Rethinking the State: Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic Field

Bourdieu, Pierre; Wacquant, Loïc; Farage, Samar

doi:10.2307/202032

Cited by 1,071 publications

(656 citation statements)

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“…Official regulation consecrates such representations, investing them with a degree of symbolic and practical symbolic effectiveness (Bourdieu 2014: 170). The stake of officialisation, in turn, commands practices in struggles over instruments of exercising state power over language (see Bourdieu 1991aBourdieu , 1994Bourdieu , 2014. Such struggles may, conversely, endow state-backed policy with enhanced symbolic effectiveness, making it 'work' through the myriad acts of people who 'believe themselves to be the necessary agents of a necessary policy' (Bourdieu 1996: 383;see also 1994.…”

Section: A State Vision Of Linguistic Divisionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This refutation of legalism-of the compelling autonomy of rules and laws-runs through Bourdieu's programme for a sociology of the state (Bourdieu 1994(Bourdieu , 1996(Bourdieu , 2004(Bourdieu , 2005(Bourdieu , 2014. In this endeavour, the notion of state is closely linked to the notion of field (see Bourdieu 1994Bourdieu , 1996Bourdieu , 2014 and thereby to notions of interest, strategy and contention.…”

Section: A State Vision Of Linguistic Divisionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this endeavour, the notion of state is closely linked to the notion of field (see Bourdieu 1994Bourdieu , 1996Bourdieu , 2014 and thereby to notions of interest, strategy and contention. The state is not conceived as a self-regulating automaton or an ideological apparatus (Bourdieu 1994(Bourdieu , 1996(Bourdieu , 2014, but rather as an 'ensemble of fields that are the site of struggles [over] the power to constitute and to impose as universal and universally applicable' (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992: 112). As such, it is bound up with battles between contentious agents, competing for the authority to impose their vision through the state (Bourdieu 2014: 99-101).…”

Section: A State Vision Of Linguistic Divisionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As such, it is bound up with battles between contentious agents, competing for the authority to impose their vision through the state (Bourdieu 2014: 99-101). Thus, while the state has been likened to a 'central bank for symbolic capital' (Bourdieu 1994(Bourdieu : 12, 2014, this simile is only appropriate insofar as we acknowledge that the members of the bank's executive board are likely to nourish many, often conflicting, interests and agendas (Bourdieu 1994(Bourdieu , 1996(Bourdieu : 173-189, 2005(Bourdieu , 2014. Rather than being a unitary entity, the state is a site where different holders of power strive to establish their power as the supremely legitimate one (Bourdieu 1994(Bourdieu , 2014.…”

Section: A State Vision Of Linguistic Divisionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, while the state has been likened to a 'central bank for symbolic capital' (Bourdieu 1994(Bourdieu : 12, 2014, this simile is only appropriate insofar as we acknowledge that the members of the bank's executive board are likely to nourish many, often conflicting, interests and agendas (Bourdieu 1994(Bourdieu , 1996(Bourdieu : 173-189, 2005(Bourdieu , 2014. Rather than being a unitary entity, the state is a site where different holders of power strive to establish their power as the supremely legitimate one (Bourdieu 1994(Bourdieu , 2014. It is a battleground for agents from different fields, who compete for the power to exercise legitimate control over fields and markets (Bourdieu 2005(Bourdieu : 33, 2014Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992: 111-115).…”

Section: A State Vision Of Linguistic Divisionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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State categories, state vision and vernacular woes in Sweden’s language politics

Karlander

2017

Lang Policy

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This article deals with the politics of classification in contemporary Sweden. It analyses the language political dispute that has developed over the language political regulation of Ö vdalsk, a non-standard form of Scandinavian spoken in Ä lvdalen in northern central Sweden. The analysis focuses on the ways in which a discursive exchange over metalinguistic categories contributes to the efficacy of a state vision of linguistic divisions. In the wake of Sweden's ratification of the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (ECRML), and the language political reforms in which the ratification was embedded, Ö vdalsk has emerged as a contentious issue. Over three decades (1990s-2010s), the question of what Ö vdalsk 'is'-a 'language', a 'dialect' or something else-has surged repeatedly in political, public and scholarly deliberations (i.e. in expert reports, in policy documents and in scientific publications). Nevertheless, the interests placed in this muddled taxonomic issue have not yet been subjected to any sociolinguistic analysis. Drawing on Bourdieu's work on the state, the article attends to the ways in which the exchange over Ö vdalsk has paid tribute to an increasingly entrenched symbolic order. Commenting on Sweden's commitment to the ECRML more generally, the article accounts for how and why an officialised vision of linguistic division has been rendered symbolically effective. Accordingly, the article argues that a sensitisation to the forms of tacit agreement that underwrite contention is a suitable lens for grasping the maintenance of a political order as legitimate and effective.

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Section: A State Vision Of Linguistic Divisionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A State Vision Of Linguistic Divisionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A State Vision Of Linguistic Divisionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A State Vision Of Linguistic Divisionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A State Vision Of Linguistic Divisionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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State categories, state vision and vernacular woes in Sweden’s language politics

Karlander

2017

Lang Policy

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Fielding transnationalism: an introduction

Go¹,

Krause²

2016

The Sociological Review Monographs

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What is a global field? Theorizing fields beyond the nation-state

Buchholz¹

2016

The Sociological Review Monographs

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While scholarship on global and transnational fields has been emerging, hitherto contributions have rarely or not explicitly discussed how Bourdieu's field theory has to be altered when its use expands from a national to a global scale. Starting from the premise that a global field is not a national field writ large, this paper discusses strategies and elements for revising field theory for use beyond national borders. Specifically, the article first proposes analogical theorizing as a systematic approach for extending and modifying the tools of field theory at a global level. Analogical theorizing offers a method for constructing the object in a global context in a way that goes beyond rescaling and minimizes the risk of deductive reification. Against this background and drawing from research on the global visual art field, the article offers criteria for delineating a global field and distinguishes relative functional and vertical autonomy. Finally, it discusses how the concept of ‘relative vertical autonomy’ contributes in three ways to the development of global field analysis: for theorizing emergence; examining global‐national interdependencies; and denationalizing Bourdieu's concept of ‘national capital’.

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Rethinking the State: Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic Field

Cited by 1,071 publications

References 0 publications

State categories, state vision and vernacular woes in Sweden’s language politics

State categories, state vision and vernacular woes in Sweden’s language politics

Fielding transnationalism: an introduction

What is a global field? Theorizing fields beyond the nation-state

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