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Abstract

Pierre Bourdieu:[1] The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed. In: Randal Johnson (Ed.): The Field of Cultural Production. Columbia University Press, 1993, p. 29–72.

From Science Direct: [2]
To be fully understood, literary production has to be approached in relational terms, by constructing the literary field, i.e. the space of literary prises de position that are possible in a given period in a given society. Prises de position arise from the encounter between particular agents' dispositions (their habitus, shaped by their social trajectory) and their position in a field of positions which is defined by the distribution of a specific form of capital. This specific literary (or artistic, or philosophical, etc.) capital functions within an ‘economy’ whose logic is an inversion of the logic of the larger economy of the society. The ‘interest in distinterestedness’ can be understood by examining the structural relations between the field of literary production and the field of class relations. A number of effects within the literary field arise from the homologies between positions within the two fields. This model is then used to analyze the particular case of the literary field in late 19th century France.

Mentioned Theorists

Ernst Cassirer[3], 1874–1945
Chantal Mouffe[4], 1943
Claude Lévi-Strauss[5], 1908–2009
Ferdinand de Saussure[6], 1857–1913
Michel Foucault[7], 1926–1984
Itamar Even-Zohar[8], 1939
Tzvetan Todorov[9], 1939
Max Weber[10], 1864–1920
Jürgen Habermas[11], 1929
Jack Burnham[12], 1931
Chantal Mouffe[13], 1943
Jacques Derrida[14], 1930–2004
Carl Schmitt[15], 1888–1985
Ernst Cassirer[16], 1874–1945

Key Points

Substantialism (Ernst Cassirer)
- foregrounds the individual, or the visible interactions between individuals
- social agents may be isolated individuals, groups or institutions
- glorification of great individuals
Field of Cultural Production (Pierre Bourdieu)
- radical break with the substantialist mode of thought
- constructing the space of positions and of position-takings
- science of the literary field is a form of analysis situs
- each position is subjectively defined by the system of distinctive properties
- each position depends on the other positions constituting the field
Capital and Profits
- the structure of a field is the structure of the distribution of capital
- capital governs success in the field and winning of profits (e.g. literary prestige)
Space of Position-Takings
- structured set of the manifestations of social agents involved in a field
- possession of a determinate quantity of specific capital (recognition)
- determinate position in the structure of the distribution of this capital
Literary or Artistic Field
- is a field of forces
- is a field of struggles trying to transform the field of forces
- struggles to defend or improve the position of the agents
- position-taking is defined in relation to space of possibles
Meaning of a Work
- changes automatically with the change in its field
- classic works change constantly as the universe of coexistent works changes
- get beyond dominant mode by repeating it instead of denouncing (parody)
- canonical text or philosophical doxa
- new groups modify, display the universe of possible options
Michel Foucault
- field of strategic possibilities determined by conceptual games
- refuses to relate works in any way to their social conditions of production
Defining the Field
- escaping from the dilemma of internal reading of a work and external analysis
- principle of position-takings lies in the structure and functioning of the field of positions
Defining a Work of Art
- collective belief which knows and acknowledges it as a work of art
- role of educational system to legitimate mode of consumption
- works of art exist as symbolic objects only if they are known and recognized
- producing consumers capable of knowing and recognizing the work of art
Cultural Production and Power
- the literary and artistic field (3) is contained within the field of power (2)
- field of power is situated at the dominant pole of the field of class relations (1)
- double hierarchy > the heteronomous principle of hierarchization
- field is affected by the laws of the field which encompasses it
- degree of public success is the main differentiating factor
- most autonomous sector of the filed of cultural production is where the only audience aimed at is other producers
Principle of Hierarchization
- literary or artistic field is the site of a struggle between two principles of hierarchization
- heteronomous principle, dominate the field economically (bourgeois art)
- autonomous principle (e.g. art for art's sake), independent from economy
- struggle to impose the dominant principle of domination and definitions itself
- monopoly of the power to say who are authorized to call themselves writers
- monopoly of the power to consecrate producers or products
Structure of the Field
- heteronomy arises from demand, which may take the form of personal commission
- basis for evaluation of producers and products is the economic or political profit (success)
Hierarchies and Genres
- from the economic point of view the hierarchy is simple and relatively stable
- top of the hierarchy is drama, secures big profits > bourgeois audience (restricted)
- at the bottom of the hierarchy is poetry with zero profit for a small number of producers
- between the two is the novel, which can secure big profits for large number of producers
Three competing Principles of Legitimacy
- recognition by the set of producers which produce for other producers (art for art's sake
- legitimacy corresponding to bourgeois taste and the dominant class such as salons
- legitimacy corresponding to the popular, choice of ordinary consumers, mass audience
Genesis of Structure
- poetry, from the 1860s on, exists in a closed circuit
- field of large-scale production > drama and naturalist novel
- bourgeois drama does not grow old without becoming classic
- genres undergo different transformations and transformation times
- permanent revolution > poetry, but also extends to novel and theatre
Structure of the Field based on
- opposition between the sub-field of restricted production and the sub-field of large-scale production (i.e. two economies, two time-scales, two audiences)
- opposition, within the sub-field of restricted production, between the consecrated avant-garde and the avant-garde, the established figures and the newcomers (i.e. artistic generations)
Autonomization of the Sub-Field of Restricted Production
- autonomous sub-filed which is opposed to the heteronomous sub-field
- as an anti-economic economy based on the refusal of economic profits
- recognition solely of symbolic, long-term profits
- economic and social changes affect the literary field indirectly
- through the growth in the cultivated audience (i.e. potential readership)
Structure and Change
- endless changes arise from the very structure of the field, are largely independent of the external changes which may seem to determine them because they accompany them chronologically
- internal struggle depends on the correspondence they may have with the external struggle between classes and which one group or another may derive from them
- political breaks, such as revolutionary crises, which change the power relations within the field (i.e. 1848 revolution strengthened the dominated pole, causing writers to shift to left > social art)
- change falls on the youngest, the newcomers > assert their difference
- position-takings arise from the relationship between positions
- young writers will refuse everything their elders are and do
- history of the field > struggle between established figures and young challengers
- making one's mark, initiating a new epoch, mean winning recognition
- returns to past styles (frequent in painting) are never the same thing
- example: opposition Rousseau and Duchamp
- Rousseau, the painter as object, who does not reflect what he does
- Duchamp, capable of thinking several moves ahead, symbolic authority
Positions and Dispositions
- practices of writers and artists are result of the meeting of two histories
- history of the positions they occupy and of the history of their dispositions
Habitus and Possibles