Unconscious culture and conscious nature: exploring East Javanese conceptions of the person through Bourdieu's lens

Abstract

Though staging an imaginary dialogue between French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and East Javanese informants, the paper explores anthropological processes of knowledge‐making regarding the roots of social domination. The employment of an explicitly comparative framework is undertaken with the aim of revealing the frontier areas and outer limits of knowledge production and of cross‐cultural translation in general. At the same time, it engages with ‘indigenous’ ways of knowing that emphasize embodied subjectivity and sensorial inter‐involvement with others and the ambient world, and that posit the assumption that being a particular person and acting in a specific way are closely connected. Résumé Par la mise en scène d’un dialogue imaginaire entre le sociologue français Pierre Bourdieu et des informateurs javanais de l’Est, l’article explore les processus anthropologiques de production de connaissances concernant les racines de la domination sociale. L’emploi d’un cadre explicitement comparatif a pour but de révéler les zones frontières et les limites extérieures de la production de connaissances et de la traduction interculturelle en général. Dans le même temps, l’auteur aborde les modes de connaissance « autochtones » qui mettent l’accent sur la subjectivité incorporée et les engagements sensoriels mutuels avec les autres et avec le monde environnant, et qui posent l’hypothèse qu’une personne donnée et une manière spécifique d’agir sont étroitement liées.

An artist's response to an anthropological perspective (Grimshaw and Ravetz)

“…Learning to become a contemporary artist is a process more akin to the process of acquiring social class than the acquisition of skills as such. As Konstantinos Retsikas () describes, much has been written in the various disciplines about Bourdieu's habitus, critiquing and further elucidating the term. The key aspects of the concept are summarised by Retsikas as: (i) ‘structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures’; (ii) ‘a product of history [which] produces … more history’; (iii) the ‘internalization of externality’, as well as the externalization of interiority; (iv) ‘a spontaneity without consciousness or will’; and (v) the ‘intentionless invention of regulated improvisation’ (: S140–1).…”

Autonomy, Choice and Treatment: Using Bourdieu's Theory of Practice to Explore Breast Cancer Patients' Preconceptions and Experiences of Public and Private Health Systems in New Zealand

“…These researchers discuss Bourdieu's concepts in relation to their research and use the concepts to explain particular situations experienced by their participants. As explored in Chapter 2 qualitative researchers have used Bourdieu's concepts as a way exploring various issues providing insight into power issues (Angus et al 2007), decision making (Crossley 1999;Crossley and Crossley 2001;Noiesen et al 2004;Stoebenau 2009) and the relevance of such concepts outside of European culture (Meinert 2004;Retsikas 2010).…”

“…Lovell (2000) has criticised Bourdieu's notion of cultural capital because it constructs culture as something solid, real, and difficult to shift despite the fact that the social world in reality requires constant "reiteration" of its "performance" (Lovell 2000: 15). Meinert (2004) and Retsikas (2010) criticise cultural capital for its emphasis upon socialisation and inability to incorporate the socialisation processes of other cultures. Meinert (2004) and Grineski (2009) also criticise Bourdieu's definition of cultural capital as being something that only exists within an individual despite their opposing evidence from their studies which shows how children's cultural capital works as a collective family asset in terms of advocacy.…”

“…Criticisms relating to habitus link with its confusing definition, its pessimistic deterministic outlook, as well as questions around whether the concept allows for individual autonomy. Retsikas (2010) has commented how Bourdieu's theory is full of oxymorons and she gives an example showing how he defines the concept of habitus in four different ways which seem to contradict each other within four pages of his work in one paper. Authors such as Wacquant (1989: 31) respond to such criticisms noting that Bourdieu's theories and language employed within these theories are deliberately confusing "to break with the common language [...] and convey the essentially relational and recursive character of social processes."…”

Autonomy, Choice and Treatment: Using Bourdieu's Theory of Practice to Explore Breast Cancer Patients' Preconceptions and Experiences of Public and Private Health Systems in New Zealand

“…Lovell (2000) has criticised Bourdieu's notion of cultural capital because it constructs culture as something solid, real, and difficult to shift despite the fact that the social world in reality requires constant "reiteration" of its "performance" (Lovell 2000: 15). Meinert (2004) and Retsikas (2010) criticise cultural capital for its emphasis upon socialisation and inability to incorporate the socialisation processes of other cultures. Meinert (2004) and Grineski (2009) also criticise Bourdieu's definition of cultural capital as being something that only exists within an individual despite their opposing evidence from their studies which shows how children's cultural capital works as a collective family asset in terms of advocacy.…”