdieu, Pierre.

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ISBN

3. Sociology

Methodology.

HM22.F8B773

1997

3 01

'.

0944

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France

(pbk .) History.

I. Tide.

dc2 1

97-7479 elP

(0) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum

requirements of the American National Standard for

Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,

ANSI

z39.48-1992.

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I

1

Introducing Pierre Bourdieu

2

Career and Formative Intellectual Influences

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Bourdieu's Metatheory of Sociological Knowledge

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Bourdieu's Political Economy of Symbolic Power 65

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0-226-78595-5

2. Sociology

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vii

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15

52

Habitus: A Cultural Theory of Action 95 Fields of Struggle for Power 117

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7

Social Classes and the Struggle for Power

143

8

Education, Culture, and Social Inequality

189

9

Intellectuals and Intellectual Fields

218

10

The Scientific Intellectual and Politics

11

The Struggle for Objectivity: Bourdieu's Call for Reflexive Sociology

12

Conclusion R eli:m1Ce.t

285 2')7

.' 1111 1.1111' I"r/ex

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247 270

A C K N OW L E DG M E N TS

This book grows out of a largely solitary undertaking: reading and re­ flecting on a rich and complex body of theoretically framed, empirically informed, and politically oriented sociology. Yet, it has benefited from sev­ eral friends and colleagues whose help and support I wish to acknowledge. In France, Jean Bazin first introduced me to the work of Pierre Bour­ dieu and provided valuable insights on the French intellectual world. Phi­ lippe Besnard, Mohamed Cherkaoui, Maud Espero, Monique de Saint Martin, and Michel Pialoux, each in their own way, helped and encouraged me on numerous occasions. I also want to thank Pierre Bourdieu whose rigorous attention to sociological method rescued me from the temptation of intellectual dilettantism during my student years at the Sorbonne. His sociology has inspired my subsequent teaching and research, and he kindly met with me to discuss aspects of his work. No doubt he would like to see some of my arguments stated differently, or not at all. I have tried to be an understanding reader of his work, but not a disciple. Hopefully this book will both clarify and invite further exploration of the rich complexity of Bourdieu's sociological imagination. In the United States, a very special thanks to Jerry Karabel who "re­ cru i ted" m e in Paris and has supported my work in countless ways through I"Ill': had ti mes as well as the good. He introduced me to a wonderful group of s( )ciol( )gists who logged in cOllntl ess "lebaraks" while researching strati­ l i C:l t i o l l i l l !\ 1 l 1 erica ll higher e c i u cl r i nn :l lld who 1()J"I l l e d :l l i vely st udy gro u p :11 wl t :1 1 W:1S t hel l c:t l lcd t he I I Ul "O l l I list i tu t e . Sieve I lri l l t , P:Ild Di M:l ggio,

viii

I A C K N O W L E D G M E N TS

Kevin Dougherty, D avid Karen, Katherine McClelland, and Mike Useem have, at various times and in a variety of ways beginning with the famous "BouBou" paper offered helpful advice and support throughout this in­ tellectual journey. Special thanks to Peter Kilby and Bob Wood, who ex­ tended a hand of solidarity in a difficult period. Vera Zolberg helped keep me au counmt of the French intellectual world. I also want to thank Doug Mitchell at the University of Chicago Press for his gracious support through the ups and downs of this book project. My thanks to Claudia Rex who edited the manuscript with precision and insight. I am grateful to the American Council of Learned Societies for a fellowship that made possible a research trip to France. Final ly, and most importantly, I am deeply indebted to the sustaining support of my family throughout this endeavor, and dedicate this book to my wife, Lisa, and our two children, Elena and D aniel.

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INTRODUCING

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PIERRE BOURDIE U

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Culture provides tlle very grounds for human communication and interaction; it is also a source of domination. The arts, science, reli­ gion, indeed all symbolic systems including language itself not only shape our understanding of reality and form the basis for human communi­ cation; they also help establish and maintain social hierarchies. Culture in­ cludes beliefs, traditions, values, and language; it also mediates practices by connecting individuals and groups to institutionalized hierarchies. Whether in the form of dispositions, objects, systems, or institutions, cul­ ture embodies power relations. Further, many cultural practices in the ad­ vanced societies constitute relatively autonomous arenas of struggle for distinction. Intellectuals the specialized producers and transmitters of culture play key roles in shaping those arenas and their institutionalized hierarchies. So argues Pierre Bourdieu, today's leading French social scientlst. With his election in 1 98 1 to the chair of sociology at the prestigious College de France, Pierre Bourdieu joined the distinguished ranks of the most revered postwar French social scientists, Raymond Aron and Claude Levi- Strauss. A prolific writer and extraordinarily productive researcher, Bourclieu has published more than 30 books and 340 articles over the period 195R to 1995. M.lI1Y o f these works a re co l l ahora t i v e, as Bourdieu is also •

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6

I CHAPTER ONE

INTRODU C I NG P I ERRE BOURDIEU

I 7

Chapter IO outlines the political project that undergirds his sociological program. Finally, Bourdieu has developed distinct theories relative to action, cul­ ture, power, stratification, and sociological knowledge. Yet they intersect and interweave in complex ways that make it difficult to abstract one from the other even for expository purposes. This book attempts to highlight the principal conceptual interweavings so as to provide a richer understand­ ing of Bourdieu's sociology. Chapters 3 through 6 explore the central argu­ ments and concepts. Chapters 7 through 9 bring to the conceptual discus­ sion substantive areas of investigation (social class structure, education, and intellectuals) that are particularly crucial to Bourdieu's sociological agenda.

how these social struggles are refracted through symbolic classifications, how actors struggle and pursue strategies to achieve their interests within such fields, and how in doing so actors unwittingly reproduce the social stratification order. Culture, then, is not devoid of political content but rather is an expression of it.1l The exercise and reproduction of class-based power and privilege is a core substantive and unifying concern in Bourdieu's work. It is his ambition to create a science, applicable to all types of societies, of the social and cultural reproduction of power relations among individuals and groups. In an early statement (Bourdieu 1973a), he calls for a "science of the reproduc­ tion of structures" that would be

Culture, Power, and Reproduction

a study of the laws whereby structures tend to reproduce themselves b y producing agents invested with the system of dispositions which is able to engender practices adapted to these structures and thus contribute to their reproduction.

Bourdieu proposes a sociology of symbolic power that addresses the im­ portant topic of relations between culture, social structure, and action. Whether he is studying Algerian peasants, university professors and students, writers and artists, or the church, a central underlyin g preoccup ation �> ') emerges: the question of how stratified social systems of hierarchy and . domination persist and reproduce intergenerationally without powerful re­ sistanc.e and without the conscious recognition of their members.I I The answer to this question, Bourdieu argues, can be found by exploring how cultural resources, processes, and institutions hold individuals and groups in competitive and self-perpetuating hierarchies of domination. He ad­ vances the bold claim that all cultural symbols and practices, from artistic tastes, style in dress, and eating habits to religion, science and philosophy­ even language itself embody interests and function to enhance social dis­ tinctions. The struggle for social distinction, whatever its symbolic form, is for Bourdieu a fundamental dimension of all social life. The larger issue, then, is one of power relations among individuals, groups, and institutions (particularly the educational system). Indeed, for Bourdieu power is not a separate domain of study but stands at the heart of all social life.12 And the successful exercise of power requires legitimation. The focus of his work, therefore, is Of how cultu�at ? ocialization/ places individuals and groups within competitive status hierarcnies- ; ' how 'relatively autonomous fields of conflict interlock individuals allcl grou �in st-;=-Uggle over valued resources,

,;1

In a more recent statement, Bourdieu (1987b:9z) describes his work as offering a genetic theory ofgroups. Such a theory would explain how groups, especially families, create and maintain unity and tl1ereby perpetuate or improve their position in the social order. He charges the sociologist to ask "the question with which all sociology ought to begin, that of the exis­ tence and the mode of existence of collectives" (198Se:74I). Bourdieu fo­ cuses on tl1e role culture plays in social reproduction. How groups pursue strategies to produce and reproduce the conditions of their collective exis­ tence and how culture is constitutive of this reproductive process is for him a unifying problem in both sociology and anthropology and a substantive theme throughout his work (see Bourdieu 1985e:74I). At the core of Bourdieu's intellectual project for over thirty years stands the central issue in Western social thought since Marx: the debate between cultural idealism and historical materialism. Bourdieu's sociology repre­ sents a bold attempt to find a middle road that transcends the classic idealism/materialism bipolarity by proposing a materialist yet nonreductive account of cultural life.'4 His thinking begins with Marx but draws more substantively from Durkheim and Weber.

r

p

I I . This is a variant on Durkheim's fundamental concern for what produces social solidar­ ity, though for Bourdieu the social order is a stratified order wirh hierarchical alld illeg:l i il:lri:11l arrangements among individuals and groups (s 'C l)ilVl:iggio lIn'); SIILkll llCIl II)Kl:I!) l. 12.

For flourdieu, no expressioll of soriahilily IIr ii, sy l l ll,"lil' 1"'I""'S"III",i,,,,s !ached rro l l l i t s cOllstitutivL' 1)llw('r 1't,1 :l Ii.III,\.

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1 3 - And for Bourdieu (I 987b:36), a critical theory of culture "leads very naturally to a the­ ory of politics." 14, Bourdieu claims that he began devoting attention to culture because it was a neglected dimension, not because it holds some theoretical priority for understanding the social world. In a I yH, inrcrview he (H)R7b:6 1 ) recalls that at the time of his work on Algerian peasants in Ihe lale I oll 1 1)1) I : 1 7 ) . I I . This project l i lld, rOI"lI I:iI " x prl'ssioll ill '/ ZII" f.'m/i "(S'I/·i"t,,.I(\' i l l w h ich \I( )lIrdi" II, :iI( )lIg "

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30

I C H A PT E R TWO

CAREER A N D FORMATIVE I N FL U E N CES

writings of Heidegger, Husserl, Schutz, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre. His student generation clearly felt the towering influence of Sartre, though by the 1 950S a shift away from existentialism was already apparent. Reflecting upon his student experience, Bourdieu ( 1 98 7b: 1 5) says he "never partici­ pated in the existentialist mood" an intellectual orientation that provided more appeal to students of bourgeois origins than to those of lower-middle­ class background from the provinces, such as himself. Despite his train­ ing in philosophy and the influence of existentialism on postwar French thought, Bourdieu developed an early preference for the sciences, and in fact at one point considered majoring in biology. The popularity of existen­ tialist thought, he contends, worked to impede the development of the so­ cial sciences in France, Sartre, in particular, held the social sciences in low esteem, making them unattractive options for aspiring young French intel­ lectuals. Hence the importance Bourdieu attributes to the phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty, who played for young Bourdieu a key role by taking seri­ ously into account the social sciences in his philosophical work. It was in fact Merleau-Ponty and philosophers of science, such as Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Jules Vuillemin, whom Bourdieu ( 1 987b: 1 4) re­ calls as the most formative philosophical influences upon his early intellec­ tual life. The influence of phenomenology and existentialism is nonetheless both substantively and conceptually present in Bourdieu's work. Substan­ tively, he carried out later in his career a study situating Heidegger in his political and intellectual milieu (Bourdieu 1 9 9 I f). Moreover, it was clearly Sartre who motivated Bourdieu's ( 1 988a) study of Flaubert. Conceptually, his interest in reintroducing agency into structural analysis reflects the early influence of existentialism. And from phenomenology Bourdieu ( 1 967) takes the idea that even the most mundane activities of human life may be subjected to philosophical inquiry.H Nevertheless, the more important formative influence is to be found in the history and philosophy of science of postwar France. Pointing to this intellectual tradition Foucault ( 1 978b:ix) remarks that if "you take away Canguilhem . . , you will no longer understand much about Althusser, Al­ thusserism and a whole series of discussions which have taken place among French Marxists." Speaking of his own work, Bourdieu says, " I tried to transpose into the field of the social sciences a whole epistemological tra,

34. Bourdieu would have us see his attention to lifestyles and their relevance for under­ standing contemporary s t ra ti fi c a ti o n i n Fnl ncc i l l criticil CO l l i r:lSI 1 0 I h e morc aug'ust l op i cs a ll10ng French I c ft i s r soci a I sci c l l tisrs of work i 1 1 g--cI ass C I I I i I I rc a l l d org':1 1 1 iZ:1I i O I l , p ol i i i ( ' a I I I W l l i l i z:l I i O I l , l'OI l I t:l l l por:lry (,:l p i l :d i s l l l :1 1 1 . 1 i i I, Tht: i l l l l l l t: l l c e or Bachcl:ml can ill! rl! a di l y SCl!n in 'fl.". Cmft of Soci% gy. .I 7, ' I ' h i s sl II 11'1 s l l l l l l l l : l ry o r Bachcl:l n l rt:prese I l I S :1 rt::l l l i l l g or 13:lChdln l w i th an e ye toward

l'Xpl ic:ll i l l g BOl i rd i l ' 1 I r:l l hl'l' I h : l l l prov i d i l l g- :I cohl' 1'l:1 1 1 i l l l n lt l l ll'l i l ll l l l l Bachdln l 's i n rcllcct l l a l

proj," '1 , I h : l v , ' . 1 1':1 11' 1 , 1' 1'1 1 1 1 1 1 I:lI'h" I : l r d \ ',(1 /i"'ll1lli,," tI" (" 'llI'il ,'1'r\ 1 : 1 1 1 1"1 1', , kd : l l 'a l i " l l 1 1 1 : 1 1 " 1 " ' 1 i, lt-a" 1 11 1 1 1 1 1 : l l l'I'i:1I : 1 1 1 0 1 i d l' : 1 1 i I l I Cl'eSI S, d i l' el'dl' 1("1'1 " 1 1 1 1 1 1 ( ' 1 1 '" " , ," . 1 1 1 " ' " ( ; , ' I' I i , ! 1 I ' . 1 M i l l " 1 'J 7' I: J H, , ) . . , H.

.

42

I C H A P T E R TWO

more generally "are also determined i n their form and their conditions of expression by the supply of religion and the action of the religious profes­ sionals." Nonetheless, Weber's thinking permits one to construct a system of religious beliefs and practices as the more or less transfigured expression of the strategies of different categories of specialists competing for monopoly over the administration of the goods of salvation and of the different classes interested in their services. (Bourdieu 1 9 9 1 b:4)

Bourdieu extends the idea of interest to include nonmaterial goods by arguing that all practices are fundamentally "interested" whether di rected toward material or symbolic items. He wants to construct a "science of practices" that will analyze "all practices" as "oriented towards the maximi­ zation of material or symbolic profit" (Bourdieu 1 990h : 2 09). The research program he proposes would unite what has traditionally been thought of as economic (interested and material) and noneconomic (disinterested and symbolic) forms of action and objects. Thus, symbolic interest and material interest are viewed as two equally objective forms of interest. Actors pursue symbolic as well as material interests and exchange one for the other under specified conditions. While extending the idea of interest from material to ideal goods, Weber nonetheless retains analytical distinctions for different types of be­ havior. Weber ( 1 9 7 8 : 2 4- 2 5 , 3 3 9) analytically distinguishes the following types of action: "instrumentally rational," "value-rational ," "affectional," and "traditional." Weber does not consider every action as economic. To be economic, action must satisfy a need that depends upon relatively scarce resources and a limited number of actions. Such distinctions disappear al­ together in Bourdieu's work. Moreover, the idea that action i s interest­ oriented is for Bourdieu a fundamental presupposition not a hypothesis for testing. And he does not consider whether some practices might be more self-interested than others. The extension of Weber's idea of religious interest permits Bourdieu to develop concepts such as 1religious capital and cultural capital as irreducible forms of power though interchangeable with economic capital. With the concept of cultural capital, Bourdieu expands Weber's idea of social closure to include more subtle, informal kinds of exclusionary practices.49 Bourdieu 49. The closure theorist Raymond Murphy ( 1988: 1 8 - 1 9) also sees this aspect of Bourdieu's framework as extending from positions taken by Weber. By extending the concept crtpital from its usual economic meaning to include nonmaterial items as wel l , Bourdieu shares the view, which is "at the root of closure theory," that closure involves not o n l y "processes of monopoli­ zation (and excl usion) hased on capital i n dlC l 1 1 arker " h u t al so " o r h e r prtl n:sses of I l l o l lO p o l i 'f.:I ­ tion a n d excl usion, such :IS t host.: hased Oil LilT, l·t h l l i r i t y , st.: x . " The work or R a l l d a l l ( ;o l l i l lS ( 1 s I "", 1 1 1 1 1 1 1. 1 1 1 ' " I I ' o If1" c ,l" I I I < " n d ,·, r(" J l ITSl" I I I S :l 1"1 I r1 1 1 " :l l ' i l : 1 I 1 1 1 1 1 1 i , 1 I I I " ' 1 l l 1d l l' ,,1 1 11 1 1 ., 1 , 1 1 1 1 , " 1 1 I I '" 1 1 ' 1 1 1 I i "/\ 1 "1 1 1 1< " " ,

" j " n d l l l r: 1 I

1 26

FI E L DS O F STR U G G LE FOR POWER

I CHAPTER SIX

forms of conflictY But challenging the degree of objectivity in an opposing viewpoint is fair play. Field analysis, therefore, directs the researcher's attention to a level of analysis capable of revealing the integrating logic of competition between opposing viewpoints. It encourages the researcher to seek out sources of conflict in a given domain, relate that conflict to the broader areas of class and power, and identify underlying shared assumptions by opposing parties. For fields to operate there must be agents with the appropriate habitus to make them capable and willing to invest in particular fi eidsY New arriv­ als to fields must pay the price of an initial investment for entry, which involves recognition of the value of the game and the practical knowledge of how to play it.24 One important consequence of the competitive logic of fields and their doxa is that they help create the conditions for the "misrecognition" of power relations and thereby contribute to the maintenance of the social order. Actors misrecognize the arbitrary character of their social worlds when they take for granted the definition of rewards and of ways of obtaining them as given by fields. 2 5 An unintentional consequence of engag­ ing in field competition is that actors, though they may contest the legiti­ macy of rewards given by fields, nonetheless reproduce the structure of fields. Fourth, fields aTe structured to a significant extent by their own internal mechanisms ofdevelopment and thus hold some degree of autonomy from the external environment. Bourdieu speaks of the "relative autonomy" of fields to convey the dual character of their interconnectedness with and indepen­ dence from external factorsY' Bourdieu uses the language of relative auton2 2 , Wri ti n g a bout the juridical field, Eourdieu ( 1 98 7 C : 8 3 1 ) states that entry "implies the

tacit acceptance of the field's fundamental law" and that "to join the game, to agree to play

the game, to accept the law for the resolution of the conHict, is tacitly to adopt a mode of expression and discussion implying the renunciation of physical violence and of elementary forms of symbolic violence, such as insults." 2 3 , An important research issue that has not yet received sufficient treatment in Eourdieu's work is identifying the types of habitus that attract individuals to particular fields, More broadly, and outside of Eourdieu's conceptual language, the issue i s one of trying to under­ stand the connection between "character and social structure" (Gerth and Mills 1 9(4)'

1

1 27

omy, particularly in his early work on education, to argue that relations between culture and society are complex and mediated, and that the tradi­ tional categories of "culture" and "society" are not adequate for describing the increasingly central and complex role that symbolic goods and processes play in the exercise of power in modern societies, The accumulation of educational credentials, and symbolic goods more generally, cannot be fully explained, he argues, in terms of underlying material interests, While the different forms of capital are under certain conditions interchangeable, they are not reducible one to the other. Culture is a distinct form of power that functions like capital, but with its own specific laws of exercise. Yet, its autonomy is relative, since it is often exchanged for economic capital or positional power i n organizations, Historically, Bourdieu sees cultural fields progressively developing and gaining autonomy from the political and economic fieldsY The driving force of this autonomous development, which he draws from Weber's soci­ ology of religion, is the rise of corps of specialists who are progressively able to develop, transmit, and control their own particular status culture. Thus, fields develop their own organizational and professional interests, which may deviate significantly from external interests, Witl1 growing au­ tonomy comes the capacity to retranslate and reinterpret external demands, This capacity varies historically and by type of field, The relative autonomy of the literary field, for example, suggests that this cultural arena is polarized by two opposing principles of organization. On the one hand, there is the tendency toward autonomy where peer refer­ ence and review assumes priority. At the extreme, this results in "art for art's sake." On the other hand is the tendency away from autonomy, where legitimacy and reference are sought outside the field in forms such as book sales, public appearances, honors, etc. (Bourdieu 1 99 I d: I 2). Bourdieu associates the autonomy of fields with his concept of symbolic power. As cultural fields grow in autonomy from political and economic power they gain in symbolic power, that is, in their capacity to legitimate existing social arrangements (Bourdieu and Passeron 1 977: I 2). Conse­ quently, fields elicit assent to existing social arrangements and thereby con­ tribute to their reproduction to the extent that they engage actors in field

24, Eourdieu argues that tl10se in subordinate positions are tl1ere because they have not fully mastered the rules of the game, 2 5 , A corollary to this is iliat actors situated outside of specific fields can grasp

a c le 'l r

perception of the interests or capitals struggled over in those fields, This evokes 13ourd i c u 's longstanding concern regarding the status of s o ciologi ca l i nsight as a n "outsid er" view, yet one iliat must accommodate insider perceptions i n ol'< l 1lS :IS "do aCl ors :ll ll'llIpl risky bold ventures or settle for s:II'e, seClire s l r:lI l'gil's?" or "d" : 1 < '1 , ,, · , 1 l l :l I l i k-sl 1 1 I", IL-sl ), "I' au d aci ty in th ei I" I ' raci ices)" 1 \" II n I i c II ( I ')I) I d: I (, ) '"/ 1Il ' " I ' I I I" I ,, " , 1 1 " I" i, ' I l l i I I g 1 ':1 1 1 II, I \ " , ' , l ' , ' , 1 \ 1 1 , 1 . 1 . 1 , I ) , 1 , I (I, I