Spaces between Fields

Eyal, Gil

doi:10.1215/9780822395430-008

Cited by 45 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 244 publications

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“…The autism field is far from the cloistered and idealized “autonomous” scientific field Bourdieu theorized. Building on the work of other scholars (Eyal 2013; Panofksy 2014), we argue that the autism field is highly influenced by heteronomous economic and political interests and is reliant on the laity who consume its knowledge, products, and services. A defining feature of a Bourdieusian field is that it is embroiled in struggle, and its autonomy, boundaries, and forms of capital are all historical products of these struggles (Bourdieu 1991, 1993a, 1993b).…”

Section: Literature and Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 85%

Scientific Hegemony and the Field of Autism

Decoteau

Daniel

2020

Am Sociol Rev

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Autism is one of the twenty-first century’s most contested illnesses. Early controversies around vaccine harm have irrevocably structured the field of autism science. Despite incredible investment in genetic research on autism over the past 30 years, scientists have failed to identify a set of “genes for” autism, and genomic causality has become more complex. Yet, orthodox genetic explanations for autism have retained dominance over a vociferous field of heterodox experts pointing to a series of environmental insults (vaccines, heavy metal exposure, overuse of antibiotics, toxic pollution) as the main causes of autism. To make sense of this puzzling trend, we develop a novel theoretical synthesis combining a Bourdieusian field analysis with a Gramscian conception of hegemony, centered around the concept of “subsumptive orthodoxy.” Analyzing multiple years of archival data from the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, we argue that when faced with heterodox challenges, dominant members of the field shore up hegemony by incorporating environmental causal factors into the genome, thus engaging in subsumptive orthodoxy. This move gives rhetorical space to environmental explanations without providing them substantive causal weight, which renders particular environmental causes (like vaccines) impossible. This article traces the strategies dominant members of the field use to retain control over the definition and etiology of autism. We develop the broader implications of the study within autism science and beyond.

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Section: Literature and Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 85%

Scientific Hegemony and the Field of Autism

Decoteau

Daniel

2020

Am Sociol Rev

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“…6Bourdieu's approach has been criticized for being confined to the national space of France. I will bypass the complex debate about determining boundaries of fields, as it has been discussed in Swartz (1997) and Eyal (2013), but I do want to point out that one should generally distinguish between two different questions: on one hand, whether Bourdieu's models of the social space or field are also applicable to other countries or scales. Here, one has to see that Bourdieu conceives of theories as models for the construction of sociological objects, which can be modified according to the specific area or object of research.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

What is a Global Field? Theorizing Fields beyond the Nation-State

Buchholz¹

2016

The Sociological Review

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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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“…In doing so, it unpacks the presumed divisions between research contexts and considers how they are borne out in language and practice. It reframes policy knowledge as existing within a ‘space between fields’ (Eyal, 2011), and takes research contexts not as self-contained units, but as negotiated sites of contemporary intellectual participation. It reinterprets the apparently discrete contexts as existing within an interconnected hybrid space where policy knowledge is created.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategic positioning: How policy research actors situate their intellectual labour to gain symbolic resources from multiple fields

Williams

2020

The Sociological Review

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The process of knowledge production involves negotiating several social worlds, whereby actors engage in positioning and repositioning to situate their intellectual labour and gain symbolic resources. This article considers the strategic positioning of policy research actors using interview and document data. It sets out the ways in which individual and institutional actors negotiate and situate their intellectual practice in order to gain capital from a range of relevant fields. The article considers how organisations position themselves in relation to other institutions, and how individual researchers position themselves vis-a-vis their own organisations and others in the hybrid space between more established fields. It demonstrates how identities are constructed in a relational way via comparison and juxtaposition in the liminal space of international development. In doing so, it directs attention to the strategic practices involved in the production of meaningful intellectual interventions.

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Spaces between Fields

Cited by 45 publications

References 244 publications

Scientific Hegemony and the Field of Autism

Scientific Hegemony and the Field of Autism

What is a Global Field? Theorizing Fields beyond the Nation-State

Strategic positioning: How policy research actors situate their intellectual labour to gain symbolic resources from multiple fields

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