Tacit Knowledge and Classical Technique in Seventeenth-Century France: Hydraulic Cement as a Living Practice among Masons and Military Engineers

The Territorial State as a Figured World of Power: Strategics, Logistics, and Impersonal Rule

“…One person would seal cracks in a wall, others would fix the floor, and the result would be a more long-standing structure that would carry a heritage of problem solving from older material regimes. Pragmatic acts of construction would yield a built environment, both serving and characterizing the successive regimes inhabiting the space (Mukerji 2008a;Rosental and Lahire 2008).…”

“…Precisely because a built environment is accreted over time, it is not a product of an individual imagination, or even imposed by one political regime. Compare to Howard Becker's art worlds (Becker 1982;Mukerji 1997b It is a physical arrangement of the material environment that intentionally ratifies cultural conceptions of reality. A figured world functions like a habitus (Bourdieu 1984), shaping the beliefs, tastes, identities, and habits of people, but it is not just a set of social relations and ideas; it is a material order, too (Becker 1982;Beik 1985;Joyce 2003;Wagner-Pacifici 2005).…”

“…But Louis XIV did not support them, and instead signed a contract for the canal, specifying that theÉtats had to help pay for it (Conseil d'Etat 1666). They haggled over the price for indemnified land mainly to stall work so the canal would not be completed within the period of the contract (Mukerji 2007a). It was precisely because the king was not a good ally that members of the ruling elite used their powers over the bourse and indemnifications to try to deprive Riquet of both money and land to build the Canal du Midi (Etats du Languedoc 1680).…”

“…France would be restored not only to the good order designed and desired by God, but also to its ancient glory. The two programs of restoration provided the moral and cultural foundation for French public administration (compare to Burke 1992;Mukerji 2005Mukerji , 2009b.…”

Cementing Relations: The Materiality of Roads and Public Spaces in Provincial Peru

“…Chandra Mukerji (2006) has quite rightly disputed this claim, demonstrating that concrete was clearly known about, used, and supplied in seventeenth-century France and Italy. However, she also tells us that knowledge of these materials pertained to the skilled and secretive guilds of artisanal builders and, furthermore, that such knowledge was explicitly mistrusted in elite circles.…”