Knowledge in Practice: A Review of Pierre Bourdieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice - Book Report/Review Example

Knowledge in Practice: A Review of Pierre Bourdieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice Submitted by: Submitted of Professor] [Date Submitted] 1.0 Introduction Pierre Bourdieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice is recognized as a major educational material for anthropologists and sociologists due to its discussions on the theoretical foundation of sociological practice. It is highly acclaimed for its philosophical approach to the methods, postures and approaches used in the study of human behavior and interaction. Bourdieu composition draws heavily upon his extensive fieldwork in Kabylia, Algeria to illustrate his theories regarding the concept of habitus or the principle that links objective structures and practices. Bourdieu immerses himself in a critical discussion concerning the so-called ingenuity of the human mind that gave rise to a multitude of perspectives trying to account for the diversity in human society and culture. This includes structuralism, neo-Marxism, ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism and symbolic approaches which derives itself from hermeneutics. Bourdieu's Outline of a theory of practice evaluates these different approaches by questioning a set of presuppositions that appears to be present in most of them. In this regard, Bourdieu deviates from the normal sociological practice of confining inquiry into how natives account for their ethnological world as it places into the limelight how sociological accounts construe these phenomena as objects of analysis. In other words, the aim is no longer to relate how men and women of different culture attaches meaning to their ways but in the way sociologists and anthropologists interpret the ways of these people. In this paper, I will be providing a review of Bourdieu's work which will try to capture the essence of the composition. It should be noted that the complexity, depth and volume of Bourdieu's idea makes it a daunting task and the discussion provided can indeed have limitations. Nonetheless, I have tried to encapsulate and highlight the main points that Bourdieu makes in his philosophical undertaking. 2.0 Knowledge and Practice Bourdieu forms his analysis through the portrayal of three 'scientific knowledge' modes or the three ways of viewing and knowing the world. These modes includes the phenomenological, theoretical and practical knowledge and are further discussed in the following passages 2.1 Phenomenological Knowledge According to Bourdieu (p. 32), phenomenological knowledge "makes explicit the truth of primary experience of the social world, i.e. all that is inscribed in the relationship of familiarity with the familiar environment, the unquestioning apprehension of the social world which, by definition, does not reflect on itself and excludes the question of the conditions of its own possibility" (p.32). This statement, when simplified, is the attempt to make people appreciate/recognize that there are certain peculiarities in our own ways that we often take for granted because we have become all too familiar with the process. This field of endeavor has earned its special place in sociology and anthropology and is dubbed as ethnomethodology. Prominent works in this field include that of Harold Garfinkel (1967) which made the world recognize that there are 'conventions of understanding' governing our taken-for-granted activities. These understandings make it possible for interaction to take place because there is no need for constructing its meanings again with other people. These they simply are the conditions for the negotiation of the social world. Within the bounds of these conventions of understandings or 'common sense' dictums, people interact with one another and interpret the actions of others. In other words, people have the tendency to account other people's actions thru the 'common sense' perceptions that they acquire from their previous encounters/interactions. These unspoken rules govern our processing of a person as dead or getting a phone call started (Schegloff 1968). 2.2 Theoretical Knowledge While phenomenological knowledge assumes that sociological accounts are influenced by our 'conventions of understanding' acquired from our interaction with people, theoretical knowledge looks at structures prior to persons which influences their way of viewing other people. Bourdieu considers theoretical knowledge as a complete contrast to phenomenological knowledge as the former is related to the construction of objective relations that structure practice and the representations of practice. In other words, an observer might try to make sense of the culture of a certain ethnic people by looking into the influence of certain structures such as the environment where he is thriving. The observer tries to assume an objective view by rendering certain peculiarities as resulting from strains brought about by some force aside from 'common sense' explanations. There are a number of approaches that make use of this theoretical knowledge. Neo-Marxism, for example, tries to relate social behavior with modes, forces and relations of production. Another view is that of structuralism. This approach is bent on revealing opposition that makes a text, myth, or a social system sensible. Hermeneutics makes use of interpretation to give meaning to rituals or literary composition. These approaches account for sociological events they are observing as an object, a datum, an opus operatum rather than a modus operandi. Bourdieu considers these approaches to be the product of the analyst trying to understand a culture of which he is not a member. Since he is an outsider, he has no real understanding of the social activities which takes place forcing him to give meanings by looking into representation of practices from informants, statistical data or a case study involving a subject. This state of affairs makes the observer assume that the subject of inquiry is governed by an underlying code which means that social events and relation are essentially communicative relations. The approaches in theoretical knowledge can then be seen as processes wherein the analyst decode the 'messages' from the subject of inquiry and try to figure out the 'script' that dictates his actions. In this regard, even symbolic interaction which many considers as an ethnomethodological approach and belonging to the phenomenological category can be categorized as applying theoretical knowledge because it presents a model of socialization as being guided by a script. Individuals can be said to be assuming roles and complying with a script resulting from routine behavior and encounters. What the analyst is doing is determining and constructing the set of rules to be able to account for the system. The symbolic interaction, for example, presents elements of the inquiry as a set of predetermined set of discourses and actions appropriate to a particular stage or frame. While other approaches makes use of other ways for representation which include maps, grammars, role sets, lists of ordered rules, all of them tries to establish that there is indeed an inherent and stable underlying order to social interactions. (Schegloff, 1968) 2.3 Bourdieu's Theory of Practice According to Bourdieu, trying to comprehend the 'common sense' understandings of a certain society or establishing the set of codes that is thought to govern social interactions misses the point of social life. This is because these approaches assume that there is a systematic nature of the object, predetermination of social phenomena to be accounted and communicative intent. Bourdieu considers that these assumptions results to a very limited accounting of social interactions because of its objective perceptions for example of north, south, east and west. What should be done is to take into consideration a practical universe an example of which is accounting for practical space by apprehension of right, left, up, down, front and behind. Furthermore, social behavior should not be considered as static representations but as a dynamic process involving the implementation of natives' strategies in accordance with their practical mastery of situations. Bourdieu's termed his approach as being governed by a "theory of practice" wherein the objectification of the previous knowledge/approach is transcended by constructing the "generative principle" of practice accomplished through situating one's self within the very movement of the accomplishment. This process would make it possible for the actualization of a science of dialectical relations between structured dispositions and objective structures. Bourdieu's intent in his program depends on strategies, dispositions and the habitus they constitute, generative principles and schemes, structure, style and tempo, doxa, and practice all of which are not new to the field of anthropology. Barth, for example, has extensively discussed strategies while structure-functionalists have already exhausted the discussion regarding principles and schemes. In spite of the seeming familiarity of the terms used by Bourdieu in his creation of his 'theory of practice', he carries it out in a manner that is truly distinctive from its previous use. Such distinctions can be seen in the passages that follow. 3.0 Bourdieu's Habitus According to Bourdieu, the entire system of perception, appreciation, and action can be collectively called as the 'habitus'. The habitus is "the generative basis of structured, objectively unified practices" (p. vii) and forms the basis for customary social behavior. Habitus is formed by the experiences endowed upon by history and perpetuates itself in individual and collective practices and defines the future history of the society as well. As a system of disposition, habitus is the continuous exercise of practices from the past and is ensured to be carried out into the future because the practices have been entirely structured according to its principles. In effect, the habitus is a law that has been internalized and relaying the continuous exercise of the law of external necessities. The habitus, in principle, continues to govern and regulate social behavior by defining and engendering strategies that is not confined in manipulating social behavior but is also able to define what constitutes the scope of manipulations. Nevertheless, habitus must not be seen as a product of historical experience functioning to perpetuate the past social system that generated it. It should be considered as a set of schemes both imposed and imposing. It is imposed because certain groups of society consider that a particular manner of doing things is in the best interest of the society in general. A specific and standardized mode of achieving all the diverse tasks in society should be considered the only possible way of acting. In other words, social behavior can be seen as an imposition of meaning by definitions of the past of how one should act. The members of society conforms with the values defined by their economic and political interests by making such pursuit appear to be in accordance with cultural rules that can be invoked as the validation of practice. What is essential to understand, according to Bourdieu, is that the habitus dictates that there is one natural way of doing things. 4.0 The Habitus in Society Bourdieu's analyzed his Kenyan society of interest through the lenses of the habitus. He offered many evidences regarding this 'one way of doing' concept and contrasted it with the phenomenological and theoretical knowledge. I would be discussing the most prominent and most revealing analysis of Bourdieu for the purpose of brevity and succinctness. 4.1 The Gift Exchange The distinction of Bourdieu's ideas can be first seen in his discussion regarding the concept of exchange. It should be noted that Bourdieu's discussion was based with his Kenyan experience. For phenomenological sociologist such as Mauss, the concept of exchange of the subject of inquiry can be best understood by understanding the native experience or grasping the 'common sense' nature of the social behavior (in Kelly, 1955). Theoretical sociologist Lvi- Strauss's cites the concept of mechanical reciprocity as an objective way of understanding the social phenomenon of exchange. This concept dictates that exchange is governed by the principle of the unconscious obligations of giving, giving in return and receiving (in Goodenough, 1970). Bourdieu argues that such ways of accounting for the social phenomena of gift exchange misses the point because it construes the event as reversible as opposed to the subject's perception as an irreversible event. The idea that one gives gifts and expects something in return or the reversibility does not always occur. Also, the approaches assumed by Mauss and Levi-Strauss fails to account for how acts receive meaning retrospectively from the responses they generate. Their ideas of exchange imply that there is a certain code governing the process and a certain response generated. Bourdieu informs the reader that social interactions such as gift exchange, offering one's service or paying a visit can have completely different meanings at different times, coming as it may at the right or wrong moment (p.6). The natives observed by Bourdieu showed that they tend to observe a proper lag in the completion of the gift exchange so that it can be 'misrecognized'. Rather than making it look like that there is an effort to give a gift in return, the natives tried to conceal it by observing a temporal lag. While theoretical accounts would point to this cover-up as evidence for their reversible account, natives would like to believe that it is an irreversible transaction. The concealment employed by the subject of observation or "this institutionally organized and guaranteed misrecognition" (p.171) is not thought of such. They are not scheming agents who want to maximize their advantage. Rather, these people have been enculturated to act as such which means that their dispositions, their way of thought and their social behavior have been formed by their perception that it is only way or the "natural" way to act. It differs from phenomenological and theoretical knowledge because these two approaches assume that the 'right way' was the best among other options while Bourdieu's idea is that it was the only way with no process of choosing among options. (Bourdieu, 1979) 4.2 The Sense of Honor Honor, according to Bourdieu, is not defined by a set of codes. Rather, it is a cultivated disposition that is embedded in the social agent in his schemes of perception, mental dispositions and thought and is extremely general in application. Honor is embodied much in the same way as perception of male and female, right and left and future and past are innate. The nature of honor as a cultivated disposition emanates from the fact that social agents employ strategies in determining who they should challenge and how they should act when challenged. Theoretical sociologists would state that there are codes in responding to challenges. For example, an act is deemed honorable when one challenges a person of equal capacity or that a certain perceived insult be addressed by a challenge. Bourdieu, in his observations, argues that the sense of honor is not essentially governed by explicit rules. It is the result of the enactment of strategies that is determined by dispositions. For example, a challenge may not be taken because it is deemed as strategically unwinnable. In this case, the social agent is not considered as a coward and his honor is still intact. Honor is not governed by rites but by constantly shifting strategies. 4.3 Labeling of Bride and Groom Members of Kabyle refer to marriages by the lineage model. For example, they may say that the wife came was the father's father's brother's son's daughter. Theoretical sociologists would point out that this is dictated by a code which states that this is what should be done much like in other Islamic Middle Eastern societies (Barthes, 1972). Phenomenological sociologists would point out that this was what is common so it was used (Murphy and Kasden, 1959). Bourdieu argues that this labeling of marriages is actually the result of certain dispositions toward the virtuosity or regularity of the marriage. Bourdieu accounts the labeling as an attempt to give apparent satisfaction to the demands of an official rule and a strategy aimed at complying with certain belief structures. There are certain beliefs regarding women in Kabyle society and the most prominent is that women are sources of impurity and potential dishonor. Having a wife which is the daughter of one's brother is considered safe and trustworthy because it is believed that a woman raised in the corrective and protective action of a man has her innate evil already tamed. A wife acquired through the mediation of other women are to be feared because they are the most feminine of women and have great potential for dishonoring the family. Furthermore, the labeling of marriages is influenced by domestic politics. As Bourdieu explains that "...the interests of the mother, seeking to reinforce her position in her adoptive home by bringing into the family a woman sprung from her own lineage, are objectively opposed to the interests of the father, who, in arranging his son's marriage, as befits a man, by an agreement with his own kin, his own brother, or some other patrilineal kinsman, reinforces the agnatic unit and, thereby, his own position in the domestic unit" (p.45). Marriage labels can then be considered not as simply the execution of rules but the result of strategies or the habitus. (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977) 5.0 Conclusion The schemes generated by the habitus makes it possible for member of society to generate a wide repertoire of practices for endlessly changing situations. However, they are not explicitly recognized and are instead embodied inherently in attitudes and postures and interactionally with the use of strategies whose implementation constitutes practice. In other words, social behavior is governed by implicit operations rather than explicit codes or common sense attitudes. Practices results from the feeling of appropriateness for the situation that faces the social agents. As long as the behavior preserve the boundaries of that which should be kept separate and that social practices are carried out in obedience to rules that can be talked about and perhaps even formalized, practices can change. They are not static and dictated by rules. This is what Bourdiue argues in his composition Outline of a Theory of Practice References Barthes, Roland(1972) Mythologies. London: Jonathan Cape. Bourdieu, Pierre(1977) Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre(1979) Algeria 1960: the disenchantment of the world, the sense of honor, the Kabyle house or the world reversed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, and Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme. Bourdieu, Pierre and Passeron, Jean-Claude (1977) Reproduction in education, society and culture. London and Beverly Hills: SAGE Publications. Garfinkel, Harold(1967) Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Goodenough, Ward H. (1970) Description and comparison in cultural anthropology Chicago: Aldine. Kelly, George A. (1955). The psychology of personal constructs. New York: Norton. Murphy, Robert F. and Kasden, Leonard (1959). The structure of parallel cousin marriage. American Anthropologist 61:17-29. Schegloff, Emmanuel (1968). Sequencing in conversational openings. American Anthropologist 70(6):1075- 95. (Reprinted in John J. Gumperz and Dell Hymes (eds), Directions in sociolinguistics: the ethnography of communication, pp.346-80. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.) Read More