Re: bourdieu and self-reflexive sociology
Jay Lemke (JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
Thu, 16 Nov 95 22:43:08 EST
I can agree with the positive angle here, that we need to subject
our own institutional-personal discourses and practices, our own
positioned viewpoints, to the same macro-social analysis that we
do the Objects/Others of our research (thus making our own milieu
and its history such an Object) -- but I don't respond as well
to the negative, or contrastive dichotomy, that the diaristic
autobiographical, even unconscious motives of the individual
researcher are mere distractions from the 'real' macrosocial
analysis. The _future_ of our institutional discourses will be
determined, in part, by the unique trajectories and combinations
of possibilities embodied in individual researchers, even granted
that as individuals we live within the 'envelope' of our social
types, and which of our unique innovations spread will depend
in part on macrosocial factors such as caste interests, access to
resources, etc.
I even wonder if Bourdieu himself would want to rest with the
'typical' in these cases. I would agree with his emphasis on
knowing the typical as the background for being able to say
anything systemically useful about the individual. And I don't
doubt that we are self-interestedly reluctant to subject such
matters as our own caste-typical power-bases to analysis. But
let's continue to write those diaries folks, and those 'post
festum' reflections, with all their 'faults' (i.e. divergences
between what they present themselves as and what we can use
them as reliable data on). Let's do more of this, and more
publicly, and more often, and more deeply, and with more
retrospective-historical depth -- and, yes, with a better
appreciation of the macrosocial-structural aspects of our
individual life-research trajectories. JAY.
JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
BITNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM
INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU