[lit-ideas] Re: Kinds of autonomy (was Kant: Ethnic Pride, Black Truck Style)

  • From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 10:52:08 +0900

On 8/22/07, Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Torture Field writes:
>
> >>Put more simply, it is because _fields_ are relatively autonomous that
> >>those in dominant positions may impose its necessity on the dominated. <<
>
>
> What I deny is the very notion of "autonomy".  It simply doesn't exist,
> hasn't ever, will never.  That said, "autonomy" is an attractive idea.  It's
> suggests an area of expertise.

"Expertise" is too intellectual, too entangled with the notion that
autonomy is a property of individuals. As Torgeir observes, Bourdieu
treats autonomy neither as a property of individuals nor as property
of acts. Instead he talks about the (always relative) autonomy of
social fields. Here "social field" refers to a zone of life in which
particular rules, distinct at least partially from those of other
social fields, apply.

The easiest way to get a handle on this is to use one of Bourdieu's
own examples, a soccer field. To be part of the game, players must
accept rules specific to the game. The specificity of the rules, in
combination with differences in talent, training, and the accidents of
play make it possible, for example, for someone who has a brilliant
soccer career to be a lousy businessman and of no consequence
whatsoever as an artist or air conditioning specialist.

It is, however, characteristic of complex societies that narrow
fields, like soccer or air conditioning repair, may overlap with or
even wholly embedded in other fields, creating opportunities for
individuals to exchange the cultural capital (including expertise)
acquired in one field into higher status in another, a process in
which many other agents besides the individual in question may also be
involved.

Consider, for example, David Beckham, whose stellar performance as a
soccer player in Europe and marriage to one of the Spice Girls made
him a global fashion icon used, for example, to advertise cell phones
in Japan. Given the relative autonomy of the fields we call art,
politics and law, he is, nonetheless, unlikely to have paintings
appear beside the Picassos or Rothkos at the Philipps collection, be
seen as a viable political candidate, or become a famous trial lawyer
or judge.

Arguably it is in precisely those cases where the rules are most taken
for granted that the individual appears most autonomous. Since neither
Jeeves nor Bertie Wooster aspires to be the other and both accept the
rules that govern their relative status, each appears free to focus on
choices within the spheres available to them. When we foreground their
eccentricities, we tacitly accept the rules of their game, leaving
them blurred in the background. We may even discover, as Bourdieu
does, that the rules only set the stage. They do not determine the
performance or, reverting to the sport metaphor, how the game plays
out.

John



-- 
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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