Notes on: Bourdieu, P (1987) What Makes a Social
class? On The Theoretical and Practical Existence
Of Groups. Berkeley Journal of
Sociology.32: 1--17.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41035356
Dave Harris
[Very useful condensed account of his position]
[A paper at a symposium]. One obstacle to
scientific sociology arises from common
oppositions, concepts or 'what Bachelard calls
"epistemological couples"' which are constructed
by social reality and are unthinkingly used to
construct social reality. One is the opposition
between objectivism and subjectivism, or
structuralism and constructivism. Social agents
can be treated as things, classified like objects
and this is a break with naïve subjective
classifications which are seen instead as
'"pre-notions" or "ideologies"' (1). From this
objectivist point of view agents construct social
reality which is an aggregation of these
individual acts of construction, so there's no
need to break with primary social experience, but
instead to give an '"account of accounts"'.
However, this is a false opposition because agents
are both classified and classifiers although they
classify according to their position within
classifications. We see this if we analyse the
notion of 'point of view… a perspective, a partial
subjective vision (subjectivist moment); but it is
at the same time, a perspective, taken from a
point, from a determinate position in an objective
social space (objectivist moment)' (2). We can
develop both moments as they apply to the analysis
of class.
So are classes a scientific construct, or do they
exist in reality, which is also a political
question, one of the major principles of division
in current politics. Political choices will be
involved as well as stances on the mode of
knowledge. Those who assert the existence of
classes tend to take a 'realist stand' and often
attempt to determine empirically properties and
boundaries of the various classes, sometimes their
individual members. Others will argue that classes
are 'nothing but constructs of the scientist',
with no foundation whatsoever in reality and that
it is impossible to find 'clear-cut
discontinuities'. Instead we find continuous
distributions such as with income, between classes
and between men and women, as in the
'embourgeoisment of the working class' (3). This
involves accepting a 'substantialist philosophy,
which 'recognises no other reality than that which
is directly given to the intuition of ordinary
experience'.
It might still be possible to accept that there
are differences based on economic and social
processes and to adopt 'relational or structural
modes of thinking characteristic of modern
mathematics and physics' which stress
relationships rather than substances. We can thus
talk of social reality in Marx and Durkheim in
terms of invisible relationships constituting a
space of positions defined by the relative
distance to each other, where reality 'is nothing
other than the structure as a set of constant
relationships which are often invisible' obscured
by ordinary sense experience. Substantiality is
not denied, and a social space is seen as offering
'reciprocal externality of the objects it
encloses'.
Science constructs the space 'which allows us to
explain and to predict the largest possible number
of differences observed between individuals… The
main principles are differentiation necessary or
sufficient to explain or predict the totality of
the characteristics observed'. The social world is
'a multi dimensional space that can be constructed
empirically by discovering the main factors of
differentiation'. We can consider these as 'the
powers or forms of capital which are or can become
efficient… aces in a game of cards… for the
appropriation of scarce goods of which this
universe is the site' (4). The distribution of the
various forms of capital provides the structure of
the space, that is the distribution of active
properties within the universe under study, those
which confer 'strength, power and consequently
profit on their holder'.
In French society, 'and no doubt in the American
society of today', these fundamental social powers
are, 'according to my empirical investigations,
firstly economic capital in its various kinds;
secondly cultural capital or better, informational
capital, again in its different kinds; and thirdly
forms of capital that are very strongly
correlated, social capital which consists of
resources based on connections and group
membership, and symbolic capital which is the form
the different capitals take once they are
perceived and recognised as a legitimate'. Agents
are distributed according to the global volume of
capital, next according to the composition of the
capital, the relative weight of the various forms,
and thirdly according to their trajectory in
social space, the 'evolution in time of the volume
and composition of their capital'. Agents in sets
of them are assigned a position or location or a
class of neighbouring positions, a particular area
within a space which is defined by their relative
position 'in terms of a multi dimensional system
of coordinates'. Occupation may be 'a good and
economical indicator of position'.
There is a danger that this relational mode of
thinking will be interpreted in a 'realist and
"substantialist' way, whereas they are really
logical analytic constructs theoretically dividing
a theoretical space. The more accurate they get,
the greater the chance that they will be seen as
real groups. They are based on the principles of
differentiation which are the most effective in
reality, 'i.e. the most capable of providing the
fullest explanation of the largest number of
differences observed between agents… Well founded
in reality' (5). If we have grouped people
properly, the classes will be 'as distinct as
possible from one another' and we will get 'the
largest possible separation between classes of the
greatest possible homogeneity'.
However, the means used to display the social
space 'tend to obscure it from view' . That's
because those in close social classes share a
number of common properties, while those most
distant have few properties in common [I think the
point is that those close together see no
differences in society, while those far apart are
ignorant of them]. The dispositions acquired
'involve an adjustment to this position, a 'sense
of one's place', where common folk remain humbly
in their place, keep their distance. This may be
'totally unconscious and take the form of what we
commonly call timidity or arrogance'. The social
distances 'are inscribed in the body'. Objective
distances are reproduced in 'subjective experience
of distance… Remoteness in space associated with
the form of aversion or lack of understanding,
while nearness is lived as a more or less
unconscious form of complicity. This sense of
one's place is at the same time a sense of the
place of others'. This is reinforced by
'affinities of habitus experienced in the form of
personal attraction or revulsion'. This lies at
the root of 'all processes of co-optation,
friendship, love, association et cetera'
[including racial prejudice?].
So classes are analytic constructs founded in
reality but the people located in them are
affected in their social being, by 'a certain
class of material conditions of existence, of
primaeval experiences of the social world, et
cetera' (6) and relationally in relation to other
positions including those in the middle. They are
homogenised and they have dispositions which
'favour the development of relationships formal or
informal' which increase homogeneity, and thus
develop resemblance and coming together.
We have arrived at 'all the requirements of the
scientific taxonomy, at once predictive and
descriptive'. We have categories obtained by
'cutting up sets characterised by the similarity
of their occupational conditions within the
three-dimensional space'. These have a high
predictive capacity but 'a relatively small
cognitive expense (that is relatively little
information as necessary… three coordinates)'.
These help us describe and classify agents and
their practices. The project was expressed first
by Halbwachs apparently, then Centers on the
psychology of social classes.
We can therefore suggest that theoretical classes
are real classes, as Marx did, moved by the
consciousness of the 'identity of their conditions
and interests… Which simultaneously unites them
and opposes them to other classes' (7). However
Marx committed a 'theoreticist fallacy' like Hegel
by equating constructed classes with real classes,
'the things of logic with the logic of things' by
suggesting that theoretical classes somehow became
automatically real classes. The argument was that
the identity of conditions must inevitably assert
itself with time, or that consciousness would
awaken and the objective truth realised, or that
the Party would provide a suitable vision to
reconcile the two. All this would result in 'the
analytical construct [being] made into a folk
category'.
At best a theoretical class might be considered as
a probable real class which could be mobilised on
the basis of their similarities, that the social
space could offer probabilities with draw
individuals together or apart. The movement from
probability to reality can never be given, and
'the principles of vision and division of the
social world at work… Have to compete in reality
with other principles, ethnic, racial or national,
and more concretely still, with principles imposed
by the ordinary experience of occupational,
communal and local divisions and rivalries'. It
might still be possible to argue that the
perspective taken when constructing theoretical
classes may be the most '"realistic"' in that 'it
relies on the real underlying principles and
practices' but this still will not impose itself
on agents 'in a self-evident manner'. Agents will
only follow 'the laws immanent in [their] universe
through the mediation of their sense of place'
(8).
Anything else dismisses the question of politics
and of political work required 'to impose a
principle of vision and division of the social
world' even those that are well founded in
reality. Classes that realise themselves through
class struggle 'do not exist'. They only assent to
a particular form after 'specific work, of which
the specifically theoretical production of a
representation of the divisions is a decisive
element', and that only after political labour is
armed with the theory 'well founded in reality',
when it persuades people that what it argues is
'more present, in a potential state, in reality
itself'. What we are talking about is a specific
logic in order to produce classes in the form of
objective institutions — 'symbolic production…
political work of class making'. This is more
likely to be effective when agents are already
close to one another in social space and already
belong 'to the same theoretical class'.
However there may be an occupational basis or a
genealogical basis in precapitalist societies, but
groups are 'always the product of a complex
historical work of construction', as EP Thompson's
book indicates [he also mentions Boltanski and the
creation of the managerial class in France]. The
English working class is a 'well-founded
historical artefact', just as Durkheim saw
religion as a well-founded illusion, the same with
any other group like the elderly, or the family.
When it appears in popular discourse, it is as
'one of those impeccably real social fictions
produced and reproduced by the magic of social
belief' (9).
Any occupational groups or classes are symbolic
constructions shaped by specific interests and
cognitive struggles between laymen and between
various professionals who try to represent the
social world. Sometimes social scientists
attempted to set themselves up as referees between
these rival constructions, but all are
'constitutive of the reality of the social world'.
The criteria used in the construction of objective
space are also 'instruments – I should say weapons
– and stakes in the classification struggle'. The
relative value of different kinds of capital, or
among different kinds of capital is constantly
being brought into question and reassessed. There
are struggles aimed at inflating or deflating the
value of one or the other type — economic titles
or educational credentials, MBAs versus MA's, age
or sex. There is no overall coherent or logical
system because there is always a practical or
convenient element, and constantly variable
taxonomies. There are also different levels of
aggregation and differentiation [specialists and
connoisseurs have more categories]
There is no strict opposition between realist,
objectivist and structuralist perspectives on the
one hand and constructivist, objectivist,
spontaneous divisions on the other. Any proper
theory must include subjective representations and
the contributions they make, and the symbolic work
of fabrications of groups and their
representations. There is always a struggle
different distributions, and unequal resources.
There is no 'universal core and universal sense'
(11). Reality is relatively indeterminate and
pluralistic, hence the diversity of viewpoints
because of the diversity of positions. Reality can
be strongly structured, but symbolic space can
have variable visible distinctions and distinctive
signs. Agents vary in terms of the extent to which
they have relevant categories of perception, the
extent to which signs of social positions are
'immediately discernible through their visible
manifestations'. There are also 'bluffs or
symbolic inversions (the intellectual's Volkswagen
Beetle)'. Even statistical connections are not
that constant and reliable.
There are particular problems in the intermediate
zones of the space, characterised by indeterminacy
and fuzziness and more room for 'symbolic
strategies designed to jam this relationship'
(12). Goffman has charted this particular region
with his observation of many forms of the
presentation of self. There are also many examples
of how even the most reliable symbols of social
position such as occupations and social origin can
be manipulated displayed or concealed, played
with, covered by simultaneous memberships. The
same goes with political strategies — the
intermediate groups are particularly difficult to
win over by the various political parties. The
boundaries are more like those of a cloud or
forest, or a flame. Indeed the definition of
boundaries is one of the major stakes in the
struggle and can become a political force, one of
the 'properly political collective struggles' such
as those who can monopolise symbolic violence,
impose a legitimate vision of the social world,
'power over words used to describe groups or
institutions which represent them' (14), often by
employing the services of professionals of
representation who operate within a 'closed,
relatively autonomous field, namely the field of
politics'.
[And some strange philosophical stuff about
whether something that is represented is 'nothing
other than what represents it', or that an
individual represents the group or embodies it 'in
and through his very person… Makes it exist'. 'The
signified, that is, the group, is identified with
the signifier' [which relates to all sorts of
interesting discussions that philosophers had].
The nub of it is that any 'otherwise elusive
social collective exists, if and only if there
exists one (or several) agent (s) who can assert
with reasonable chance of being taken seriously…
That they are the "class"' (15). In other words if
there are agents who can impose themselves as
somehow authorised to speak or act officially in
the place of and in the name of, with full power,
as members of the class, they can 'confer upon it
the only form of existence a group can possess'.
This is 'logic of existence by delegation', and it
has a particular force if members of a class 'lack
any individual means of action and expression' or
'equal opportunity of acceding to the various
forms of collective existence… Diminished form of
existence', some form of diminished existence,
dispossession, sometimes by movements that are
supposed to represent them [I think], but which
take the actual form of a select club.
Everything will depend on the balance of power,
the symbolic capital accumulated by those who try
to impose the various visions and the extent to
which they are grounded in reality, the extent to
which dominated visions can be constituted. An
action will succeed in transforming the social
world 'when it is founded in reality'. The vision
of the dominated is 'doubly distorted'. First
their categories of perception are imposed on them
by the objective structures of the world, which
they tend to accept ('a form of doxic acceptance
of its given order') (16). Second the dominant
groups try to impose their own vision and
representations in order to develop 'a "theodicy
of their privilege"'. However, the dominated do
have 'a practical mastery, a practical knowledge
of the social world' which can result in
'nomination' — 'when it is well founded in
reality, naming involves a truly creative power…
Revelation'. They can invoke 'the mystery of
ministery [sic]', and this can have 'a truly
magical effect by giving power to truth: words can
make things', and even the dominated can join in
the 'objectivized symbolisation of the group they
designate' and as a result they can 'if only for a
time make exist as groups collectives which
already existed, but only in a potential state'
[very mysterious! Reminds me a bit of Badiou on
the power of witness, somebody standing up and
testifying, declaring that the king has no
clothes?]
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