3. Art Worlds, Fields And Networks: New Ways Of
3.2 Bourdieu’s Field of Cultural Production
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44 art dealers, publishers, critics and the public). The structure of the field includes both the positions occupied by the cultural producers (artists) but even by those people involved in the consecration of art works (publishers, public, critics).
Besides the definitions emphasized how fields are understood as fields of power relations (rapport de forces) between agents. Being agent of the field means investing in the field (he talks about the illusio, namely the investment in the game) and competing for control of resources and interests within the field. In the case of the field of cultural production, competition is aimed at being legitimized and consecrated. The main purpose that guides the actions of agents is to acquire the authority to impose a dominant view for evaluating and understanding social reality within that particular field. Each agent in the field struggles to impose a vision to be recognized, considered and identified by other members.
The struggle taking place has an impact in determining the boundaries of the field which can be more or less porous, and the field of cultural production is the field having more permeable boundaries. The long quotation, which follows, makes clear that Bourdieu is not really aimed at defining the field as a bounded entity with a-priori established boundaries, but rather the boundaries of the field are instead stakes of struggles. In Bourdieu’s position, the field of cultural production is the field where we can better analyze the interconnectedness with other fields. As he states:
The boundary of the field is a stake of struggle, and the social scientist’s task is not to draw a dividing line between agents involved in it by imposing so called operational division, which is most likely to be imposed on him by his own prejudices or presuppositions, but describe a state of these struggles and therefore of the frontier delimiting the territory held by the competing agents. One could examine the characteristics of this boundary, which may or may not be institutionalized, that is to say, protect by conditions of entry that are tacitly and practically required or explicitly codified and legally guaranteed. It would be found that one of the most significant properties of the field of cultural production, explaining its extreme dispersion and the conflicts between rival principles of legitimacy, is the extreme permeability of its frontiers, and consequently, the extreme diversity of the ‘post’ it offer why defy any linear hierarchization. It is clear from comparison that the field of cultural production demands neither as much inherited economic capital as the economic field nor as much educational capital as the university sub-field … however precisely because it represents one of the most indeterminate site in the social structure, which offer ill-defined posts, waiting to be made rather than ready made, and therefore extremely elastic and undermining, and career paths which are themselves full of uncertainty and extremely dispersed, it attracts agents who differ greatly in their properties and dispositions but the most favored of whom are sufficiently secure to be able to disdain a university career and to take on the risks of an occupation which not a job (since it is almost always combined with a private income or a ‘bread-butter’
occupation) (Bourdieu, 1992, p.43).
45 Besides in order to take part in the symbolic struggles of the field, each member can rely upon capitals which are meant as the resource that each member can claim. Bourdieu distinguished upon three types of capitals: the economic capital which is made of the material resources held; the social capital which concerns the relations entertained; and finally the cultural capital which can be objectified (constituted by tangible cultural goods), institutionalized (given by institutional recognition such as the one of University or Art School) and embodied (given by the knowledge and skills acquired) (Bourdieu, 1996, p.47). To these Bourdieu adds the symbolic capital which is formed by the other types of capital and determines the social recognition in the field (Bourdieu, 1989). The possession of specific capitals enables to define the position occupied in the fields to which agents belong. In Bourdieu therefore all relations maintained depends upon the positions people occupy within the field of cultural production and are mediated by the field structure. This means that the objective relations contribute to the subjective representation which agents have of their position in the field. There is a difference in Bourdieu’s theorization between the perception of each agent and the a priori objective relations which go beyond each member’s actions and interactions. Bourdieu makes a distinction between “relations of interaction” and “structural interactions” or “objective relations” which constitute the field.
The polar individuals may never meet, may even ignore each other systematically, to the extent of refusing each other membership of the same class, and yet their practice remains determined by the negative relation which unites them. It could be said that the agents involved in the literary and artistic field may have nothing in common except the fact of taking part in the struggle to impose the legitimate definition of literary and artistic field.” (Bourdieu, 1993, p.46)
For Bourdieu therefore there is a difference between the actual interactions happening between agents in the field, and the objective relations which characterize the structure of the field and which are based upon the different positions, habitus and capitals.
However the agent’s actions and interactions are not only defined by the positions in the field.
The notion of field can’t be reduce to a deterministic structure, since through the notion of habitus, Bourdieu is aimed at reintroducing the importance of the agent within the field.
Bourdieu defines the habitus as a system of perceptions and dispositions which enables to live everyday life situations. The habitus is meant as “a kind of practical sense for what is to be
46 done in a given situation”. (Bourdieu, 1998, p.25). The habitus is described by using the metaphor of the game:
Produced by the experience of the game, and therefore of the objective structures within which it is played out,
‘feel for the game’ is what gives the game a subjective sense … a direction, a orientation … for those who take part and therefore acknowledge what is at stake (Bourdieu, 1990, p.66)
However in using the metaphor of the game, Bourdieu explained how there is a difference between a game and a social field:
In a game, the field is clearly seen for what it is, an arbitrary social construct, an artifact whose arbitrariness and artificiality are underlined … - explicit and specific rules, strictly delimited …Entry into the game takes to form of quasi-contract …
By contrast, in the social fields …one does not embark on the game by conscious act, one is born into the game, with the game: and the relation of investment, illusion, is made more total and unconditional by the fact that it is unaware of what it is (Bourdieu, 1990, pp.67)
This quotation emphasizes the dynamic relationship existing between the structure of the field and the habitus of the agents which enables to explain why, for the author, the habitus is not only made of the personal perceptions but even determined by objective relations existing within the field. The habitus is meant as a structure structuring and structured, namely is both related to objective relations in which agents are immersed and by the personal representations. It’s structure structuring which organizes perceptions and practices, but even structure structured which incorporates objective structures.
Objective structures of reality and the subjective constructions live in a complex relationship, influencing upon each other. Bourdieu’s position varies between emphasizing the importance of objective structures, which are meant as structures existing in the social world and not only in symbolic systems and pointing out that “there is a twofold social genesis, on the one hand of the schemes of perception, thought, and action which are constitutive of what I call habitus, and on the other hand of social structures, and particularly of what I call fields…” (Bourdieu, 1989, p.14)
That’s why the author defines his theoretical approach as ‘constructivist structuralism or structuralist constructivism’.
In this way Bourdieu’s work is made in the attempt to overcome the sociological opposition existing between objectivism and subjectivism, between structures, representations and
47 interactions. As objectivism deduces actions and interactions from structures, subjectivism falls in the risk of reducing structures to interactions (Bourdieu, 1989).
To overcome this opposition, Bourdieu's effort goes in the direction of reconciling the subjective experience of the social world with the objectification of social conditions in which this experience appears. It is exactly in the complex relationships existing between the field and the habitus that Bourdieu tried to overcome this opposition, suggesting that the object of social science stands as a set of practices and social representations arising from the relationship between habitus and field. The relation between objective structures of reality and subjective constructions is to be found within fields.
However, even though Bourdieu tries to overcome the structure-agency dichotomy, his approach has been criticized to fall again into objectivism and determinism. The agents Bourdieu theorizes cannot in fact move freely through the fields; they are tied to their habitus and, their positions are determined by the capitals owned.
For these reasons, even though Bourdieu uses notion of the habitus as a way to overcome the subject-object dualism, many critics (e.g. DiMaggio 1979; King, 2000) have underlined that habitus falls in the objectivism Bourdieu wants to avoid.
Besides Bourdieu’s approach is criticized for its immobility not considering the possibility of looking social change (e.g. King, 2000). That’s again concerned with the theorization of the habitus which doesn’t allow to consider social change, because “if every individual is constrained by his habitus, then the objective conditions will simply be reproduced (by the habitus) and no social change will take place” (King, 2000, p.428). King (2000, 2005) anyway suggests that in some of Bourdieu’s writings we can find reference to the “practical theory” which can be regarded as an attempt to overcome the impasse of objectivism and subjectivism because it recognizes.
That’s part of the complexity of Bourdieu’s theorizations which are sometimes incompatible, oscillating between more objectivist and subjectivist positions.
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