Bridget Fowler

READING PIERRE BOURDIEU'S MASCULINE DOMINATION : NOTES TOWARDS AN INTERSECTIONAL ANALYSIS OF GENDER, CULTURE AND CLASS

This article analyses Bourdieus late work on masculine domination, in the context of his wider theory of practice. It assesses the logic of his argument and focuses particularly on the wide-ranging case he makes for womens complicity with such gender domination, alongside their opposition to it. The question of whether Bourdieus sociology is unacceptably pessimistic about the possibilities for social transformation is then considered, taking up certain key contemporary debates about his work. The final section draws on Bourdieus rudimentary sketches from various sources for an intersectionalist study of gender and class, deriving ultimately from the uncompromising exposure of economic and social interests in Distinction. Using independent evidence, it traces some of the less-remarked consequences of womens entry into well-paid employment on the labour market: not least, the impact of their work on the class structure and the recomposition of domestic labour on a class basis.

Collective Memory and Forgetting Components for a Study of Obituaries

This article explores the cultural form of the obituary as a contribution to ‘collective memory’. In order to assess the value of viewing the obituary through this lens, it is necessary to look at how memory and collective memory have been conceptualized in various authors, especially in the classic works of Bergson, Halbwachs and Benjamin. Tension emerges between those who think that such social forms of memorizing, like tradition, are declining across the board and those who think that they are still alive but contained in new media such as the newspaper. For the latter, including the present author, these mosaics of tiny testimonies can shape collective memory. The cultural form of the obituary is undergoing an internal transformation. Although there is still considerable evidence of the material and social privilege of these subjects, the contemporary obituary is not restricted to the memory of the ‘dominants’. Obituary editors in national newspapers aspire to include all those who have significantly shaped the modern world, including figures hallowed in popular memory and even counter-memory. Moreover, obituaries have now branched out, beyond the arena of heroes and villains, into depictions of a more nuanced or contradictory world of tragedy and paradox. A key element of such memory is the public realm of producers. However here ‘heroes of production’ (workers or industrialists) figure much less frequently than those who have left distinguished cultural and scientific works for the collective inheritance. The article finally asks how the democratization of the form might be further advanced while also recognizing its inescapable foundation in the scarcity of distinction.

Women architects and their discontents

The article critically investigates recent assumptions that professional women are en route to equality with professional men by assessing the field of architecture as a case study. It addresses the poorer completion rates for women architectural students, together with the lower proportions of professionally registered and promoted women architects.The article explores, in particular, Bourdieu’s theories of gender divisions and higher professions as an explanatory grid for understanding these phenomena, deploying especially two late works, Masculine Domination (2001) and The State Nobility (1996). It is argued that the extended Bourdieusian theory of practice illuminates the interview data gathered from women architects, especially through its emphasis on a disposition to naturalize domination. While Bourdieu’s position is not without weaknesses, this theory sheds light on the difficulties women practitioners are found to face empirically, especially in combining architecture and parenting.

The lives we choose to remember : a quantitative analysis of newspaper obituaries

Collective memory is intertwined with remembering the dead. Systematic forgetting affects certain ethnic groups, nationalities and classes disproportionately. This study assesses whom we choose as our heroes by commemorating them in obituaries. It is the first cross-national, historical approach to this subject. Constant structures are shown in different Western countries over time in terms of the selection of individuals for this honour. In particular, there are still a high proportion of the subjects in British newspapers who have attended private schools and Oxford and Cambridge. The impact of elite higher educational establishments is also evident, on a reduced scale, in Le Monde and The New York Times. Yet certain signs of movement within the obituary world can also be detected: women start to appear in their own right, the Third World begins to be represented and a wider array of occupations have become the source of obituary portraits.

Pierre Bourdieu, Social Transformation and 1960s British Drama

This article makes the controversial argument that Bourdieu’s theory of practice offers both a model of transformation and social reproduction. However, it also claims that his account of cultural production is marred by two blind-spots. First, it contends that Bourdieu has neglected key forms of material support, notably, that offered, post-war, from the ‘left hand of the state’. The subsequent New Wave of 1950s and 1960s British drama had authors who possessed neither economic capital nor certified cultural capital. Secondly, it interrogates Bourdieu’s conclusion that popular culture can never be source of canonized art. Adopting the view that Bourdieu focused too exclusively on legitimate culture, it seeks to contrast his theories on this point with the approach developed by Raymond Williams. The last section sketches a Bourdieusian analysis of Bourdieu. It reads his writings in the light of the different origins of the British and French fields of cultural studies.

Simon Susen’s “Bourdieusian Reflections on Language: Unavoidable Conditions of the Real Speech Situation”—A Rejoinder

This short article is a response to Simon Susen’s “Bourdieusian reflections on language: Unavoidable conditions of the real speech situation”, a rigorous analysis of Bourdieu’s theory of language. Susen succeeds in drawing out from Bourdieu’s works a consistent and persuasive account of the role of language as cultural capital, thus elucidating the various means by which language can serve as a vehicle for domination. In this respect, he greatly adds to our knowledge of Bourdieu as a theorist of reproduction. Susen also clarifies our understanding of the other roles for language, including the importance of linguistic resources for social communication in building a better society; he argues that, in these respects, Bourdieu’s conception of language is too limited. The present rejoinder to Susen takes issue with some of his contentions. It claims that in Bourdieu’s entire oeuvre, the following two concerns can be highlighted: (a) Bourdieu as a theorist of the reproduction of capitals; and (b) Bourdieu as a theorist of historical transformation. It is proposed that in respect of transformation, language also plays an important role for Bourdieu in enhancing agents’ margins of liberty. It thus opens up opportunities for reflexive decisions about social practices.

True to me always: an analysis of women’s magazine fiction

This chapter explores the plot structures and images of society contained in the fiction of low-priced magazines for women. It is suggested that the writers’ world-view vacillates between heroic individualism and fatalism. There is no evidence of any sustained radical critique of society, despite the choice of the 1930s as the period from which the magazines were sampled. In the absence of any close correspondence with models from the elite novel, attention is drawn to the problem of how the popular writer aims the stories to be read. For this reason, one story is analysed in depth, indicating the devices used to signal the preferred meaning of character, plot action, etc. The particular function of domestic stories is to provide ‘pastoral’ advice on how life can and should be lived.

Clashing Interpretations of Bourdieu's Theory of Practice

A review essay on a book by Derek Robbins, On Bourdieu, Education and Society (Oxford: Bardwell Press, 2006).

Time, Science and the Critique of Technological Reason: Essays in Honour of Hermínio Martins

This festschrift commemorates the legacy of UK-based Portuguese sociologist Herminio Martins (1934-2015). It introduces Martins’ wide-ranging contributions to the social sciences, encompassing seminal works in the fields of philosophy and social theory, historical and political sociology, studies of science and technology, and Luso-Brazilian studies, among others. The book features an in-depth interview with Martins, short memoirs, and twelve chapters addressing topics that were central to his intellectual and political interests. Among those that stand out are his critique of Thomas Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions, his work on the significance of time in social theory and the interweaving of techno-scientific developments and socio-cultural transformations, including the impact of communication and digital technologies, and of market-led eugenics. Other themes covered are Martins’ work on patrimonialism and social development in Portugal and Brazil, and his analysis of the state of the social sciences in Portugal, which reflects his highly critical appraisal of the ongoing marketization andneoliberalization of academic life and institutions worldwide.

Revolutions in Science and Art: Martins, Bourdieu and the Case of Photography

This chapter reflects on Martins’ powerful critique of Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions. It also compares Martins with the work of Bourdieu on science and art, arguing that despite the invaluable recent publication of Bourdieu’s lectures on Manet’s ‘symbolic revolution’, there are certain difficulties with Bourdieu’s theory of the cultural field. In particular, for Bourdieu, photography could never become any other than a minor art. In part because of its reliance on technology, it offers less cultural distinction than other more ‘legitimate’ forms of art. Martins, on the other hand, is less pessimistic: he sees art as continually transformed by technological change and therefore does not see the camera as presenting any inherent barrier.