Pierre Bourdieu
A new look at the social world
-Emmanuel Thevonon, Journalist, France
From Kabyle rituals to the educational
system, from research institutions to marriage, from criteria of taste to male domination,
from senior civil servants to language, from Pascal to television… Everything seemed
to fascinate Pierre Bourdieu. In fact the sole aim of this extremely diverse range of
subjects, according to the philosopher Roger-Pol Droit, was an attempt to answer man's
perennial questions: " Who an I? What are we? What do I know?
However, unlike the philosophers, Pierre did
not appeal to subjective introspection in order to tackle these fundamental questions
about identity. He, on the contrary, took soundings "of the external of details, both
visible and hidden, of social functioning" according to a major role to symbolic
structures-- education, culture, literature, art, media, politics, etc.
Roger Pol Droit continues with an example:
"'You believe you are a born artist, do you marvel at your gifts? More to the point
is to give your date and place of birth, your parent's occupations and details of your
education. These mundane details will almost certainly tell you more about your implied
talents than your own feelings will."
A conditioned freedom: By revealing this
hidden mechanism "Sociology" stressed Pierre Bourdieu, 'enables each individual
to better understand who he or she is by giving them an understanding of his or her own
social conditions of production and the position he or she occupies in the society".
Is sociology a lever for action?
Pierre Bourdieu was born in 1930, into a
modest family in Bearn, south-west France. A philosopher by training, he produced several
works on ethnology about Algeria before embarking on a career as a sociologist, which was
to bring him every honor (College de France, CNRS-Gold Medal, etc.)
Puierre Bourdieu built up an original,
difficult, body of work which mixes theoretical thinking with an impressive variety of
investigative tools (statistics, interviews, ethnographic observations, historical
material, etc).
Combining the contributions only of Karl
Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, but also those of Marcel Mauss, Ernst Cassirer, Ludwig
Wittgenstein, Edmund Huasserl and Claude Levi-Strauss, the sociologist forged his own
concepts, with the objects of moving beyond most of the classical antinomies of sociology:
structure/history, free will/determinism, individual/society,
subjectivisim/objectivism… Since it is difficult, not to say impossible, to describe
Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical contributions in a few words, we shall content ourselves
with giving a very vague idea of it through three central notions of his work: habitus,
the field and cultural capital.
For Jean-Francois Dortier, writing in the
special issue of the French journal Sciences humaines devoted to the late sociologist,
habitus "is primarily the product of a learning process which has become unconscious,
which then becomes an apparently natural ability to move freely in a given milieu. The
musician can improvise freely on the piano only after long practice of the scales and
having learned the rules of composition and harmony."
We become aware of the existence of habitus
when plunged into an environment other than our own, whose rules of play are unfamiliar.
This partitioning in part explains why marriage, for example, while no longer arranged as
it was in the last century, is still not the result of a totally free choice: the social
distribution of tastes resulting from habitus means that we are more likely to mix with
people with the same aesthetic, sporting or culinary preferences.
Yet, contrary to what one may think, it is
possible to account for taste, it is possible to account for taste. In La Distinction,
critique sociable du judgement (1979) [Distinction, A Social Critique of the Judgement of
Taste] Pierre Bourdieu showed that aesthetic choices are very dependent on our social
origin, whose norms we have profoundly internalized, and the place we occupy in the
hierarchy of the social arena. A masterly illustration of this position is Agnes Jaoui's
film Le Gout des autres (2000), which presents the problems encountered by the head of a
small provincial business in trying to be accepted into the local artistic set, so far
from the world of his roots.
Each individual, conditioned by his or her
habitus, moves in one or more "fields", from that of haute couture or of estate
agents to the larger fields of the economy, politics, literature, etc. each field is a
small part of the social world, a world of connnivances, which operates in a more or less
autonomous manner, with its own laws. This is why anyone wishing to enter a particular
world (political, artistic, intellectual, etc.) has to master its internal codes and
rules.
This is also a field of opposing forces, an
area of domination and conflicts between individuals, between clans, in which each seeks
to win positions. As in a game of chess, the positions and values of each person are worth
nothing in themselves but only in relation to the respective positions of others. The
field may be compared to a game whose rules are not explicitly stated and in which
'players' share, unequally, a number of "advantages" – resources.
Cultural capital:; In a given field the
"cultural capital"( qualifications, acquired knowledge, cultural codes, ways of
speaking, good-manners), the social capital ( relationships, networks of relationships),
the symbolic capital (honor) are resources as useful as financial capital (financial
assets, wealth) in determining and reproducing social positions. The unequal distribution
of capital resources explains the different 'strategies' of the group's members, their
ways of excluding and honoring each other.
Pierre Bourdieu's researches into social
facts have profoundly changed the way we see some institutions:; museums, television,
science and above all, education. In Les Heritiers, 1964, and La Reproduction two books
written with Jean-Claude Passeron, he reveals how the academic lottery discards or
excludes children from working class backgrounds, in direct conflict with the belief,
until then widely held, in the equality of opportunity in the Republican schools system.
How too, the affinity of habitus between teaching staff in the 'grandes ecoles' and
children of members of the French Establishment, those most generously endowed with
cultural and social capital, contributes to the reproduction, from generation to
generation, of a new Noblesse d'Etat, State Nobility.
This unveiling of the mechanisms of
domination was not unconcerned to his political commitment in the anti-globalization
movement, in which he was to become a major figure, particularly after his support of the
great strikes of December 1995.
Active partner
The Foreign Policy of German Government
-Reinhard Hesse, Germany
It happened in a plane over the
Atlantic, on October 10, 2001. Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, accompanied by a
number of diplomats and journalists, was returning from a short visit to the United
States. He had completed consultations with President George Bush and in the evening New
York's Mayor Giuliani had taken the delegation to ground Zero, the devastated remains of
the World Trade Center, the site of the attacks of the September 11. In the early hours of
the morning, before the plane landed in Berlin, the Federal Chancellor again addressed the
journalists on board. The deep feelings of shock aroused by the crater landscape at Ground
Zero were still very discernible. Nonetheless, the Chancellor wished to use this
opportunity to explain to the reporters- and probably also partly to himself-what a
"fundamental change"(Schroder) had occurred in world politics; above all,
however, in Germany's role in world politics. One only had to recall foreign policy
parameters, emphasized the Chancellor, that the Red-Green federal government had been
compelled to change and had actually changed in what was then less than three years in
office. "No government before us has had to take such far-reaching decisions in such
a short time," explained the Chancellor. "What is under discussion
today—the participation of German soldiers in military operations outside the NATO
area—would have been totally unthinkable only three years ago."
Certainly, for some time there had been some
indications of the major changes which Schroder described with the following words when he
spoke before the Bundestag the next day: Germany "must assume a measure of
responsibility which is in keeping with our role as a key European and Trans-Atlantic
partner, as well as a strong democracy and strong economy in the heart of Europe."
The events of 1989, the fall of Berlin Wall, the reconstitution of a single German state,
the restoration of full sovereignty—all these changes could not but influence German
foreign and security policy. "Only ten years ago would have expected more from
Germany than secondary assistance, that is infrastructure or funds, in the international
efforts to safeguard freedom, justice and stability," summed up the Chancellor, and
reached the following conclusions: "This era of German post-war politics is over once
and for all."
Even if Germany's new and increased
responsibility should not be simply reduced to its military aspects, the participation of
German armed forces in operations to establish and preserve peace and stability is, of
course, the most visible sign of the changed situation: the war in Kosovo against
Yugoslavian dictator Slobodan Milosevic in 1999, the mission in Macedonia one year later,
and in 2001 the fight against terrorism and with the UN protection force in Afghanistan.
These missions have not all been "military assignments" in the narrow sense
– and none of these operations has been detached from political strategies to
maintain or re-establish security and human rights. In the Kosovo conflict, for example,
it was explicitly acknowledged among the Allies that the political initiative that finally
facilitated the termination of military action had essentially been so unthinkable –
especially in places where the German Wehrmacht or SS had wreaked such terrible
devastation during the Second World War – many people primarily associated Germany's
changed role in world politics with these military operations.
"continuity and dependability" had
been the central tenet of the Federal Republic's foreign policy for almost 50 years. It
was meant to make it clear that even changes of government would not shake the fundamental
principles of German diplomacy: solid ties with the West, good neighborly relations with
the East, the eschewal of all claims to the status of a major power, and European
integration. Certainly, there had been course adjustments, even complete changes of
course, that had been highly controversial – above all, at the beginning of the
détente policy initiated by Willy Brandt – but a new consensus had always been
formed that reached out across party divisions. In 1998, a new coalition came to power
that would certainly not rock the foundations of this consensus, but at most carry out
minor shifts in emphasis. The Greens and sections of the SPD had a strong tradition of
support for the peaceful resolution of conflicts and for military disarmament. In Gerhard
Schroder's first statement of government policy in October 1998, these ideas were given a
prominent place, and military action, as "ultimo ratio", a policy of last
resort, was forced back into a remote corner of extreme improbability. And now, some three
years later, the very same Red-Green government has dispatched German soldiers to more
locations that any of its democratic predecessors. Does this really represent continuity?
It is worth examining this development from a
number of different perspectives. On the one hand, Germany's new image and new importance
after the end of the Cold War. The Federal Republic is no longer able to point to its
special status as a divided country but must now meet all the same obligations that have
always been perfectly natural for its alliance partners. The argument that Germany must
demonstrate special restraint in the light of German history now only partially applies:
because the prerequisite any commitment is the realization that freedom, democracy, human
dignity and stability can ultimately only be maintained, if necessary, by military action.
This also involved, in return, a changed
relationship to international participation. If German policy wanted to avoid the renewed
error of a German "special path"—that had twice led to terrible catastrophe
during the twentieth century-then it had to develop a forthright attitude towards
promoting Germany's interests and rights as a equal partner. It was obliged to take
responsibility on the same scale as its alliance partners—in order to be able to
intervene in political decision-making and consultation processes to the same degree.
Thirdly, it was not only Germany's role in
the world that had changed dramatically after the fall of the Wall, but the world itself.
The system of East-West deterrence had been replaced by a large number of regional
conflicts; the disintegration of entire countries in South--East Europe threatened the
security of a whole continent. In addition to this, the growth of "privatized"
power--ranging from organized crime to international terrorism—represented an
entirely new challenge.
However, the federal republic proved to be
particularly well equipped when it came to these new threats. Its long expedience of an
exclusively "civilian" foreign policy and its occasionally precarious
geopolitical situation had long ago led German foreign policy experts—specially also
those of the SPD and the Greens—to develop an "all-encompassing security
concept" that its partners increasingly also came to accept. This broader security
concept also regards drug and human trafficking, epidemics and the destruction of the
environment as dangers that one nation state cannot answer alone. There is a need to
develop an extensive set of preventive instruments that includes not only environmental
and health policy, economic help towards self-help, and international co-operation, but
also active participation in the building of strong civil society and government
institutions in unstable regions. It is in this area that German foreign policy has
accomplished most since 1998. Any-one who has seen the contributions that have been made
towards reconstruction in the Balkans or in Afghanistan and experiences the positive
reactions of local populations is perhaps best able to gauge just how much more stability
non-military initiatives can create.
The fact that Germany has more experience of
this kind of preventive policy and is therefore "ahead" in this field is almost
certainly also linked to the long and successful history of its integration in the
European Union. The Federal Republic realizes the advantages of strong regional
confederations. That is also why a further deepening of European integration continues to
head the priorities list of German foreign policy. At the same time, Germany is and will
continue to be not only an energetic supporter of close partnership with Russia, but also
the champion of the European Union candidate-countries in central and eastern Europe. As
was already the case when it came to the appointment of the EU coordinator for the Balkans
and the Kosovo special representative of the UN, it must have been rather more than a
coincidence that the European Commissioner responsible for EU enlargement is a former
high-ranking politician in Germany's Red-Green government.
The author is a freelance journalist.
Text courtesy Deutschland No. 4/2002. Embassy of Germany in Kathmandu. |
