Re: structural theory
Jay Lemke (JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
Thu, 28 Dec 95 13:16:12 EST
A brief note. I did not mean to say, as Angel interpreted me,
that according to Bourdieu we are all either dominators or
dominated. What I said, and what I believe B argues, is that
the 'field of power' structures the other fields. This is
a much more subtle and complex notion, and in fact is closer
to Angel's view that people find themselves positioned in
relations of domination rather than consciously seeking to
harm one another. People really need to read Bourdieu
carefully to understand his position. It is not formulated
in terms of individual intentionality at all, and the precise
relation of the field of power to other fields, and what a
'field' means are complex and technical. I do sense I think
that Angel's background in ethnomethodology, while it helps
in seeing the weaknesses of purely macro-structural social
theories, may include a bias toward reformulating structural
theses in terms of individual events and actor's viewpoints.
I do not believe it is generally possible to do so without
great loss; micro-social theories cannot replace macro-social
ones, though it is possible to find some synthesis between
them, either along the lines of various models described
in _Textual Politics_ (chaps 2 and 6), or perhaps with
Latour's network theories (which I personally think need
to be incorporated into the sort of ecosocial models with
intermediate semiotic formations outlined in TP, but are
not quite sufficient in themselves, at least as developed
by BL so far). JAY.
JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
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