BOURDIEUWACQUANT-FORSOCIOANALYSISINTELLECTUALS

7/30/2019 BOURDIEUWACQUANT-FORSOCIOANALYSISINTELLECTUALS

1/30

For a Socio-Analysis of Intellectuals: On "Homo Academicus"Author(s): Loc J.D. WacquantReviewed work(s):Source: Berkeley Journal of Sociology, Vol. 34, Symposium on the Foundations of Radical

Social Science (1989), pp. 1-29Published by: Regents of the University of CaliforniaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41035401 .Accessed: 17/08/2012 14:35

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Regents of the University of California is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Berkeley Journal of Sociology.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ruchttp://www.jstor.org/stable/41035401?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/41035401?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ruc


2/30

An Interview With Pierre Bourdieu

For a Socio-Analysisf ntellectuals:On HomoAcademicus*Introduction y Loc J.D. Wacquant

An exceptionally roductive nd inventive hinker, rench ociologistPierre Bourdieu has, over the past three decades, produced one of themost mbitious nd fertile odies of sociologicalwork of the post-classicalera. After a protracted history f partial and often distorted readingsamong Anglo-American cholars,1his writings, hich range widely fromthe anthropology f Algeria, the sociology f language, culture, lass andpolitics, o the philosophy nd epistemology f the social sciences, havebecome one of the major sources of the current theoretical renewal.Beyond ts apparent dispersion, ne major thrust f Bourdieu's work hasbeen to explore the manifold orms f symbolic ower and to unmask tscontribution o the constitution nd reproduction of domination inmodern society. This problematic of a political economy of symbolicviolence has led him, time and again, to aim his sociological weapons atthe preeminent ontenders n the symbolic lass struggle: ntellectuals. n

Homo Academicus, dense volume which packs more than twenty earsof intense research nd thinking n the subject, Bourdieu (1988a) tacklesthe issue of practice nd power among French university rofessors.

The end-result s a lively nd often surprising ourney through heintricate andscape of academia in France. Combining ethnographicvignettes, tatistical rofiles, nd prosopographic etail, the book offersa vividdepiction f the structured onflicts nd interests hat define andshape the French intellectual pace and link it to the larger arena ofpolitics, as well as a lucid illustration f Bourdieu's highly distinctivetheories, concepts, and methods. Homo Academicus however, s muchmore than an empirical nvestigation f French academics and the May'68 crisis. t is an attempt o provide an experimental emonstration orthe necessity nd potency f a genuinely eflexive ociology:Bourdieu'saim is to show that ociologists an overcome the antinomy f objectivistexplanation nd subjectivist nderstanding nd account for the very worldwithin which they live on condition of turning upon themselves the

This text s the transcription f an interview onducted in Paris in April of 1989 byLore J.D. Wacquant, who is also responsible for the translation nd notes. The interviewer

would like to thank Daniel Breslau for a careful re-reading of the translation nd theeditorial collective of the BerkeleyJournal of Sociology for their suggestions, nthusiasm,and patience on this project.

1. See Wacquant (1989) for a discussion of the reasons for this fragmented ndincomplete reception of Bourdieu's work in America.


3/30

2 BERKELEYJOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY

scientific ools for objectivation hat they routinely mploy upon othersso as to neutralize he biases inscribed oth n the contemplative elationbetween the social observer nd her object and in the fact of occupyinga particular ocation in the universe under investigation. n this sense,Homo Academicus also constitutes political ntervention n the specificpolitics of intellectual ife. Bourdieu's hope is that the socio-analyticinstruments e sharpens n this book can be used in academic strugglesto help increase the autonomy of the scientific ield and thereby hepolitical responsibility f its participants y making hem more aware ofthe hidden determinations hat operate within nd upon it.

Yet the greatest value of Homo Academicus lies perhaps in thethreat t poses to the present working onsensus" etween "theorists" nd"researchers" hat allows each side to ignore the other while paying ipservice to the necessity f the integration f conceptual and empiricalwork. By consistently ffacing his sacred divide, Bourdieu forces uscritically o re-examine not only the institutional onditions of ourprofessional onduct, but also the scientific nconsciouswhich regulatesour daily practices as symbolicproducers. There should be no mistakeabout the implications f his nquiry:while Bourdieu writes bout Frenchprofessors, he concepts, methodology, nd theoretical model he putsforth ave a great deal to reveal about academicsand other ntellectualson this ide of the Atlantic. ts ultimate merit, hen, may be to challengeus to a hunt for homo academicus americanas that is as fierceless nduncompromising s the one the Professor of the Collge de Francelaunched on his own tribe.

SociologyAs Socioanalysis

Loc J.D. Wacquant: One might have thought that Homo Academicuswould be an easy book for you to write since it deals with French

intellectuals,hat

s,with a world n which

youhave been an

actor,and

a central one, for nearly three decades. Now,on the contrary, f all yourworks, Homo Academicusappears to be the one that has cost you mostin terms of time, f thinking, f writing, nd in research effort-and lso(I think this is revealing) in terms of anxiety: you mention in theforeword your apprehension about publishing such a book and youdevote the entire opening chapter to ward off, nd to guard yourselfagainst, a wide variety f possible misreadings. Why o much difficulty?

Pierre Bourdieu: It is true that Homo Academicus is a book that keptfor a very ong time n my files because I feared that t would slip away

from me upon publication and that it would be read in a manneropposite to its deep intent, namely, s a pamphlet or as an instrument


4/30

INTERVIEW WITHBOURDIEU 3

of self-flagellation.2t is a bookwhich s peculiar n that heordinarywork required y scientific bjectivations accompanied y a work-alabor in the psychoanalyticense-upon the subject of objectivation.Working n such an object, ne is reminded t everymoment hat hesubject f the objectivation imselfsbeing bjectivized: heharshest ndmost cruel analyses re written with the knowledge nd an acuteawarenesssf the fact hat hey pply ohe who swriting hem; nd, tthe ame time,with he awareness hat hosewho bear such cruelty illnot think or ne moment hat he author f this r that entence Gliedwith iolence ears t alongwith hem. onsequently,heywilldenounceas

gratuitous rueltyhat s in fact labor

fanamnesis~a

ocioanalysis.I have in mind here in particular ome of the passageswhich

separatedme from omeof my estfriends. have had-I think hat hisis not of merely necdotal significance-ery dramatic lashes withcolleagues hoperceived ery ccurately heviolence f the objectivationbut whosaw a contradictionn the fact hat could objectivize ithoutthinking f myself, hile f course was doing t all the while. ...]

This native amiliarity ith he universe hat you nalyzewas thus anasset but also,on another evel, n obstacle hat you had to overturn.Is this why ou baseyourwork n sucha large rray f data (the merelisting f ll the ources akesup several ages nd appendices) nd yetdisplay nly smallportion f them? ne cannot ut be struck yhowascetic his book s.

It is indeed n ascetic ook n two respects, irst ith egard o theuseof data, econdwith egard owriting. here s first f all an ascesisin the rhetoric f data display. here are severalfactors ehind his,including number f things hat n analysis f my ntellectual rajectory(Bourdieu 987a;Honneth, ocyba ndSchwibs 986)would ccount or

verywell, uch as a form f aristocratismhat owe

preciselyo

havingfollowed ne of the highest rajectoriesn the French ducational ytem,to having een initially rained s a philosopher, tc. This explains hatmy invisibleollege"s found or part mong hilosophersnd thatcertain form f positivistic xhibitionisms no doubt unconsciouslyforbidden omeas pedestrian. ...] Having aidthis, t s true hat haveperhaps everhandledmoredata than for his book.This s something

2. Reflecting n HomoAcademicus hortly fter ts publication, ourdieu 1987a, p.117)writeswith are emotion: Sociologyan be an extremely owerful nstrument fself-analysis hich llows one better o understand hat he or she is by giving ne anunderstandingf one's ownconditions f production nd of the position ne occupies nthe ocial world. . It follows hat his ookdemands particular anner f reading. neis not to construe t as a pamphlet r to use it n a self-punitiveashion. . If my bookwere read as a pamphlet, wouldsoon come to hate it and I would rather have itburned."


5/30


that is not always readily recognized n the United States, no doubt inthe name of a positivistic efinition f data and of their usage whichwrongly dentifies cience with an exhibitionism f data and results--wewould be better advised to display the conditions of construction ndanalysis f these data.

Secondly, there is an ascesis at the level of writing. wrote aconsiderable number of pages which could have earned me a succs descandale for being slightly olemic and caustic that ended up throwingout because, precisely, heywould have encouraged a regression o the

ordinary isionof the field,which s generally olemic. should also addthat the scientific endering f an in-depth ociological analysis of thiskind raises very thorny uestions of writing. ne would need to inventa whole new language for t (the journal that we edit at the Center forEuropean Sociology, Actes de la recherche n sciences ociales, has beena laboratory for experimenting uch a new mode of sociologicalexpression).

In fact, ne of the central problems f a sociology f the intellectualmilieu is that intellectuals are, as all social agents, "spontaneoussociologists"who are particularly killed at objectivizing thers. Beingprofessionals f discourse and explication, however, ntellectuals have amuch greater than average capacity to transform heir spontaneoussociology, hat s, their elf-interested ision of the social world, nto theappearance of a scientific ociology. Besides, much of sociology s littlemore than that...

This would be especially true of the sociologyof intellectuals?

Yes, for the sociology of intellectuals s very often the mereconversion f an interested nd

partialvision of the weaknesses of one's

intellectual opponents into a discourse that has all the trappings fscience. This is most evident at the stage of construction f the object,for nstance n the sampling rocedures dopted: typically, ne asks whatis an intellectual nd provides a definition ased on biased, partisancriteria, urthermore estroying central property f the ntellectual ield,namely, hat t is the site of struggles ver who does and does not belongto it.

At the risk f seeming to moralize, would say that, n this matter,scientificity omes at the cost of a kind of a little courage of every

moment, vigilance nd commitment o critically crutinize ach word,each line, to track down polemical adjectives, slight connotations,unconscious nnuendos, nd so on.


6/30

INTERVIEWWITH BOURDIEU 5

Field, nterest, nd Practice

Precisely, t shouldbe emphasized hatHomoAcadmicass not bookon intellectuals ut rather n the ntellectual ield. think hat thisintroduces fundamental ifference fperspectivend n the heoreticalconstruction f the object What s the meaning f this notion f fieldand how did it help you, n the particular nstance f ntellectuals, nshapingyour problematic?

Before put forth definition-I o not like definitions uch-a

brief side on their sage. could refer ere to Le mtier e sociologue(Bourdieu t al. 1973),which s a didactic, lmost cholastic ook,3 utwhich nevertheless ontains many theoretical nd methododologicalprinciples hatwouldmakepeopleunderstand hatmany f the gapsorshortcomingsorwhich am reproached re n fact onscious efusals nddeliberate hoices.For instance, he use of openconcepts s a wayofrejecting ositivism-but his s a ready-made hrase; t is, to be moreprecise, permanent eminder hat oncepts ave no definition therthan ystemic. uch notions s habitus, ield, nd capital re definable,but onlywithin he theoretical ystem hey onstitute, ot n isolation.

This appliesalso to a questionwhich s often put to me in theUnited tates: why o I not propose ny aws of the middle ange?think hat this wouldfirst f all be a wayof satisfying positivisticexpectation, f the kind represented n earlier times by a book byBerelson nd Steiner 1964)whichwas a rote compilation f small,partial aws established y the socialsciences. his kind f positivisticgratificationssomething hat cience must eny tself. here re no such"middle-rangeaws" n the ocialworld, here re only ystems f aws, sis the case in physics-Duhemaid it somethirty ears go, and morerecently uine hasdevelopedt.4Andwhat s true f concepts s true f

relations,hich

cquireheir

meaning nly within systemf relations.

3. This book whose ranslation as for yearsblocked or bscure opyright easonsand has recently een announced y De Gruyter) s essential o an understanding fBourdieu's sociological pistemology. t consists of a 100-pageexposition f thefoundational rinciples f "applied ationalism"n the ocial ciences, nd of a selection ftexts by historians nd philosophers f science,Marx, Durkheim,Weber, nd othersociologists)hat llustrate ey rguments. ach comprises hree artswhich heorize hethree tages hatBourdieu, ollowingrench pistemologist astonBachelard, onsiderscentral o the production f sociological nowledge nd that he encapsulates n thefollowingormula: facts re conquered through upture ith ommon ense], onstructed,verified les faits ont conquis, onstruits, onstats]"Bourdieu et al. 1973,p. 24). Aworthwhile ritical ntroduction f Bachelard's hilosophyan be found n Tiles 1984).

4. The now-famous uhem-Quine ypothesistates hat cience s a complex etworkthat faces the test of empirical xperience s a whole: evidence mpinges ot on anyparticular roposition r concept ut on the entire et they orm.


7/30

6 BERKELEY JOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY

Now, in this nstance, he notion of field has proved critical ecausethe intellectual world is a terrain where we are particularly xposed tousingoperational definitions s an unconscious manner f satiating ocialpulsions of categorization, of labeling, and where the uncontrolledconstruction f the object allows us to exclude those who do not fit theimage that we have, or would like to have, of ourselves. ndeed, one ofthe general properties f fields s that they ncompass truggles ver theirvery oundaries. As soon as the researcher s alerted to this, he or sheis on guard against the temptation f stating 7 shall call 'intellectual'"such and such set of agents.

A second general property f fields is that they are systems frelations that are independent f the populations which these relationsdefine.When I talk of the "intellectual ield," knowvery well that n thisfield will find particles" let me pretend for a moment we are dealingwith a physical ield-we shall see that t is not the case) that are underthe swayof forces f attraction, f repulsion, nd so on, as in a magneticfield. Havingsaid this, s soon as I speak of a field, my attention astenson the primacy f this system f objective relations over the particlesthemselves. And we could say, following the formula of a famousphysicist, hat the individual, ike the electron, s ausgeburt es Felds; he

or she is in a sense an emanation of the field. This or that particularintellectual, his or that artist, xists as such only because there is anintellectual r an artistic ield. This is very mportant o help solve theperennial question that historians f art have raised time and again,namely, t what point have we moved from he craftsman o the artist.This is a question which, posed in this fashion, s almost meaningless,since this transition s made progressively, long with the constitution fan artistic ield within which omething ike an artist an come to exist.)5

The notion of field is extremely mportant ecause it reminds usthat the true

objectof social science is not individuals, ven though one

cannot construct field f not through ndividuals, ince the informationnecessary for tatistical nalysis re generally ttached to individuals orinstitutions). t is the Held which s primary nd must be the focus of theresearch operations. This does not imply that individuals are mere"illusions," hat they do not exist: they exist as agents~and not asbiological ndividuals, ctors, or subjects-who are sociallyconstituted sactive and acting n the field under consideration y the fact that they

5. Bourdieu's analysisof the historical ormation f the artistic ield n latenineteenth-century rance nd of the correlative invention"f the modern rtist s thecenterpiece f a forthcoming ook on The Economicsof Cultural roduction. or'preliminary ketches, ee Bourdieu 1971a, 1971c, 1983b, 1987b, 1988c).A concisestatement f Bourdieu's ociologyf aesthetics nd art s Bourdieu 1989b).


8/30


possess henecessary roperties o be effective, oproduce ffects, n thisfield.6

Ateverymoment here s something ike "barrier o entry" r a rightof entry hat the field imposes and which defines eligibility orparticipation.

This s indeed he definition usedto construct y ample f agentsactive n the humanities nd social sciencesdepartments facult eslettres]: hen study he otality f the faculties r disciplines, y ample

is a representative andomample; or he nalysis f the college f arts,however, retained he et of agentswho had titles f access,who hadone or several f the properties hat ne must have n order o exist ssuch in this universe. found ut that one can exist n the Frenchuniversity ieldbecauseone detains cademicpower, defined s thepower ocontrol hereproduction f the nstitution that s,control fpositions, ppointments, nd of the allocation f financial nd otherresources). n France, hismeansbeing a member f the UniversityAdvisory ommittee comit onsultatif] hich nominates niversityprofessors.n the United tates, couldnot ayfor ure whatwouldbethe equivalent ody but I believethere re analogousmechanisms twork hat re controlled y people occupying efinite ositions n thefield.

People are at once founded nd legitimized o enter the field bytheir ossessing definite onfigurationf properties. ne of the goalsof research s to identify hese active properties, hese efficientcharacteristics,hat s,these orms f pecificapital. here s thus sortof hermeneutic ircle: n order o construct he field, ne must dentifythe forms f specific apital hat peratewithin t, nd to construct heforms f specific apital ne must know he field. here s an endless

movement o and fro, n the research rocess, hich squite engthy ndarduous.

To saythat he structure f the field-note hat am progressivelybuilding working efinition f the concept-is efined ythe tructureof the distribution f the specific orms f capital hat re active n itmeans that when my knowledge f forms f capital s sound, candifferentiate verything hat here s to differentiate. or example, ndthis s one of the principles hat uidedmywork, ne cannot e satisfied

6. For further laborations,ee Bourdieu 1971b,1987e)and Bourdieu nd de SaintMartin 1982)on the religious ield; ourdieu 1981c,1989e,1989f) n the cientific ield;Bourdieu 1981a)on the field f representative olitics; ourdieu 1983b, 1988c)on theartistic ield;Bourdieu 1987d)on the uridical ield;Bourdieu 1983a)on the field fphilosophy,nd Bourdieu nd de SaintMartin 1978)and Bourdieu 1989a)on the fieldof power."


9/30


with an explanatory model incapable of differentiating eople whomordinary ntuition n the specific universe tells us are quite different.(Parenthesis: ordinary ntuition and mundane knowledge are quiterespectable; nly, one must be sure to introduce hem n the analysis na conscious and reasoned manner, whereas many sociologists use themunconsciously,7 s when they build the kind of silly typologies hat Icriticize t the beginning f Homo Academicus-^et sociologist" ivingwayto "universal" s."parochial," tc.)8 Here intuition aises questions: Wheredoes the difference omes from?" And if have built a model that doesnot differentiate hese people, then it means that somewhere forgot

something. n the academic universe, rigorousand

fully xplanatorysystemmust ccount not only for objective differences etween positionsand institutions, ut also for he ndividual nd collective distinctions hatagents spontaneously establish, for these are part and parcel of theobjective truth f this universe. his kind of work s very ime-consuming,because one must acquire both a thorough knowledge of objectiveproperties f the field and sufficient ommand of the native "practicalsense," which is always suspect and touchy to use since it is throughnative intuition hat "spontaneous sociology" nd value-judgements anre-enter he picture.

One last and critical point on this: ocial agents are not "particles"that are mechanically ushed about by external forces. They are, rather,bearers of capitals nd, depending n the position that hey ccupy n thefield byvirtue f their ndowment volume and structure) n capital, theytend to act either toward the preservation f the distribution f capitalor toward he subversion f this distribution things re of course muchmore complicated han that). I think hat this s a simplified ut generalproposition hat applies to social space as a whole, although t does notimply hat all small capital holders are necessarily evolutionaries nd allbig capital holders are automatically onservatives.

The field is thus not only of field of forces, space of objective forcelines, but also a battlefield, structured arena within which agents,because they arry different otentials and have different ositions andproclivities, truggle o (re)define the very tructure nd boundaries ofthe field.

7. H. Stuart Hughes' Sophisticated Rebels (1988) would be a good instance of thisuncontrolled bricolage of scientific nd commonscnsical types and propositions.

8. "Far from being, s certain initiatory' epresentatives f the epistemological break'would have us believe, sort of simultaneously naugural nd terminal ct, the renunciationof first-hand ntuition s the end product of a long dialectical process in which intuition,formulated n an empirical operation, analyses and verifies r falsifies tself, ngenderingnew hypotheses, gradually more firmly ased, which will be transcended in their turn,thanks to the problems, failures and expectations which they bring to light" Bourdieu1988a, p. 7).


10/30

INTERVIEW WITH BOURDIEU 9

Correct, ut they o not truggle reely: hey truggle n a mannerconsistent with the position they occupy in the field. They aredifferentiated n the basis of the perception hat hey ave of the field,of the point f view hey ake n the field s a view aken rom pointin the field.

If one defines he field y specific orm f capital nd, conversely, hetype f capital by the fact hat t is in currency n a given ield, hen,this is not tautological: here s a dialecticalmovement f mutualspecification hrough hich ne term helpsprogressivelyo define he

other. t seems ome,however,hat here s a third erm, acking o farin the discussion,which constitutes he conceptualbridge betweencapital and field by providing he mechanism hat "propels" efiniteagents,who bear certain valences f capital, o take up this or thatstrategy, ubversion r conservation. his tertiwn uid is the conceptof habitus. t plays pivotal ole n allowing ou to break out of thestructuralist isionwhich educes he ocialagent othe mere bearer,in the ense of Trger, f a capital or of position n a network n thecase of "American tructuralism1*)hat mechanically etermines hestrategy e or she will follow, nd thus eliminates ction from ocialanalysis.

One would need to specify the meaning of the adjective"structuralist.11arxist tructuralism,or nstance, oes not ven havetheconcept f specific apital, he notion hat here an be, within ocialspace,sub-spaces f struggles hich njoy degree of autonomy ndfollow pecific ogics hat re irreducible oeconomicogic ven thoughthey ave n economy.n short, hey gnore whole ange f phenomenathat re critical, ven from ithin heir wn approach.

The notion f habitus s important n that t allows us to escapestructural echanism ithout

elapsingnto he ntentionalist ehaviorism

which sbut ts ransfiguredxpression.9hisperspective osits hat hereare external timuli ssociated ith position nd that esponseso themcan be somewhat educed from description f the position, ollowinga logicwhich an be eithermechanisticnd deterministic r teleologicaland voluntaristic. n the one hand t is proposed hat gents ct underthe onstraint f causesthat re inscribedn the situation nd we havethe mechanistic erspective; n the other t is argued hat gents cts

9. The concept of habitus, as the "principle f regulated mprovisation," s the meanswhereby Bourdieu re-introduces a strategic dimension into his structural frameworkwhile-paradoxically-eschewing ntentionality nd individual ationality. ee Bourdieu (1980a,chapter 3; 1977, 1985a, 1986a, 1986b, 1988d).


11/30

10 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

with ull knowledge f the facts,10 hat they have a complete, totalizing,and fully-informed ision of the situation nd thus produce the responsebest adjusted to it, and we have the finalist perspective. Thus,paradoxically but this s something hat philosophical eflection ince theCartesians has demonstrated epeatedly), here s ultimately o differencebetween a fully mechanistic nd a fully finalist philosophy of socialconduct

The notion of habitus accounts for what is the truth of humanaction, namely, he fact that social agents are neither particles f matter

that are determined y external auses, nor little monads guided solelyby internal reasons, executing a sort of perfectly rational internalprogramme f action. Social agents are the product of history, f thehistory f the whole social field and of the accumulated xperience of apath within he specific ub-field.11 hus, in order to understand whatsuch and such a professor will do in a given conjuncture, we must knowwhat position he occupies in academic space but also how he got thereand from what original point in social space. The way one accedes to aposition s inscribed n habitus as a system f durable and transposabledispositions o perceive, evaluate, and respond to social reality. o putit differently, ocial agents will actively etermine, n the basis of thesesocially and historically constituted categories of perception andappreciation, he situation which determines hem. One can even say thatsocial agents are determined nly to the extent that they determinethemselves.

When they are thus embodied, differences f social trajectory resuch that vents and situations hat are perceived by some as unbearableor revolting will seem acceptable, natural or even desirable to others(Bourdieu 1980c). For instance, when there s a general shift o the rightin the political field, he fact that ome people remain teady on the leftwill be viewed as

rigidity, tubborness,rom he

standpointf dominant

values, whereas for others this will be a mark of rigor. Differences ndisposition that account for differences n stances or position-takings[prisesde position] are linked, through ocial trajectory, o the valuesassociated with the group of origin- or instance, values of dignity, fconstancy, onstantia ibi, that are at the foundation f values of honor(a man of honor s one who does not change at every urn f the wind).

10. Translator's ote:here Bourdieu lays n the imilarityf the French xpressionssous a contrainte ecauses literally under he onstraint f causes") nd en connaissancede cause ("withknowledge f causes")to bring home the similarity f finalist ndmechanistic orms f social nalysis.

11.On practice s the product f the "meeting f two forms f history," istoryembodied n habitus nd history bjectified n fields, ee Bourdieu 1980a,pp. 95-101;1980c,1981b, 984,1986b).


12/30


Such and such political or social event that divides intellectuals annotbe described s a stimuluswhich utomatically etermines heir reactions.These reactions are socially generated on the basis of situationalproperties, not as these properties re in fact given, but as they areperceived through he dispositions ssociated with definite osition andtrajectory n the academic and social spaces.This explains that academicswho occupy similar positions ynchronically ay take up quite differentlines of political conduct.

You thus reject the kind of deterministic cheme that is sometimesattributed o

youwith the formula structure etermines

practicewhich

reproduces structure" e.g., Gorder 1980;Jenkins 1982,G roux 1982,p.7), that is, with the idea that position in the structure directlydetermines ocial strategy, nasmuch as the determinisms pplying toa given position never operate but through the complex filter ofdispositions acquired and articulated over the whole social andbiographical trajectory f the agent, nd of the structural history f thisposition in social space.

Circular and mechanical models of this kind are preciselywhat thenotion of habitus s designed to help us get away from see Bourdieu

1980a, 1988b).On the other hand, can understand uch interpretations:insofar s dispositions hemselves re sociallydetermined, hen one couldsay that am in a sense an ultra-determinist. t is true that analyses thattake into account both effects f position and effects f disposition anbe perceived as formidably eterministic. his being said, one can utilizesuch analyses precisely o step back and gain distance from dispositions.(This is the old Spinozistdefinition f freedom; here are of course manyother forms f freedom, ut it is one that social analysis an provide).

The Stoicians used to say that what depends upon us is not the firstmovement but

onlythe second one. It is difficult o control the first

movements of habitus but reflexive nalysis allows us to alter ourperception f the situation nd thereby ur reaction o the situation, husto control, up to a certain point, ome of the determinisms hat operatethrough the relation of immediate complicity between position anddispositions.

To come to the substantive argument of Homo Acadmicas, what are,in the French university world as you analyzed it, the main forms ofpower, the principal species of capital that are effective? s theunderlying tructure f this universe as you describe it found n other

academic fields, nd especially n the American academic field, or is ita unique case?

One can and must read Homo Academicus as a programme ofresearch on any academic field. In fact, by means of a mere mental


13/30


exprimentation, he American reader can do the work of transpositionand discover, hrough homological reasoning, good number of thingsabout his or her own professional universe. Of course, this is nosubstitute or a thorough cientific tudy f the American cientific ield.I toyed with the idea of doing such a study few years back; I had evenbegun gathering ata and documents during previous sojourn in theUnited States. At the time I even thought f putting ogether teamwith ome American colleagues to try o cumulate all advantages, hoseof the theoretical mastery of a comparative model and the primaryfamiliarity ith the universe to be analyzed. I believe that, in the

American case, such a project would be in some ways easier, owing tothe fact that there exist series of yearly tatistics hat are much moreelaborate and readily available, on professors, n the various studentbodies, and on universities, articularly niversity ierarchies nd rankingsof departments. In the French case, I had to construct, ften fromscratch, whole battery f indicators which did not exist). I even thinkthat a very worthwhile first pass could be done on the basis of asecondary nalysis f data that are already collected.

My hypothesis here would be that we would find the mainoppositions, uch as that between academic capital linked to power overthe nstruments f reproduction nd intellectual apital inked oscientificrenown, but that it would be expressed in different, erhaps moredifferentiated, orms.Would the opposition be more or less pronounced?Is the capacity of an academic power devoid of scientific rounding operpetuate tself greater n France or in the United States? Only a fullsurvey could tell us the answer. Such research could also give anempirical nswer to the question that s raised periodically, oth by theAmerican sociologyof the French university ystem nd by the Frenchuses of the American model as a instrument f critique of the Frenchsystem, amely, whether his American ystem hat presents tself s more

competitivend "meritocratic11s more favorable to scientific

utonomyfrom social forces than the French system, n which sociopoliticalpressures eem to exert themselves n more visible fashion. This is anissue of the greatest mportance, oth scientifically nd politically.

This raises also the problem of the relation of academics to thepowers that be. Here, too, we would need to have very precisemeasurements of the relation of American scholars to the variousinstitutions hat are part of what I call the field of power.12 n France,

12. On the notion f field f power, y which he French ociologisteeks oget wayfrom he usbstantialistastof the oncept f "ruling lass," eeBourdieu 1989a, speciallypp. 373-427).A preliminary efinition s the following: he field f power s a field fforces efined ythe tructure f the existing alance f forces etween orms f power,or between ifferent pecies f capital. t is also simultaneouslyfield f trugglesor oweramong heholders f different orms f power. t is a spaceof play nd competitionn


14/30


you have indicators uch as membership n official dministrativecommissions,overnmentalommittees,dvisory oards, nions, tc. Inthe United tates, think hat ne would need to turn ne's attentionto the control of departments, ffices of the Dean, scientific"blue-ribbon"anels, xpert eports, nd speciallyhe arge esearch ndphilanthropic oundationsnd nstitutes f policy esearch hich eem toplay crucial, lbeit argely idden, ole ndefining hebroader irectionsof research. n this ount,myhypothesis ouldbe that he structurallinks etween heuniversity ield nd the field f power re stronger nthe United tates. Of course, ne wouldneed to take nto onsiderationanother ifference: he

pecificityf the

verytructure f the American

political field, characterized, ery cursorily, y federalism, hemultiplicationnd conflicts etween ifferent evels f decision-making,the absenceof leftist arties nd of a strong radition f oppositionaltrade-unionism,heweak role of "publicntellectuals,"nd so on.

In your erspective, ouhavenot produced monograph n the Frenchuniversity ut studied set of very eneral mechanisms hat bear onintellectuals hrough ne of ts specific istorical ealizations.

I follow ere the Bachelardian dea of the "particular ase of thepossible." ne of the virtues f the notion f field s precisely hat tallowsone to ask very general uestions bout objects that are veryspecific nd well-demarcatedn time and space. It generates roadpropositionsr problems-take or nstance henotion hat he field s thesite of struggles round specific takes-which mmediately pecifythemselves s they re applied o a concrete istorical ase,and whichsuggest ew ssues hat mmediatelyallfor omparisons,nd so on. Inmy wn work, constantly se the knowledge cquired f one field othrow ight n another nd to ask questions f both hat ach could notpossibly enerate n its own.Thus n my atest ook,The State Nobility

[Bourdieu 989a],nwhich

analyzehefunction f consecration f elite

which he social agents nd institutions hich ll possessthe determinate uantity fspecific apital and economic nd cultural apital n particular) ufficient o occupy hedominant ositions ithin heir espectiveieldsthe conomic ield, hefield f higher ivilservice r the tate, heuniversity ield, nd the ntellectual ield] onfront ne another nstrategies imed t preserving r transforming his alance f forces. ...) This truggle orthe imposition f the dominant rinciple f domination eads,at every moment, o abalance n the haring f power, hat s,to what call division n thework f domination.It is also a struggle ver the egitimate rinciple f legitimationnd for the legitimatemode of reproduction f the foundations f domination. his can take the form f real,physicaltruggles,as in"palace evolutions"r wars f religion or nstance) r of symbolicconfrontations as in the discussions ver the relative anking f or tores, riests, ndbellatorts, nights, n MedievalEurope). [...] The field of power s organized s acharismatictructure: hedistributionccording othedominant rinciple f hierarchization(economic apital) s inverselyymmetricalo the distribution ccording o the dominatedprinciple f hierarchizationcultural apital)"unpublishedecture n "The Field f Power,"University f Wisconsin-Madison,pril 1989).


15/30


schools n their elation o the field f power nd in the reproductionof what we commonsensicallyall the "ruling lass," refer oth toequivalentnstitutionsn advanced ountries, speciallyn England ndthe United States, nd to comparablemechanisms resent n moretraditional ocieties uch as the Maori of New Zealand,or to theceremony f the dubbing f knights n medieval ociety s described yMarc Bloch...

Let us return o the problem f the ogicof action. Eventhough ouutilize he vocabulary f nterest, trategy, ven ometimes referencesas in The State

NobilityBourdieu1989a,pp. 225-228),he

theoryf

practice hat you put forth, s a historically onstituted ialecticbetween he ocial embodiedn the form f habitus nd the ocial madeinstitution n the form f fields, resents tself, ot s a theory ermaneto rational hoice heory, ut really s a fundamental lternative ndchallenge oit

It is, I believe, he true paradigmwhich ccountsboth for theimmanent ogicof action and for what appearanceof validity heparadigm f Rational Action heory RAT) mayhave.The paradigm fRAT is obviously ntenable~we aveknown hisfor uite sometime

now and I shall not rehearse here all the criticisms hat have beenlevelled t its anthropologicaloundations,rom ascalto Durkheim ndown o Wittgenstein. ut, ust as Ptolemy erpetuated is ystem fterCopernicus y ntroducing n it more nd more orrections,ikewise, nthe ide of the RAT, someauthors uch s Jon Elster (whoreadswhatI write and more readily mphasizesdivergences han he admitsborrowings), ake very ffort opreserve heir aradigm y ontinuallyinserting n it more nd more orrections aken rom herival aradigm-thus the cheme f "sour rapes," or nstance Elster 1984).

Theadequate nalysis

f social action hat s madepossible y thetheory f habitus xplains hat,without eing ational, ocialagents rereasonable-and his s what makes ociology ossible n the nd.Withoutactingwith full knowledge f the facts, nd withoutmechanicallyrpassivelybeying auses, ocialagents ct as if they had knowledge fthose causes.People are not fools;they ct, more often hannot, naccordance ith heir bjective hancesbecausethey ave nternalizedthem, hrough long nd complex rocess f conditioning,n the formof mental chemes, f expectations. ume writes n the Treatise nHuman Nature hat "no sooner do we know of the impossibilityfsatisfying desire han his esire tself anishes." hisongoing ialectic

of subjective opes and objective hances,which an yield variety foutcomes angingor erfect utual it when eople ome odesire hatto which hey re objectivelyoomed) oradical isjunctionas with heMillenarismf subproletarians or nstance, r the Don Quixote ffect


16/30


dear to Marx), is at work throughout he social world (Bourdieu 1974,1979, 1977).

At bottom, determinisms perate to their full only by the help ofunconsciousness, with the complicity of the unconscious.13 Fordeterminism o exert tself unchecked, dispositions must be abandonnedto their free play. This means that gents become something ike subjectsonly to the extent hat they onsciously master he relation hey ntertainwith heir dispositions: hey an consciously et them "act"or they an onthe contrary nhibit them through the virtue of consciousness. Or,

following strategyhat

seventeenth-century hilosophers dvised, theycan pit one disposition gainst another. Leibniz said that one can notfight assion with reason, as Descartes claimed, but with "slanted wills"[volonts bliques], .e., with the help of other passions).14

But this work of management f one's dispositions, f habitus s theunchosen principle of all "choices," s possible only with the help ofexplicit larification. ailing n analysis f such subtle determinations hatwork themselves ut through ispositions, ne becomes accessory o theunconsciousness of the action of dispositions, which is itself theaccomplice of determinism.

Science, Conscience, And Politics

Could one say that your method of analysis and the sociology youpractice comprise both a theory f the social world and an ethic?

This is a very difficult uestion and I would be tempted to answerboth yes and no. I would say no if one abides by the old antinomybetween the positive and the normative. would say yes if we agree tothink

beyondthis

opposition.n

pointof

fact,t is an ethic because it is

a science. f what say is correct, f t is true that t s through nowledgeof determinations hat only science can know that a form of freedomwhich is the condition of an ethic is possible, then it is also true thatscience is an ethic-which does not imply that it is a scientistic thic.Morality is, in this instance, made possible by an awakening ofconsciousness prise e conscience] hat cience can trigger nder definite

13. The 'unconscious' is indeed never but the forgetting f history hat history tselfproduces by turning he objective structures t tself ngenders nto those quasi-natures thathabituses are" (Bourdieu 1980a:94).

14. Albert Hirschman's (1977) The Passions and the Interests recounts part of thatstory nd argues persuasively for its role in the cultural egitimation f early capitalism.


17/30

16 BERKELEY JOURNAL OFSOCIOLOGY

circumstances.It goes without aying hat his s not the onlywaytoground n ethic.) ...]

Wheredoes this significance ou attribute o the autonomy f thescientific ield ie precisely nd how does it relate oyour nalysis fthe ocial world?

Therewouldbe too much o say on this. will imply tate, n arather oarse and hasty manner, hat autonomy s the condition fscientificity,ut more mportantlyhat ne does not find reedom lone.Just s one is not n artist

lone,but

byparticipatingn the rtistic

ield,likewise e can say that t is the scientific ieldwhichmakes cientificfreedom ossible hrough tsvery unctioning.15

In other words, f there s a freedom f the ntellectual, t is not theindividual reedom f a Cartesian cogito but a freedom chievedcollectivelyhrough hehistorically ated nd situated onstruction fa spaceof regulated iscussion nd critique.

This s something hat ntellectuals ery eldom ecognize, hoaretypicallynclined o think n singular ashion nd who expect alvation

from ndividualiberation,n the ogic f wisdom nd nitiatoryonquest.Intellectualsoooften orget hat here s a politics f ntellectualreedom.On the basis of everything have said, one can clearly ee that anemancipatorycience s possible nly f he ocial nd political onditionsthat make t possible re gathered: his equires, or nstance, oput anend to the effects f domination hich istort cientific ompetition ypreventing eoplewhowant o enter nto he game odo so-by turningdownmeritoriouspplications orfellowshipsr bycutting ff esearchfunds this s the morebrutal orm f censorship ut we must ot forgetthat t is exercised n a daily asis).There are softer ormulas,uchas

censorshiphroughcademic

roprietybiensance]:y bligingomebody

who has a lot to contribute oexpend considerable ortion f his orher ime o provide hefull roof, ccording o the positivisticanons fthe ime, f each andevery ne of her propositions,ne canprevent erfrom roducing great many ewpropositions hosefull alidationhecould eave to others. As I showed n Homo Academicus,t is mainlythrough he ontrol f time hat cademic ower s exercised Bourdieu,1988a, p.90-105).

This problem rises n a particularly cute manner n the case ofsociology ecausesociologys a field where political orces an exert

15. For Bourdieu, the scientific ield s both a field ike all others and a unique spaceof struggles n that t is capable of yielding roducts true knowledge) that transcend theirhistorical onditions of production. This "peculiarity f the history f scientific eason" isdiscussed in Bourdieu (1981c, 1989e, 1989f).


18/30


themselvesmore strongly: y some of its properties, he sociologicalfieldfollows he logic of the scientific ield,but by others t follows he logicof the political field Bourdieu 1980b, 1989d). It follows that the claimfor autonomy nd the conquest of the political conditions that make itpossibleare absolute prerequisites or ndividual utonomization nd evenfor the appropriation f instruments f individual utonomization.

To put it differently, ne does not win one's scientific alvation orone's ethical salvation alone. This is a point that separates me fromHabermas, beyond many convergences. Very quickly, at the risk of

sounding quite simplistic, would say that we must not forget hat theuniversal subject is a historical achievement and that it is throughhistorical truggles n historical paces of forces that we progress owarda little more universality Bourdieu and Schwibs1985].)It is on conditionthat we engage in the struggle for reason and that we engage it inhistory-that e practice what I called a Realpolitik f reason (Bourdieu1987c)~for instance hrough nterventions o reform he university ystemor through actions aimed at defending the possibility f publishingavant-garde books, by means of a demonstration gainst the exclusionof assistant professors on political grounds or by fighting he use ofpseudo-scientific rguments n issues of racism, tc., that we can pushreason forward.16

Let us pursue this issue of the relations between cientific ociology ndpolitical progress. Some critics will object that this reflexive eturn, hisreflection n the intellectual world and on the possibilities it offers ormore universality, uns the risk of becoming an end in itself. s theanalysis of Homo Acadmicas, then, self-contained roject or is it, asyou ust suggested, he means of a more rigorous science of the socialcapable of producing stronger political effects because it is morerigorous?

Such an analysishas two kinds of effects, he one scientific nd theother political, cientific ffects n turn generating olitical effects. Just

16.AmongBourdieus recent oliticalnterventions,he following ear mentioning.After rafting he "Report f the Collgede France n the Future f Education" hatinformed itterrand's 988 presidential latform n education,Bourdieu s currentlyheading cabinet-leveldvisory Committeen the Reform f the Contents f Education"chargedwith pearheadinghe ong-term chool eform hat s the pet project f Rocard'ssocialist overnment. e is alsoon the boardof Channel , a publicly-owned,uropean,cultural elevision hannel n the making; e will be the editor-in-chief f Liber, aninternationalntellectualournal cheduled o appear s a supplement omajornewspapersin France, taly, reat Britain, nd^Germanyater hisyear nd designed o facilitate heformation f a European "collectiventellectual"apableof acting s a countervailingpower.Overtheyears, ourdieu as also been nvolved ith he ocialist-led jFDTunionand active n anti-racism truggles ith he group SOS-Racisme.For a sampleof hisstances nd thinking n the role of sociologyn politics nd current ssues, ee Bourdieu(1985b,1986c,1987e,1988f) nd Bourdieu, asanova nd Simon 1975).


19/30


as I said earlier regarding ndividual gents that unconsciousnessscomplicit ith determinism,ikewise would argue that the collectiveunconsciousnessf ntellectualss the pecific orm hat he omplicityfintellectuals ith he dominant ociopoliticalorces akes. believe hatthe blindness f intellectuals o the social forces which rule theintellectual ield, nd therefore heirpractices, s what explains hat,collectively,ften nder ery adical irs, he ntelligentsialmost lwayscontribute o the perpetuation f dominant orces. am aware hat ucha blunt tatement s very hocking ecause t goes against he mage fthemselves hat intellectuals ave fabricated: hey ike to think f

themselves s liberators, s progressive or at worst as neutral,disengaged,speciallyn the United tates).And t s true hat hey aveoften aken ides with he dominated-for tructural easons, yvirtue ftheir osition s dominated mong hedominant. ut they avebeen somuch ess often han hey ouldhavebeen and especiallymuch ess thanthey elieve.

Is this the reason why you reject the label of "critical sociology"?Youhave always kept aloof from everything hat marches under theself-proclaimed anner of "radical" sociologyor "critical" heory?

You are absolutely ight I can even aythat ne of my irst eflexesas a young ociologist as to constitute yselfgainst certain mage fthe Frankfurt chool as a sort of "spiritualistoint d'honneur," o useMarx's expression, hat some bourgeois ntellectuals ike to availthemselves f). I think hat it is the ignorance f the collectivemechanismsf political ndethical ubordination,nd the overestimationof the freedom f intellectuals,hathas too often ed the most incereintellectualsuch s Sartre-who oesnot at all belong n this ategoryin my stimation-to emain omplicit ith he forces hey hought heywerefighting,nd this n spite f the fforts nvestedn trying oescapethe shackles f intellectual eterminism. ecause

they ngagen forms

of struggle hat re unrealistic, aive, adolescent."

Part of the difficulty ere s that, mong he risks hat ne musttake to defend positions ike mine, there s that of disappointingadolescentsin the ociological,ot he biological,enseof the erm, hatis, n particular ounger cholars nd graduate tudents). ll ntellectualsdream f being he "corrupters f youth," n all meanings f the word.Granted, t is disappointing o tell adolescents hat their ubversiveintentions re adolescent,mmature, hat s,oneiric, topian, nrealistic.There s a whole ange f such trategies f subversionhat re n effect

strategies f displacement.The specific harisaism f intellectuals-hiswasremarked ong go, but think hat my ookenablesus to grasp tsprinciple-consistsf being the more revolutionary, he more distant,geographicallynd historically,he ssues t stake.)One of the goalsofmywork s to show hat he principle f all these malpractices,f all this


20/30


double talk and doubleseux, resides n bad faith n one's relation oone's insertion n the ntellectual ield.

It follows rom his that he reflexive ociology ou practice ims, notat effecting narcissistic eturn pon the individual erson of thescientist, ut at uncovering hat her vision f the objectowes to whatis a specific nterest f the ntellectual.

Intellectualsre particularlynventive hen t comes o masking heirinterests. or nstance, fter 68,therewasa kind f topos n the French

intellectual ilieu which onsisted n asking: But from where re youspeaking?From what place am I speaking?" his false, narcissisticconfession, aguelynspired ypsychoanalysis,erved s a screen, n theFreudian ense of the word, nd blocked genuine lucidation, hat s,the discovery f the social location f the locutor: n this case, theposition n the university ierarchy.

I first laborated he notion f field n the case of the ntellectualand artistic orld nd this s no happenstanceBourdieu, 971a,1971b,1971c). In this egard, omoAcademicuss both a culmination nd areturn o the point of departure.) This notion was deliberatelyconstructed odestroy ntellectual arcissismnd this articularly iciouslegerdemain escamotage] f objectivation hich consists f makingobjectivationsither ingular, nd here psychoanalysisomes n handy, rso broad that he ndividual nder onsideration ecomes he token fa category o large that his or her responsibilityanishes ntirely. oproclaim I am a bourgeoisntellectual, am a slimy at!1*s devoid f anymeaning. ut to say"I am an assistant-professort Grenoble nd I amspeaking o a Parisian rofessor"s to force neself o ask whether t isnot he relation etween hese wopositions hat s speaking hrough ymouth.Now, this s much more painful ecause t touches upon vital

things, nd this s where he notion f nterest ecomes xtremely seful:it serves o show hat here re specific rofits n being n intellectual.

There s a libido cadmicawhich s this ype f very pecific esireor impulsewhich rises out of the relation etween certain abitus,sociallyonstituted-we now hat he hildren f professors, or nstance,have, verythinglse held qual, greater ropensity o ibido cadmicathan the children f businessmen ho, often, will find uch stakesgrotesque-and fieldwhich ffers pecific rofits. he relation etweena specific abitus nd a specific ield roduces specific ibido, libidoacadmica,which an, under ertain onditions, ublimate tself nto alibido cientificaapable n addition f producingcience. It is clear hatthe notion f nterest shere means f contest hat llows ne to effect


21/30


a breakwith he professionaldeology f ntellectuals s "unattachednddisinterested" hich s inseparablypistemologicalnd social.)17

In the nd, lthough ou use the ameexpression, eflexiveociologysyouconceivet (e.g.,Bourdieu 982 and 1987a), s quitedifferent romthe kind of reflexivity dvocated by Gouldner or claimed byethnomethodologists.

I believe hat t is somewhat heopposite nasmuch s it s, first fall, a paradoxical eflexivity ecause fundamentally nti-narcissistic.

Psychoanalyticeflexivitys better olerated nd received ecause, f themechanismst makes us discover re universal, hey re also tied to auniquehistory: herelation o the father salways relation o a singularfather n a singular istory. hat makes or he absence f charm, hepainfulness ven,of sociologicaleflexivitys that t makes us discoverthings hat regeneric, hings hat re shared, anal, ommonplace. ow,in the table of intellectual alues, there s nothingworse than thecommon nd the average.This explainsmuch of the resistance hatsociology, nd in particular non-narcissistic eflexive ociology,encounters mong ntellectuals.

Under his ngle,my ontribution esidesn uncoveringhefact hatintellectual roductions re related, not to the social position f theproducer efined n the broadest erms, ut to the ocation he or sheoccupies n the objective tructure f the intellectual niverse. heintellectual ield rovides crucialmediation:xternal actors nd forcesactupon tsparticipantsnly hroughts pecific tructure. his s alreadya considerable dvanceand we could stop here. There is, however,something ven more mportant hat discovered n my nthropologicalfieldwork:he fact hat here re fallacies, lunders, hat re associatedwith he position f thinker, hatgo with he posture f the "thinkingman"

hommeepense]

whoretires rom ction n order o think tseeBourdieu 977,1986a, nd 1980a,BookI).

A sort of intellectualist ias that inheres n the scientific roject,inscribed ithin he "scientific ye" tself, nd which herefore annotsee itself?

Exactly. here s an intellectualist ias inherent n the position fthe ocial cientist hoobserves rom he outside universe nwhich eor she is not mmediatelynvolved.t is this ntellectualiste elation othe world,which eplaces hepractical elation o practice hat gents

17.Bourdieu's sageof the notion f nterest nd tsdifference rom tilitarianocialtheory s discussed n Bourdieu 1988b)and in The Interest f the ociologist"Bourdieu1987a: 24-131).


22/30


have with that between the observer and his object, that must beobjectivized. This is one of the things hat separate me from Garfinkeland ethnomethodology. grant hat there s a primary xperience of thesocial which, as Husserl and Schutz showed, rests on a relation ofimmediate belief n the facticity f the world that makes one take it forgranted, and so on. This analysis s excellent as far as description sconcerned, but we must go beyond t and raise the issue of the conditionsof possibility f this doxic experience. We must recognize that thecoincidence between objective tructures nd embodied structures hichcreates the illusion f immediate nderstanding s a particular ase of therelation to the

world, namelythe native relation. The

greatvirtue of

ethnological xperience s that t makes one immediately ware that suchconditions re not universally ulfilled, s phenomenologywould have usbelieve by universalizing eflection ased on the particular ase of theindigenous relation to one's own society.

But this s not all: ethnomethodologys a depoliticized orm f analysisof conformismo e need thoroughly o sociologizethe phenomenologicalanalysis f doxa as the uncontested cceptance of the daily ifeworld, otsimply o establish that it is not universally alid for all perceiving ndacting ubjects, but also to discover hat, when it realizes itself n certainsocial positions, mong the dominated for nstance, t represents he mostradical form f acceptance of the world, f conservatism. his relation ofpre-reflexive cceptance of the world grounded n a fundamental eliefin the immediacy f the structures f the Lebenswelt represents theabsolute, ultimate form of conservative conformism it lies beloworthodoxy, hat is, the "right belief," which presupposes at least anawareness of a "wrong belief," croyancegauche). There is no way ofadhering o the established rder that s more undivided, more completethan this nfra-political elation of doxic evidence; there s no fuller wayof finding natural conditions of existence that would be revolting for

somebodyocializedunder other conditions nd who does not

graspthem

through ategories of perception ssued out of this world.18This aloneexplains a good number of misunderstandings etween intellectuals ndworkers, where proletarians will take for granted and find acceptable,even "natural," conditions of oppression and exploitation that aresickening to those "on the outside"--which oes not exclude practicalforms f resistance nd the possibility f a revolt gainst them Bourdieu1980c).

18. The two-way elation of conditioning n the one hand, of structuring n theother) etween positionn a social pace nd the ategories f perception hat ome withit, nd which end to mirror ts structure, s captured y Bourdieuwith he concept f"point f view s a view akenfrom point" see Bourdieu1988d,1989c nd 1988c, n"Flaubert's oint f View").


23/30


What eparates ou from thnomethodologyn this ount s that wherethey alkof generic xperience f doxa,you rgue hat here re daxakthere s not single oxa but various orms f doxic xperience,pecificto different ields nd regions f socialspace,each of which with tsdefinite istorical onditions f possibility nd efficacy.

Yes and, more generally, argue that doxa is political. he doxicrelation o the world s not an individual elation o the world.As soonas we recall ts ocial onditions f possibility, e remind urselves hat,first here re different anners f being nd ivingn this elation, nd,

secondly, hatwhat omes with narrowly henomenologicalnalysissthe neglect f the historical nderpinnings f this relation nd of itspoliticalmport, hat s,depoliticization.

For a Sociological topianism

If understand ou orrectly, hen, cience s still the best tool for hecritique f domination. ou are very much n line with he modernproject of the Aufklrung hen you present ociology,when it isscientific, s an inherently olitically rogressive orce. ut sn't therea paradoxhere n the fact that, on the one hand, you increase hepossibility f a space of freedom, f a liberating wakening fconsciousness hich ringswithin ational eachhistorical ossibilitieshitherto xcluded y symbolic omination nd by the misrecognitionimplied n the doxic understanding f the social world,while, n theother hand, you simultaneously ffect radical disenchanting hatmakes his ocial world n which we must ontinue ostruggle lmostunlivable? here s a strong ension, erhaps, contradiction, etweenthis will to provide nstruments or increasing onsciousness ndfreedom nd the demobilizationhat n overly cute consciousness fthe

pervasivenessf social determinisms hreatens o

produce.Reflexivenalysis s I conceive f t serves wo mportant urposes.

The first sa scientific unction: eflexivitys not n end n tself nd, nthis count, must disassociatemyself ompletely rom he forms f"reflexivity"hat have recently ecomepopular n the United States,especiallyn anthropologyviz.the books by Marcus nd Fisher 1986]or by Rosaldo[1989])and in the sociology f science Latour andWoolgar 983,Latour 1988),and that ulminate n a sort of relativistnihilism. n Homo Academicus, use the instruments rovided yreflexivityocontrol hebiases ntroduced yun-reflexivitynd to make

headwayn the knowledgef the mechanismshat an altermy eflection.Reflexivitys a tool toproducemore cience, ot ess.

Secondly, y helping heprogress f science nd thus hegrowth fknowledge bout the social world, eflexivity akespossible more


24/30

INTERVIEWWITHBOURDIEU 23

responsible olitics,both inside and outside of academia. Bachelard wrotethat "there is no science but of that which is hidden." This effect ofunveiling arries an unintended ritique that will be all the stronger hemore powerful science is and the more thoroughly mechanisms ofoccultation nd misrecognition re neutralized.19

Thus reflexivity s not at all a form of "art for art's sake." Itsend-goal s not to contemplate my private backyard; t is to find ut whatis in my backyard n order to look at what lies behind its fence. But aslong as I do not know what goes on in my backyard, cannot see

anything; do nothing ut project my blindness.A rigorous ociology anhelp free ntellectuals rom heir llusions-and first f all from he llusionthat they do not have any, especially bout themselves-and can have atleast the negative virtue of making t more difficult or them to bringpassiveand unconscious ontribution osymbolic omination. The rathernaive idea which some American radicals have objected to me, whichconsists in invoking "true political struggles," s here an alibi in theetymological ense of the term: displace my gaze elsewhere~alibi~inorder not to have to look in my backyard.)

You remind me here of Durkheim's phorism 1921:267)which ays thatsociology "increases the range of our action by the mere fact that itincreases the range of our science." But I must come back to myquestion: doesn't the disillusionment eflexivity roduces also carry therisk of condemning us to this "passively conservative attitude1* romwhich the founder of the Anne sociologiquewas already defendinghimself?20

There is a first evel of answer to this question which is thefollowing: f the risk is only to disenchant and undermine adolescentrebellion, which oftentimes oes not last beyond ntellectual dolescence,then it is not that

greatof a loss.

This is your anti-prophetic ide,21 nd perhaps one of the things thatdistinguishes your work from hat of Foucault

19."If there s no science utof that which s hidden'," rite ourdieu nd Passeron(1977,Foreword), oneunderstands hat ociologys on the ide of historical orces hich,at every poch, ompel he truth f relations f power o unveil hemselves,f only byforcing hem o veilthemselves ver more."

20. The Durkheim uotation 1921,p.267) begins hus: Sociologyn no way mposesupon man a passivelyonservativettitude. n the contrary.11

21. "If, as Bachelard ays, every hemistmust fight he alchemist within', verysociologistmust fight he socialprophet within hat his public sks him to incarnate"(Bourdieu t al. 1973,p. 42).


25/30


There is, it is true, a side of Foucault's work which theorizes therevolt of the adolescent in trouble with his family and with theinstitutions hat relay family pedagogy and impose "disciplines" ndregulations that is, the school, the clinic, the asylum, he hospital, ndso on). The notion of discipline s used by Foucault is a rather oarseone: it refers to forms of social constraint hat are very external andadolescent revolts epresent ymbolic ngations, Utopian responses togeneral social constraints hat allow one to avoid carrying ut a fullanalysis f the specific historical orms, nd especiallyof the differentialforms, ssumed by the constraints hat bear on adolescents of different

milieux, nd also of forms f social constraint more subtle than those thatoperate through he drilling dressage] f the bodies.22

Naturally, t is not pleasurable to disenchant dolescents, speciallysince there are quite sincere and profound hings n adolescent revolts:an inclination o go against the established order, against the hypocrisyof submissive dults, gainst the academicdoxa which makes for the factthat here re people who can sayvery evolutionary hingswith heir ipswhile their yes say very onservative hings.There is a whole range ofthings hat adolescents grasp very well because they have not yet ost alltheir llusions; hey re not disenchanted, ynical, heyhave not done thekind of about-face hat most of the people of my generation, t least inFrance, have made. Adolescents can feel such things nd they how noindulgence for them.

I believe that sociologydoes exert a disenchanting ffect but this,in my view, marks progress owardsof form f scientific nd politicalrealism hat s the absolute antithesis f naive utopianism. While t s truethat a certain kind of sociology, and perhaps particularly he one Ipractice, an encourage sociologism s submission o the inexorable awsof society and this even though ts intention s exactly he opposite), Ithink that Marx's alternative between

utopianismand

sociologismis

somewhat misleading here: there is room, between sociologistsresignation nd Utopianvoluntarism, orwhat I would call a sociologicalutopianism, hat s, a rational and politically onscious use of the limitsof freedom fforded y a true knowledge f social laws and especially ftheir historical onditions f validity.23 he political askof social science

22.Bourdieu efers ere o Foucault's 1977)analysis f the training"f the body nDisciplinend Punish.

23."A social aw s a historical awthat perpetuates tself nly s long s we let toperate, hat s, s long s thosewhom t erves sometimes nbeknownst othem) re ina position o perpetuate heconditions f its efficacy. . One can claim o posit ternallaws, s conservativeociologistso about the o-called endencyf power oconcentrateitself. n reality, ciencemust know hat t doesnothing ore han ecord, n the form ftendential aws, he ogicwhich haracterizes certain ame, t a certain moment n time,andwhich unctions n favor f those whodominate he game nd have the means o set


26/30


is to stand up both against irresponsible voluntarism and fatalisticscientism, o contribute o defining rational utopianism by using theknowledge of the probable to make the possible come true. Such asociological, .e., realistic, topianism s very unlikely mong intellectuals.First because it looks petty bourgeois, t does not look radical enough.Extremes re always more chic and the aesthetic dimension of politicalconduct matters lot to intellectuals.

This argument s also a way of disavowing n image of politics that isvery dear to intellectuals, hat is, the idea of a rational zoon politicnwho constitutes him- or herself

throughthe exercise of free will and

through political self-proclamation.

I would not quite put it that way. Rather, argue that this projectitself s an historical project. Those who take up this position shouldknow that they re the historical eirs of a long line of men and womenwho have been placed in historical onditions uch that they had anopportunity o help freedom dvance a little. They must first ome togripswith he fact hat, o carry hisproject forward, here must be chairsof philosophy r departments f sociology which mplies pecific formsof alienation), that philosophy or social science as official disciplines,sanctioned by the state, ought to have been invented. n order for theintellectual s an efficacious myth o exist,who feels compelled to speakup on apartheid n South Africa, repression n Chile and Romania orgender inequality at home, it took the Paris Commune, it took theDreyfus rial, t took Zola and many thers see Pinto, 1984).Institutionsof freedom, uch as social security, re social conquests (Bourdieu andSchwibs, 1985).

To conclude, isn't Homo Acadmicas a manner of sociologicalbiography? You write n the preface to the English translation that thebook

"comprisesa considerable

proportionf

self-analysisby proxy"?

I would rather say that it is an anti-biography, nsofar as anautobiography s oftentimes manner of erecting oneself a mausoleumwhich s also a cenotaph. This book is both an attempt o test the outerboundaries of reflexivity n social science and an enterprise inself-knowledge. could sum this up by saying omething uite banal butlittle remarked: the most intimate truth of what we are, the mostunthinkable nthought impens], s inscribed n the objectivity, nd in the

the rules f the game n fact nd in law. As soon as a law s stated, t can become thestake f struggles...Thencovering f tendential aws s the ondition f success f actionsaimed t proving hemwrong... ust s it denaturalizes' t, ociologyde-fatalizes'he ocialworld... rue political ction onsists f using heknowledge f the probable o increasethe ikelihood f the possible"Bourdieu 1980b:6).


27/30


history, f the social positions hat we have held in the past and that wepresently ccupy.24

24. Bourdieu 1980a:40-41)oncludes he ong, ocio-analyticreface hat pensTheLogicofPractice ith hosewords:HBy orcing s to discover xternality ithin nternality,banality ehind he llusion f rarity, hecommon n the earch for heunique, ociologyhas not only he effect f denouncing ll the impostures f narcissistic gotism; t alsooffers means, erhaps heonly ne, to contribute, f only hrough heconsciousnessfdeterminations,o the construction, therwise bandoned o the forces f the world, fsomethingike subject." ee also Bourdieu's 1987g)"The Biographicalllusion."

References

Berelson, ernard nd G.A. Steiner1964 HumanBehavior. ew York: Harcourt race Jovanovitch.

Bourdieu, ierre1971a "Champ u pouvoir, hamp ntellectuel t habitus e classe." colies 1: 7-26.

1971b "Gense t structure u champ eligieux."evue ranaise e sociologie 2-3:

294-334.1971c. [1966]"Intellectual ield nd Creative roject." p. 161-188n MichaelF.D.

Young ed.). Knowledgend Control London:Collicr-Macmillan.

1974 "Avenir e classe et causalit u probable." evue ranaise e sociologie 5-1 (January-March): -42.

1977 Outline fA Theory f Practice. ambridge: ambridge niversity ress.

1979 Algeria 960. Cambridge: ambridge niversity ress.

1980a Le senspratique. aris:Editions e Minuit. Forthcoming n English s The

Logic of Practice. xford, olity ress, nd Stanford niversity ress, 1989).1980b Questions e sociologie. aris:Editions e Minuit.

1980c "Le mort aisit e vif. es relations ntre 'histoire ncorpore t l'histoirerifie." ctes e la recherche n sciences ociales32-33:3-14.

1981a "Lareprsentation olitique. lments our une thorie u champpolitique." ctesde la recherche n sciences ociales 37: 3-24.

1981b "Men and Machines." p. 304-317 n Karen Knorr-Cetina nd Aaron V.Cicourel. dvances n Social Theory nd Methodology:oward n Integrationof Micro- nd Macro-Sociologies.ondon nd Boston:Routledge nd Kegan

Paul.1981c [1975]"TheSpecificityf the Scientific ieldand the Social Conditions f

the Progress f Reason." Pp. 257-292n CharlesC. Lemert ed.).FrenchSociology: upture nd Renewal ince 1968. New York: ColumbiaUniversityPress.

1982 Leonsur a leon. Paris:Editions e Minuit. Forthcoming n English s theconcluding hapter f n OtherWords).


28/30


1983a The Philosophicalstablishment."p. 1-8 n Alan Montefiore ed.).Philosophyn France Today.Cambridge: ambridge niversity ress.

1983b The Field of Cultural roduction, r the Economic World Reversed."Poetics12(November): 11-356.

1984 [1979]Distinction: SocialCritique f theJudgement f Taste.Cambridge,Mass: HarvardUniversity ress.London:Routledge nd KeganPaul.

1985a The Genesis f the concepts f Habitus' nd Field'." ociocriticism-2:11-24.

1985b "Les intellectuelst les pouvoirs." p. 93-94 n Michel oucault,Unehistoirede la vrit. aris: Syros.

1986a [1985]"FromRules to Strategies." ultural nthropology (February):110-120.

1986b "Habitus, ode et codification." ctesde la recherche n sciences ociales64:40-44.

1986c "Lascience t l'actualit." ctesde la recherche n sciences ociales61: 2-3.

1987a Chosesdites. aris:Editions e Minuit. Forthcoming n English s In OtherWords: ssaysToward Reflexiveociology, xford, olity ress, ndStanford, tanford niversity ress.)

1987b [1975]The Invention f the Artist's ife." Yale French tudies 3: 75-103.

1987c "Fr eine Realpolitik er Vernunft." p. 229-234 n S. MuUer-Rollied.).DasBildungswesenerZukunft. tuttgart: rnst Klett.

1987d [1986]The Force of Law: Toward Sociologyf the Juridical ield."Hastings ournal f Law38: 201-248.

1987e [1971]"Legitimationnd Structured nterests n Weber's ociology fReligion." p. 119-136 n Sam Whimster nd Scott Lash(ed.).MaxWeber,Rationality,nd Modernity. ondon:Allen nd Unwin.

1987f "Revolt f the Spirit." ew Socialist 6 (February): -11.

1987g [1986]The Biographicalllusion."Working apers nd Proceedingsf theCenter orPsychosocial tudies.No.8.Chicago:Center orPsychosocialStudies.

1988a [1984]Homo Academicus. ambridge: olity ress. tanford: tanfordUniversity ress.

1988b "On Interest nd the Relative Autonomy f Symbolic ower."WorkingPapers nd Proceedingsf theCenter orPsychosocial tudies.No. 20.Chicago:Center or Psychosocialtudies.

1988c "Flaubert's oint f View."Critical nquiry 4 Spring): 39-562.

1988d "Vive a crise! For Heterodoxyn Social Science." heory nd Society 7-5(September): 73-787.


29/30


1988e "La vertu ivile.11e Monde September 6): 1-2.1989a La Noblesse 'Etat Grandes coleset esprit e corps.Paris:Editions e

Minuit.

1989b The Historical enesis f a Pure Aesthetics." n Richard chusterman ed.).Analytic esthetics. ondon:BasilBlackwell.

1989c "Social paceand Symbolic ower." ociological heory -1 June): 18-26.

1989d "On the Possibilityf a Field of World ociology." eynote ddress o theRussell age Conference n "SocialTheory n a Changing ociety." heUniversityf Chicago,April forthcoming n the conference roceedings).

1989e "The PeculiarHistory f Scientific eason." ociological orum -1 Winter:forthcoming.

1989f "Animadversionesn Mertonem." n The Sociology f Science f RobenK.Merton forthcoming estschrift).

Bourdieu, ierre, ean-Claude hamboredon nd Jean-Claude asseron1973 Le mtier e sociologue. ralables pistmologiques.nd edition. aris nd

the Hague:Mouton.

1977 [1970]Reproductionn Education, ociety nd Culture. ondon: age.

Bourdieu, ierre, . Casanova nd M. Simon1975 "Les intellectuels ans e champde la lutte es classes." a nouvelle ritique87 (October): 0-26.

Bourdieu, ierre nd Moniquede Saint Martin1978 "Le patronat." ctesde la recherche n sciences ociales20/21: -82.

1982 "La sainte amille. 'piscopat ranais ans le champdu pouvoir." ctesdela recherche n sciences ociales44/45: -53.

Bourdieu, ierre nd Bernd chwibs1985 "Vernunft st eine historische rrungenschaft, ie die Sozialversicherung."

NeueSammlung : 376-394.

Durkheim, mile1921 De la mthode ans es sciences ociales.Paris:Librairie . Alean.

Elster, on1984 SourGrapes.Cambridge: ambridge niversity ress.

Foucault,Michel1977 [1975]Disciplinend Punish. New York: Pantheon.

Giroux, enri1982 "Power nd Resistancen the New Sociologyf Education: eyond heories

of Social nd Cultural eproduction." urriculum erspectives-3: 1-13.

Gorder, .L.1980 "UnderstandingchoolKnowledge: Critical ppraisal f Basil Bernstein

and Pierre ourdieu." ducational heory 0-4: 335-346.


30/30


Hirschman, lbert .1977 The Passions nd the nterests: olitical rgumentsn Favorof CapitalismBefore ts Triumph. rinceton: rinceton niversity ress.

Honneth, xel, HermannKocyba nd Bernd chwibs1986 The Struggle or ymbolic rder An Interview ith ierre Bourdieu."

Theory, ulture, nd Society -3:35-51.

Hughes,H. Stuart1988 Sophisticated ebels:The Political ulture f European issent, 968-1987.

Cambridge: arvard University ress.

Jenkins, ichard1982 "Pierre ourdieu nd the Reproduction f Determinism." ociology 6-2

(May):270-281.

Latour, Bruno1987 Science nAction.Cambridge, ass:HarvardUniversity ress.

Latour, Bruno nd Steve Woolgar1983 Laboratory ife: TheSocial Constructionf Scientific acts. Beverly ills:

Sage.

Marcus,GeorgeE. and MichaelMJ. Fisher1986 Anthropologys Cultural ritique. hicago:University f ChicagoPress.

Pinto, ouis1984 "Lavocation e l'universel. a formation e la reprsentation e l'intellectuelvers 1900."Actesde la recherche n sciences ociales 55: 23-32.

Rosaldo,Renato1989 Culture nd Truth: he Remaking f SocialAnalysis. oston: BeaconPress.

Tiles,Mary1984 Bachelard, cience, nd Objectivity.ambridge: ambridge niversity ress.

Wacquant, oc J.D.1989 "Toward Reflexive ociology: Workshop ith ierre Bourdieu."

Sociological heory -1 Spring): 6-63.

BOURDIEUWACQUANT-FORSOCIOANALYSISINTELLECTUALS

Documents

Transcript of BOURDIEUWACQUANT-FORSOCIOANALYSISINTELLECTUALS