Angela McRobbie The_Uses_of_Cultural_Studies__A

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reinstating some fully conscious self-directing concept of man, and cer-
tainly not by endorsing the understanding of the subject capable of
rational choice extolled by contemporary liberal economists, Bourdieu
instead posits an embodied subject heavily inculcated by a habitus which
acts invariably to produce dispositions and inclinations which tend
towards compliancy.
The reader might for a moment reflect on how close Bourdieu is to
Butler in this respect. For Butler, Bourdieu provides a theorisation of
social practice (Butler, 1999b: 113). I shall return to her debate with him
in the final section of this chapter, but we might take note of Bourdieu s
attempt to overcome the dualities which cast the explanatory force of
objective, determinate structures on the one side (that is, structure), and
on the other, the realm of experience, practice, and subjective relations
(that is, action). While like Butler the balance in his writing is towards
constraint, he endeavours to embrace and account for the embodied rit-
uals and the bodily dispositions of the habitus (with examples) as
inseparable from the field. They both must be thought together, because
they are so deeply entangled. As Butler shows, Bourdieu envisages this
entanglement as a kind of staging or encounter so that the habitus can
confront the field, without necessarily succumbing to it, however Butler
is not wholly convinced by this separation of habitus and field; she
declares such an encounter as disingenuous since the habitus is from
the start implicated in the field (Butler, 1993: 118).
Now let me move to another site of debate altogether, the more
grounded, less abstract, empirically oriented field of media and cultural
studies. There have been intermittent exchanges between Bourdieu and
a handful of figures in this UK-dominated cultural terrain, but mostly
Bourdieu refers to these in passing.2 Garnham offers a critical account
of Bourdieu s work on the basis that it almost precludes the possibility of
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126 The Uses of Cultural Studies
a radical political project emerging because agents internalise social
structures in the habitus as cognitive structures or classificatory schema
that operate below the level of consciousness and discourse (Garnham,
1993: 179). Garnham explains that these classificatory schema are also
in the Durkheimian sense arbitrary , they are there and held in place as
common values for the sake of social cohesion. Bourdieu adopts this
cultural arbitrary from Durkheim. The point of the cultural arbitrary
is that the actual symbolic configuration or specific set of signs are not
important, they are arbitrary; what is important is that they perform a
specific function, they do the work which is required of them. For exam-
ple, the fact that a certain way of speaking or accent, let us say the
braying tones of a hooray Henry , is indelibly associated with the
assumed superiority and rightful self-importance of the English upper
classes, is itself arbitrary. It could just as easily be another way of speak-
ing that has played that same role, the Sloane Ranger (so named by
Peter York) could, for example, speak in an entirely different accent;
what is important is that this voice has come to play this role in main-
taining authority and in commanding respect (York, 1984). In
Bourdieu s account this enables social reproduction to take place. The
cultural arbitrary encourages the inclination of the habitus to the field,
ensuring that social legitimation is more easily secured. This voice and
the bodily gestures and styles with which it is associated (the Barbour
jacket, the string of pearls), create a sense of social authority so as to be
indistinguishable from it. Bourdieu presents a model of social space
which is less determined by conflict than the Marxist dialectical account,
and without the pervasive trouble that in Butler s writing always haunts
the bid to ensure the power of enduring social relations. Garnham is
also the more conventional Marxist here, he is (as Butler is in her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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