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A-Different-Poststructuralism-Outline-Of-A-Theory-Of-Practice-By-Pierre-Bourdieu-Review-On A Different Poststructuralism Outline of a Theory of Practice. by Pierre Bourdieu; Richard Nice Review by: Craig Calhoun Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 25, No. 3 (May, 1996), pp. 302-305 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2077436 . Accessed: 10/10/2013 06:55 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Contemporary Sociology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 129.12.11.80 on Thu, 10 Oct 2013 06:55:33 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 302 CONTEMPORARYSOCIOLOGY Third, students of culture would also do anthropology;and sociology has always had a well to take the notion of "deep play" (a stronger commitment to both theory and theoreticalidea, if ever there was one) more explanation. Perhaps, then, sociologists will seriously.In "Deep Play," Geertz is not only be able uninhibitedlyto assimilate and find exploring the meanings of the Balinese real nourishment in the rich filling of cockfight.He is also askingwhat makes some Geertz's interpretation-sandwich. culturalperformances, some cultural experi- ences deeper, more intense, more gripping than others. This is the beginning of an Other works cited: analysis of why some rituals, texts, or more meaning than others Alexander,Jeffrey C. 1987. TwentyLectures: Sociolog- symbols generate ical Theory since World War II. New York: do. Geertz explores how tension,uncertainty Columbia UniversityPress. about the outcome, balanced opponents, and Asad, Talal. 1983. "AnthropologicalConceptions of the ability to symbolize (and sublimate) Religion:Reflections on Geertz."Man 18:237-259. significantsocial tensions make some cock- Biersack, Aletta. 1989. "Local Knowledge, Local History:Geertz and Beyond." Pp. 72-96 in Lynn fights deeper, more exciting, and more Hunt (ed.), The New Cultural History.Berkeley: satisfyingthan others. Universityof CaliforniaPress. Barely breaking the surface of Geertz's Geertz, Clifford.1968. Islam Observed: Religious essays, but there, nonetheless, lurks the Development in Morocco and Indonesia. New in sense Haven: Yale UniversityPress. question of whether and what . 1983. Local Knowledge: FurtherEssays in cultures are really "systems" after all. He InterpretiveAnthropology. New York:Basic Books. recognizes thatmultiple kinds of realities can Keesing, Roger M. 1974. "Theories of Culture."Pp. abide side by side. He also occasionally 73-97 in Annual Review of Anthropology3. Palo addresses great clashes of meanings, when Alto:Annual Reviews, Inc. Parker,Richard. 1985. "FromSymbolism to Interpre- people's cultural assumptions don't mesh, tation:Reflections on the Workof CliffordGeertz." and when culture itself is a source of Anthropologyand Humanism Quarterly10(3):62- sometimes violent conflict.If cultural coher- 67. ence is itselfvariable, Geertz's work provides Shankman,Paul. 1984. "The Thick and the Thin: On this variation. the InterpretiveTheoretical Program of Clifford a startingpoint for studying Geertz."CurrentAnthropology 25 (June):261-279. Geertz's polemical stands-in favor of Swidler,Ann and Roland L. Jepperson.1994. "Inter- interpretationand against explanation, for pretation,Explanation, and Theories of Meaning." description over theory, and against all Paper presented at the American Sociological general theory-are red herrings.They have Association Annual Meetings, Los Angeles, CA (August). distracted us from the depth and originality Wikan,Unni. 1992. "Beyondthe Words:The Power of of his own theorizing. Sociology has not Resonance." American Ethnologist 19 (August): faced a crisis of confidence like that of 460-482. A DifferentPoststructuralism CRAIG CALHOUN Universityof NorthCarolina, Chapel Hill Original review, CS 9:2 (March 1980), by Outline of a Theory of Practice, by Pierre ArthurW. FrankIII: Bourdieu. Trans. by Richard Nice. New York: The contributionof Bourdieu's work is that Cambridge UniversityPress [1972] 1977. 248 in producinga bettergrounded structural- pp. $19.95 paper. ISBN: 0-521-29164-X. ism,he accomplishesthe practice of a more scientificMarxism ... The European idiom Pierre Bourdieu (1988) has described one of Bourdieu's writingshould not distract central motivation behind his intellectual NorthAmerican sociologists from its extraor- work as a determinationto challenge mislead- dinaryimportance as a theoryof method. ing dichotomies. This determination is no- This content downloaded from 129.12.11.80 on Thu, 10 Oct 2013 06:55:33 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CONTEMPORARYSOCIOLOGY 303 where more manifestthan in the workthat French intellectualscene and that shaped firstmaide him famousin English-languageBourdieu's own initialorientation opposed sociology,and which remainsperhaps his the structuralismsof Levi-Straussand Althus- most influential,Outline of a Theoryof serto theegocentric existentialism of Sartre.2 Practice.' Outlineattacks many problematic Ifforced to choose,Bourdieu was clearlyon dichotomies,but has gained its enduring Levi-Strauss'sside (thoughnot that of Althus- influencemost of all fromits challenge to the ser), but in Outline he combined classic oppositionof structureand action. structuralistanalyses of the Kabyle with a The idea of transcendingthis dichotomy developingcritique of structuralism'scogni- was not a new one in sociologicaltheory; tivistneglect of practical knowledge, its more recallthe effortsignaled by TalcottParsons's generalobjectivism, and its inabilityto turn firstbook, The Structure of Social Action.But that objectivistgaze on itselfin order to Bourdieu's effortwas both original and provide an adequate account of its own compelling.It caught,moreover, the rising scientificstandpoint. For all of his influence demandfor an integrationof structureand in anthropology,and his general fame, action that followed the successive crises Levi-Strausshad not been widely read in firstof Parsons'sown functionalismand then Americansociology. This made Outlineboth of a Marxismthat had splitinto structuralist more difficult for many readers to assimilate and voluntaristcamps. and more valuableas a criticalintroduction Outlinedid notachieve the instant fame of to some ofthe achievementsof structuralism Bourdieu'sDistinction, which burston the (that is, of culturalstructuralism, as distinct Anglophonescene in a 1984 translationand from various acultural accounts of social helped to spark the renaissance of the structure).Like Foucault's work of the same sociologyof culture,as well as a thriving period (The Orderof Things,and Archaeol- subfieldof culturalstudies of stratification.ogy of Knowledge), Outline offered both one Rather,partly because it is a more difficult of structuralism'shigh points and important book, Outline attractedreaders gradually- movementbeyond it. but also found its way into the standard Structuralistanalyses were commonly static, syllabifor graduate courses in contemporary and thereforecommonly opposed to ac- sociologicaltheory. It also had a substantial countsof process.3 In theManichean opposi- indirectinfluence, even beforetranslation, as tion of structuralismto existentialism,indi- for example Bourdieu'swork helped shape viduals, action, and especially personal AnthonyGiddens's intellectualframework experiencewere ceded to thelatter (and the and laterreaders picked up Bourdieu'sideas latter thereby declared unscientific).As and terms- likestructuration- from Giddens Althusserfamously put it,individual persons withoutalways knowing their source. Out- were not of analyticsignificance in them- line spoke to a desirefor theory that made selves,but ratherwere simplythe "bearers" sense of the stabilityof social organization of structure.From early in his work in withoutsuccumbing to the conservatismof Algeria,Bourdieu found it criticalto analyze muchfunctionalism, and thatmade sense of both recurrentprocesses throughwhich human agency without relyingon highly ways of lifewere enacted and more linear cognitive accounts of intentions.It also processes of historicalchange. Above all, helped that,despite a good translation,the Bourdieu sought to show how structures textwas sufficientlyoblique in stylethat it werereproduced through the very actions by could be read-at least superficially-with which individualssought to achieve their approval by English-languagetheorists of personal ends. Outline was his firstmajor starklycontrasting orientations. Sincethe book was originallywritten some years earlier in French, this context of 2 Though published in 1972, Outline was largely receptionwas not exactly its context of writtenbefore 1968 and is not the work in which to production.The dichotomythat rent the findBourdieu's response to the eventsof thatyear or the late '60s intellectualconflicts more generally.For that,see Homo Academicus. 1 Bourdieu in essence rewroteOutline in his later, 3 Foucault's structuralisthistories thus stress rup- but less widely read, Logic of Practice (Stanford: tures between statisticallyconceived epochs more StanfordUniversity
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