The term information
asymmetry is very useful to understanding why this essay has any import to
the reader. Economist Joseph Stiglitz
uses to term in Making Globalization Work to refer to the fact that,
regardless of what some free-market advocates may suggest, there is no natural
state where information is equally available to all people. There likely exists, at all times, a lack of
equity between various parties in any exchange of information or other form of
value. This is, of course, similar to
the fact that basic resources are not equally available to all people at all
times. Consumption may be a potentially
problematic fact of human existence, in that it is necessary to have access to
basic levels of consumption to survive.
While many languish in the brutish conditions of poverty, others consume
air, water, and food at an unsustainable rate.
According to John Ehrenfeld in Sustainability By Design, average
residents of the United States in the mid 1990’s consumed the equivalent of 120
pounds of material per day per person (151/35). [1] Our collective hubris has put us in a
situation where some are frantically searching for ways to adapt and stay alive,
while others are strategizing on how best to profit from calamity.[2] There is a conspicuous manner in which
consumption happens, and the effects are increasingly cumulative.
This essay is about the importance of community, the value
that reflexive social theory can have to cultural workers, and what that can
mean for those interested in issues of sustainability. The flipside of information asymmetry is that better availability of information
can lead to better decision making. Our
goal, here, is to make available the kind of information that will assist the
reader in making informed decisions. To
that extent, there is an explicit appeal to the legitimacy of making informed
decisions based on information that is as accurate and current as
possible. The creativity of social
science gives us tools that can help us to see the limits of our enculturated
normativity. Of course, sometimes
information can be threatening to those around us. This is so, among other cases, when those
with a relative monopoly of access to resources sense the growth of groups of
people becoming desperate enough to organize against the state and/or economic
interests.
When finished reading this essay, and listening to the
in-class presentation, the student should have some familiarity with the
concepts of capital and field.
These ideas are well supported by the course readings, the news, as well
as various other materials including several documentary films from which we
will watch short selections. These
concepts can be thought of as tools of analysis, and they are incredibly
useful.[3] Jonathan Wolff defines political philosophy
as normative because it tries to
establish, using moral reasoning, a fixed state of things. This is in counterpoint to a more descriptive
approach to science, with which claims are made about the laws and thus the
function of the physical universe. We
are looking for a middle ground; a place from which we can consider the state
of things, which necessitates some recognition of how that state of things can
affect our ability to observe and thus describe. We can then accurately recognize both the
contributions of the individual and the regularity of social structure.
So, where do we here stand on the continuum between
description and prescription? Are we
making a political statement about how the world should be by trying to
understand our own circumstances as best we can? How much should
is contained in our is? It is always a struggle to assert your own
interests, especially when your interests fall in line with and against the
interests of others. Cultural workers
exist in a space that is relatively rich with some resources, and relatively
poor in others. Cultural workers are
also subject to the same forces and dynamics of the world as other people. The sensible thing to do is to use the best information
we have available to make our agency
as effective as possible when we act on the world. However, we should be willing and able to
assess and evaluate new information, even if it seems to threaten a cherished
belief. This is likely much easier, the
less sacrifice one perceives is necessary.
For example, people led to believe they are of a group that
is genetically superior to others can have trouble coming to grips with a lack
of verifiable, objective grounds for making decisions about racial
superiority. Biologist Jared Diamond
addresses a cherished justification for racial supremacy in Guns, Germs, and
Steel. When Diamond says that
“history followed different courses for different peoples because of
differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences
between peoples themselves,” (7/25) his stated intention of interpreting
evidence is also threatening to those that hold dear a belief about a reason
why things should be a certain
way. The world has a diverse distribution
of resources and challenges which helped influence a diversity among the
patterns of social evolution; people are not different because some are better
than others, but because they have lived and grown in various circumstances
with various influences.
Our arrogance as a species could be a direct function of our
ignorance. Humility might be found in
our continued study of our existence.
“Humanity has in course of time had to endure from the hands of science
two great outrages upon its naïve self-love.
The first was when it realized that our earth was not the center of the
universe, but only a speck in a world-system of a magnitude hardly
conceivable…The second was when biological research robbed man of his particular
privilege of having been specially created, and relegated him to a descent from
the animal world.” This quotation is
attributed to Freud by Stephen Jay Gould in a book called Ever Since Darwin. There is even more. We are still in and of the world,
which itself has systems that are not fully understood, much less under the
control of our species. We are subject
to weather and climate, plate tectonics and water availability, disease and
pollution. We are eaten by things that
we eat, as well as by things we can’t even see with our ‘naked’ eyes. We bioremediate, and we share the same basic
elemental compounds as the rest of the biology on this planet. Worst of all for our naïve self-love, there
is no scientific evidence that homo sapiens sapiens is the apex of evolution.
That said, sustainability
is likely to prove an effective focal point for those interested in trying to
capitalize on catastrophe AND people interested in social and ecological
justice. The trick, as always, will be
whether or not one gets co-opted by the other group. Having a relatively unemotional way to
describe a world that is rightly upsetting could be advantageous. The truth is that we have to fight for our
space in a world of increasing inflationary pressure, pollution, and resource
scarcity. In An Introduction to
Political Philosophy Wolff puts it another way: “Those who prefer not to
participate will find their political decisions made for them, whether they
like it or not.” (39/4) Understanding
how capital can work in the fields of social relations could be helpful in
making rational decisions.
CAPITAL
Capital is a word
with many meanings, as it has a linguistic history that goes back at least as
far as Latin. If you consult
Merriam-Webster online, they start with the architectural structure at the top
of a column that takes the weight of the entablature. This first definition also directs the reader
to the Late Latin capitellum for
small head, from the Latin caput for
head (plural: capita). The second entry for capital starts with the comparative size of a letter in certain
scripts, and then associates capital
with death as punishment and calls capital
“most serious.” From serious we’re led
to primary importance to “seat of government.”
Finally, capital can also mean
“excellent.”
The third entry for capital
is where we start with “a stock of accumulated goods” in contrast to income,
the value of these goods, accumulated goods devoted to further production, and
“accumulated possessions calculated to bring in income.” This entry is also where you can find that capital can also be an accumulation of
assets or advantages. Then I wanted to
know more about the Latin caput.
Wiktionary tells us about English, Catalan and Latin
etymologies. In the Latin entry, #4 is
important. #4 reads “(figuratively) The
vital part” which helps to pull it together so far. Our heads are certainly vital parts.
From these various meanings, we have a sense of a ‘top’
meaning important and at the head.
Capital can refer to the ‘seat of government’ but this is also where we
find the ‘heads of state’ when they are at their workplace. Capital is as serious as life or death, at
the same time it is an accumulation of assets or advantages calculated toward
further production and therefore income.
What these meanings all suggest but never say explicitly is that capital
is produced by the vitality of the body used by the head. What these definitions all gloss over is the
unacknowledged, and yet quite conspicuous, consumption of “natural resources”
that is required to manufacture anything.
Our goal is to use capital in
a way that recognizes the pre-existing definitions while trying to use it as
specifically as language will allow.
Karl Marx is historically significant when talking about capital.
In Marx: A Very Short Introduction, Peter Singer points out that
Marx was not an economist, in that he was not a recognized, practicing member
of the economic community. Marx was
acting in the manner of a political philosopher (and radical revolutionary), in
that he was working toward a way that the world should be. He was also,
however, trying to describe how the world is,
using the scholarship and language of economics to study its own blind spot(s). He used the language of economics to
criticize the exploitation of workers through the strategies of private
property and capital accumulation (among other strategies that became
collectively known as capitalism). As
Singer points out, Marx is given credit for the development of the notion of alienation and how it contributes to the
drive to resist exploitation. It is
not, however, necessary to aspire to communism to see the analytical value that
capital presents when trying to
understand one’s own position in the economy.
This is, at least in part, due to the importance that labor has in the
way that Marx described capital.
For our purposes, capital
is an abstraction of value. It allows us
to exchange our labor for other resources.
It allows some to accumulate that labor value, at the expense of others. Once one has an accumulation, one can then
strategize toward further production and accumulation. According to Bourdieu “the social world is
accumulated history [...] Capital is accumulated labor (in its materialized
form or its ‘incorporated,’ embodied form) which, when appropriated on a
private, i.e., exclusive, basis by agents or groups of agents, enables them to
appropriate social energy in the form of reified or living labor […] Capital,
which, in its objectified or embodied forms, takes time to accumulate and
which, as a potential capacity to produce profits and to reproduce itself in
identical or expanded form, contains a tendency to persist in its being, is a
force inscribed in the objectivity of things so that everything is not equally
possible or impossible.”[4]
(46)
This usage of capital
is absolutely influenced by Karl Marx, though certainly not constrained by
‘Marxism.’ There is a process of
extraction in the manner in which capital is used to transform and translate
labor value into financial and property wealth. This relationship of exploitation had not been
specifically articulated in terms of the appropriation of surplus labor value
by financiers and industrial magnates (and the usage thereof to maintain power
over the then-emerging working class) previous to Marx. There are, however, many differences between
the usages of capital by Marx and
Bourdieu. In particular, Bourdieu was
less interested in inspiring worldwide communist revolution and more interested
in providing what he called ‘universal access to the most universal.’ In other words, Bourdieu’s project was aimed
at providing the most accurate information to the widest possible
audience. This was done, in part,
through a constant struggle to maintain scientific independence from all other
forces save those of science, including
the forces of audiences outside of the scientific field.
Another major advancement of Bourdieu’s development of capital as a concept was the recognition
that social energy can be translated and exchanged between different forms. Bourdieu presented us with three
manifestations of the abstraction of labor value: economic, social, and cultural. There is an interesting intersection here
with Wolff’s presentation of Hobbes in the course reading packet. Wolff refers to Hobbes claim that power comes
from “riches, reputations, and friends” (43/10) which could also refer to the
abstractions of value that we call economic, cultural, and social capital.
Most of us are likely familiar with the idea of economic capital given that we must
provide it if we are to obtain food or shelter, supplies and transportation; economic capital appears to be the
majority of the commonly available definitions of capital. We may be less familiar with cultural capital “which is convertible,
on certain conditions, into economic capital and may be institutionalized in
the form of educational qualifications” and social
capital which is “made up of social obligations (‘connections’), which is
convertible, in certain conditions, into economic capital and may be
institutionalized in the form of a title of nobility.”[5]
(47) We don’t have nobility per se, but
our corporate and bureaucratic structures have a similar function. The people that meet in school can provide
valuable contacts later in a career.
What economists (including Bourdieu’s economy of practice,
though it breaks away from classical economism) may generally be looking past
is the contribution that the planet makes to our existence. Classical economics (according to the
canonical works) assumes the legitimacy of the appropriation of land and
private property which has justified mining, manufacture, waste and pollution
of a scale previously unseen. The
domination of nature is not a necessary part of rationality, but the two have been
historically associated and has been advantageous for those that profit from
that domination. Ecology is not a form
of capital but is a precondition for capital;
ecology is a concept that attempts to describe a system of physical relations
that makes possible all forms of capital.
To recognize, then, that the ecosystem is in fact the basis for all
other forms of capital is not to say that ecological capital (such as water) should be considered a commodity. But a functioning ecosystem is a prerequisite
for our existence, as well as for the existence of any manner of economy. We use the planet to maintain ourselves and to accumulate value in extreme
amounts. We can exchange ‘raw materials’
for various forms of capital in the same way that we can exchange money for the
privilege of using some of the planet’s capacity for processing the changes in
the surface caused by resource exploitation.
This is not to say that this should
be the case, but instead tries to take account of what is actually happening in
the world.
We know that we use various manifestations of value in order
to exchange and translate forms of capital.
Now we will consider ways to make the most sense of where and how these
economies of practice take place.
FIELDS OF SOCIAL RELATIONS
Economic capital can be metal,
signal variations (digital numbers) and paper notes. Economic capital is how we pay for food,
supplies, housing. Economic capital is
also one manner in which the wealthy countries keep the poor countries indebted
and thus subject to the political will of the wealthy countries. This is extensively covered in the film The
End of Poverty? and further
developed in the full interviews released in the video series Speaking
Freely. Every individual interview
consists of some particular set of aspects in the neo-liberal incorporation of
the strategies of capital accumulation on a global basis. The economic instruments that Joseph Stiglitz
describes are elaborated on by John Perkins (Volume 1) and Susan George (Volume
2). The political and paramilitary
instruments are illustrated by Perkins, Ray McGovern (Volume 3), and Chalmers
Johnson (Volume 4). Johnson goes
into great detail regarding the function and costs of global military
imperialism. The globe was successfully
colonized, most recently by western European powers.
This brutally violent form of domination was
then replaced by a less immediately physically violent system that may produce
less immediate physical violence but still does the work of extracting value
from physical labor and other resources.
The IMF and World Bank use debt as political leverage to produce
specific policies and decisions. If
these leveraged intimidations fail, economic hitmen will visit to remind the
leaders of poor countries that their positions and possibly lives are at stake. If the lobbyist of imperialism fails, the CIA
has become a private army of the executive branch which may intervene in the
interests of private concerns.
Assassination and indeterminate detention have become institutional
norms that contribute, if necessary, to the maintenance of economic domination.
This tangle of social relations
can be better understood by taking into account the dynamics that produce such
individual and institutional actions.
For example, there seems to be an antagonism between rich and poor
countries. This is an example of the
relationship between an economically dominant group and an economically
dominated group. There is, then, a
relationship of opposition between rich and poor countries that is a modern
institutionalization of the more basic relationship between economically
dominant and dominated groups. This
opposition is analogous to the relationship between two teams in competition
with one another, where the only meaningful play can happen between and amongst
the two teams. This analogy is certainly
not meant to minimize the misery caused by economic and military warfare by
calling it a game, but rather is meant to encourage enough rupture to allow for
a more accurate way to describe a relationship of forces and dynamics.
This can be conceptualized using
the idea of a field. This field is a
place and time structured by the forces that act against one another, but only
in relation to each other (in the same way that teams play a game). This relationship of antagonistic competition
is structurally similar to the way in which a magnetic field has poles of
attraction and repulsion that work only in relation to each other (or in relation
to other magnetic poles). In a book
called On Television, a transcript of a lecture delivered on French TV
that was about French TV (in other
words, an intervention), Bourdieu gave readers and listeners the most concise
description I’ve found of what he meant by field: "A field is a structured social space, a
field of forces, a force field. It contains people who dominate and others who
are dominated. Constant, permanent relationships of inequality operate inside
this space, which at the same time becomes a space in which the various actors
struggle for the transformation or preservation of the field. All the
individuals in this universe bring to the competition all the (relative) power
at their disposal. It is this power that defines their position in the field
and, as a result, their strategies."
We can easily see how this relates to course discussions and readings
about economic inequality, domestic and international.
Bourdieu described three specific fields of social
relations, in reference to the early articulation of the establishment of
cultural production as semi-independent disciplines (literature, drama,
painting, sculpture). The field of
economic production, also known as the field of class relations, is where we
find a relationship between the economically dominated and the economically
dominant. This is most easily understood
by the inherent tension between workers and owners (most easily seen in
industrial manufacturing). Slavery
generally requires immediate physical restraint, whereas employment is a
cultural practice that is enforced by the physical restraint of law enforcement
only as a last resort. The attempt, on
the part of agents of state and corporate structures, to monopolize legitimate
violence leads us to our second field of social relation: the field of power.
The dominant end of the field of class relations is where we
find an opposition between symbolic versus temporal power. Violence is a primary example of a way to
produce a desired action or behavior in a relatively short period of time. Food and shelter is not quite as immediate,
but is still important in the scheme of personal needs. Thus the temporal force in the field of power
represents the very real actions taken by Government and Industry (among other
institutional and individual agents).
Armed Forces and law enforcement are two kinds of agencies that enforce
the “legitimate” violence of federal and local social structure. The three branches of the federal government
are the bureaucratic pinnacle of our domestic manifestation of temporal power,
but their ultimate enforcement comes from the guns held by soldiers and
police. Then there is the way in which
violence is paid for by banks and private investors who certainly have their
own private security forces. It is this
collusion between the forces of finance, bureaucracy and violence that
maintains a coherent dominant pole in the field of power.
The dominated pole of the field of power is that of symbolic
power. The power of ideas and aesthetics
is very important in maintaining the position of the economically dominant, but
is still subject to the forces of those in the dominant positions of both the
fields of class relations and power.
Though exposed to, and affected by, the effects of money and political
pressure, the field of cultural production works in a way that is opposed to
the attraction of money or power, if at times in the way that a mirror image is
opposed to the original. For example,
Otis (an institution of both educational and artistic orientations) could be
considered to be quite independent (in some respects) of the larger economy,
but certainly wants its students to be prepared to not only get jobs but
develop careers and make social contributions (and has bills to pay in order to
keep its doors open). The various fields
that are primarily concerned with aesthetic studies are inhabited by people
that need to eat and buy supplies, but success that is too rapid can be considered
suspect. This is a function of the
position of the field of cultural production within the larger context of the
field of power.
There are at least three practical logics that structure those
spaces that do cultural work. There is the logic of the field of class
relations, where accumulated labor value can be used to maintain inequity. There is also the logic of the field of
power, where temporal power and symbolic power consort and maintain their
mutual, if unequal, economic dominance of those with the least access to
resources. Then there is the specific
logic of the field of cultural production, where the primary currency is the
respect and recognition of a competitive cohort. In Bourdieu’s words, the field of cultural
production “is thus the site of a double hierarchy: the heteronomous principle of hierarchization, which would reign
unchallenged if, losing all autonomy, the literary and artistic field were to
disappear as such (so that writers and artists became subject to the ordinary
laws prevailing in the field of power, and more generally in the economic
field) is success, as measured by
indices such as book sales, number of theatrical performances, etc. or honours,
appointments, etc. The autonomous principle of hierarchization,
which would reign unchallenged if the field of production were to achieve total
autonomy with respect to the laws of the market, is degree specific consecration (literary or artistic prestige), i.e.
the degree of recognition accorded by those who recognize no other criterion of
legitimacy than recognition by those whom they recognize.” Heteronomy is the tendency to produce culture
for a consuming audience. Autonomy is
the tendency to produce culture for other producers of culture. We can use these practical logics to our
advantage most effectively when we recognize our group interests and act upon
them.
In the same way that capital
might be expanded to include the prior contributions that the ecosystem makes
to our existence and productivity, fields
of social relations could be expanded to include some evolutionary and
social realities not altogether accounted for in Bourdieu’s original
articulations. Though the process is not
always neat or exact, our genetic diversity is largely a product of sexual
reproduction. We may not be biologically
opposed to each other in a sexual manner, but socially there is to be found an
opposition between female and male, visible in the unequal distribution of
resources. This biological difference,
which can manifest as a social antagonism, lends itself to a structurally
similar relationship between feminine and masculine (the socially constructed,
historically variable binary opposition between aspects of identity and behavior
that has some degree of origination in sexual biology). This is not to say that there is a necessary
or ultimate relationship of domination between men and women (or between
masculinity and femininity) or that this should
be the case. Rather, we are teasing out
further implications of social theory in a world premised on ecological
function. Sex, like liquid water,
pre-existed humanity and made our species possible.
My personal opinion is colored by the fact that I was raised
by my mother and her mother. In college
I found a used copy of The Natural Superiority of Women by anatomist and
anthropologist Ashley Montague, written in 1952. This questionable biological argument, in
combination with the various feminist readings I encountered, led me to the
opinion that misogyny (physical and symbolic degradation of all things female
and feminine) is a strategy employed by a physically stronger but
reproductively less vital sex in constant vulnerability to questions of
paternity. Testosterone may contribute
to survivability in many situations, but it also contributes to sexual
aggression. It cannot be coincidence
that institutions of violence produce intense sexual violence even inside their
ranks.[6]
This is an example of the antagonistic
social relationship that is premised on sexual reproduction. It may be chauvinistic to suggest that the
‘best’ way to describe this is using some scientific mumbo-jumbo. It may also be accurate to say that resources
(including ‘rights’) are distributed in an unequal way that is influenced by
sex and reproduction. Sex is a
prerequisite to our societies in a way that is as crucial as liquid fresh
water. It could be advantageous to those
interested in effecting change to have a model of description that does not
pretend toward prescription and instead is actively oriented to resistance to
unacknowledged and misrecognized influence by forces of domination. It may be overly easy to simply apply the
idea of fields of social relations to
other contexts where it ‘seems to fit,’ but there certainly seems to be plenty
of evidence to evaluate.
It seems that we are prone to simply glossing over the
intrinsic value of the very forces that brought us into existence. This has been compounded by a tendency to
ignore or justify the degradation of planet’s ecology in the name of
profit. Modern economics has mastered
externalizing costs outside the circle of prosperity whenever possible. This certainly includes the costs of resource
extraction, capital accumulation, and biological reproduction. This glossing over the value and origination
of the forces and dynamics that make possible accumulation and the social
reproduction of wealth is one way in which we contribute to the “legitimacy” of
power relations and resource distribution that is obviously miserable for those
at the ‘bottom.’
If the reader is confused, the writer understands. Some of the ideas are not fully developed;
those that are have additional context.
Bourdieu himself referred to some of his ideas as ‘fuzzy.’ This is probably because people do not seem
to act with the regularity of physical laws.
We do, however, live in worlds that were built before we were born. And regularity does exist, in that there is
structure in our societies and in our heads and in our cells. Group affiliations and oppositions like those
that we call ethnic, racial, and national all pre-existed any of us. We do, however, change the world as we move
through it.
There is one pair of positions and oppositions that has been
very common in the course readings which pulls our discussion together: north
versus south. We use these magnetic
directional orientations to navigate and draw maps. We use this geographic convention to spatially
orient ourselves while we sit in desks as students. We have also come to use north and south to
classify entire continents and structure trade and aid relations. Though it is not necessarily the case that
the southern and northern hemispheres stay in armed or economic conflict, the
history of colonization and exploitation has left a legacy that will not soon
disappear. One part of that legacy is an
opposition that exists both in the structure and function of the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Regardless of the intent of the founders, what has happened is a
continuous process of resource extraction from the global south on the part of
the global north under the guise of ‘development.’ The global north then uses those resources in
ways that are conspicuously excessive, wasteful, and toxic. To say that this is the case is not to say
that it should be, but is rather an attempt to start with the most accurate
information possible with which to make decision.
There are many agencies and fields of social relations at work
in this simplified polarization between the south and north. We have read about workers and companies,
states and countries. There is plenty of
evidence of the impact of banks, governments, trade organizations, developers,
militaries, private armies and munitions manufacturers. What the south/north rhetorical divide does
accomplish is the characterization of the relationship of domination between
the globally rich and industrialized countries and the globally poor and
exploited countries. It may be possible
to sustain such a relationship for some time to come, but there are likely many
costs to be paid. Those interested in
making a change in the world toward a more equitable and sustainable global
culture can use creative ideas about value and social organization to whatever
ends they see fit.
The normative lesson to be had from Bourdieu’s project of
description regards the advantages and costs associated with the group struggle
to maintain independence from the constraints of outside influences and instead
be governed, to the greatest degree possible at that time, by a practical logic
of a field of restricted production largely for and by a community of
cooperative competitors. We are born
into the world with many allegiances assumed for and presented to us. Jared Diamond makes a point to ask questions
about the distribution of resources when assessing the rise to prominence and
domination of Western Europe as a historical force (and thus the position of
the USA). Bourdieu and Passeron had this
to say: “The ‘choices’ which constitute a culture (‘choices’ which no one
makes) appear as arbitrary when related by the comparative method to the sum
total of present or past cultures or, by imaginary variation, to the universe
of possible cultures, they reveal their necessity as soon as they are related
to the social conditions of their emergence and perpetuation.”[7]
(8) I see there being a high degree of
agreement about the historical and socially constructed state of the
distribution of resources. Recognizing
the arbitrary imposition of power contributes to the construction of social
structure specifically premised on justice and sustainability.
Legitimacy is one
way to describe our degree of complicity in the belief in the cultural
sacredness of a given practice. Karl
Marx is credited with the concept of ideology, and now ideology is a word often
used in a much more casual way. Ideology may not be necessary as a
concept to accurately describe a willingness to cooperate in a social
arrangement that is not strictly arranged by the majority of participants. Faith in the sanctity of money is one
articulation of how legitimacy works.
But it is only the most commonly understood example of the value of
capitals, as they are used in fields of social relations, as tools for social
analysis.
[1]
Page numbers are listed as ’course reading packet’/‘original’ when referring
the assigned class readings.
[2]
The recent ‘derivatives’ crisis represents one example of the logic of profit
from calamity. The disinterest of
chemical corporations in planning to reduce pollution is likely related to the
business of cleaning up toxicity. We saw
that in the recent Gulf Coast spill cleanup effort which introduced even more
toxicity into the water. See the
documentaries Blue Gold: World Water Wars and Tapped. Watch John Perkins on Speaking Freely
for a discussion of infrastructure re-development in Iraq and elsewhere.
[3] I
will not do justice to Pierre Bourdieu here.
There are numerous books about, and by, this productive scholar. Someone that is not already familiar might
start with An Invitiation to Reflexive Sociology (coauthored with Loic
J. D. Wacquant, University of Chicago Press, 1992). My thinking is indelibly marked by the
English translations of his French words.
[4]
Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” Handbook of Theory and Research for
the Sociology of Education, John Richardson (Ed.), Greenwood Press, 1986,
pp. 46-58.
[5]
ibid
[6]
See the documentary The Invisible War (2012).
[7] Pierre
Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron, Reproduction: In Education, Society, and
Culture, Sage Publications, 1977.
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