Struktureringsteori

1
Struktureringsteori

• Kristian Stokke
• kristian.stokke_at_sgeo.uio.no
• folk.uio.no/stokke

2
Utgangspunkt

• Reaction against structural Marxism (and to a
  certain extent interpretive approaches)
• Structural Marxism was criticized as overly
  abstract, a totalizing and deterministic
  conception of human existence which left little
  room for the autonomy of consciousness or the
  actions of individuals Peet p. 153)
• Question what does this mean? Examples from
  human geography?

3
Reflexive action

• Stratification model of the human agent
• Embedded in actor motivation of action,
  rationalisation and reflexive monitoring
• Continuous monitoring of activities and the
  social and spatial contexts of their actions
• Recursiveness action might not be completely
  understood or intended but is structured and
  often routinised

4
Duality of structures
5
Time-space relations

• Presences/ absences
• Time/space routinization/ time-space
  distanciation
• Modes of regionalisation channeling social life
  into and out of locales

6
Structuration geography?

• Sensitizing geographers rather than providing a
  framework for geographic research
• Agency
• From people as bearers of social relations to
  people making their own history, although under
  conditions not of their choosing
• Locale
• From place as a given local scene to the
  becoming/making of place

7
Constructivist structuralism/ structuralist
constructivism

• Compared to Giddens
• From rule to strategy (governed by habitus)
• From resources to forms of capital
• From institutions to fields
• What people do their social practices are
  constituted by and constitute their dispositions
  (habitus), the capital they possess and the
  fields within which they operate.

8
(Habitus Capital) Field Practice
9
Habitus

• Habitus is a structuring mechanism for social
  practices that operates from within actors.
• The habitus is a system of internalized social
  norms, understandings and patterns of behavior,
  or, in other terms, embodied dispositions (or
  practical sense) that incline actors to act in
  certain ways.
• The dispositions of the habitus are acquired,
  structured, durable and transposable.

10
Habitus

• Dispositions are acquired, particularly through
  childhood socialization, and constituted through
  unreflexive and mundane processes of
  habit-formation.
• Dispositions are structured by the social
  conditions where they were acquired. This means
  that an individual from a middle-class background
  will hold dispositions that differ from those
  produced in a working-class environment. This
  also means that habitus may be relatively
  homogenous among individuals from similar
  backgrounds.
• Third, dispositions are durable in the sense that
  they are embodied in individuals and operate at
  the sub-conscious level.
• Fourth, dispositions are transposable in the
  sense that they can generate practices and
  perceptions also in other fields than those where
  they were acquired.

11
Fields

• Practices are not merely products of the habitus,
  but the outcome of the relations between the
  habitus and the specific context within which
  individuals act.
• Bourdieu conceives of the social world as
  comprising of multiple fields, containing
  positions and relations of power (forces) between
  these positions
• A field is a structured system of social
  positions occupied either by individuals or
  institutions the nature of which defines the
  situation for their occupants. It is also a
  system of forces which exist between these
  positions a field is structured internally in
  terms of power relations. Positions stand in
  relationships of domination, subordination or
  equivalence (homology) to each other by virtue of
  the access they afford to the goods or resources
  (capital) which are at stake in the field. The
  nature of positions, their objective
  definition, is to be found in their relationship
  to the relevant form of capital. (Jenkins, 1992,
  p. 85, emphasis in original)

12
Forms of Capital

• Bourdieu argues that capital presents itself in
  three fundamental forms economic capital
  (material wealth in the form of property, money,
  shares etc.), social capital (social resources in
  the form of networks and contacts based on mutual
  
• These fundamental forms of capital are different
  forms of power, but the relative importance of
  the different forms will vary according to the
  field.
• One form of capital can be converted into
  another. The most powerful conversion is to a
  fourth form of capital symbolic capital
  (legitimate authority in the form of prestige,
  honor, reputation, fame).

13
Forms of capital
14
Forms of Capital

• This conceptualization of capital is important
  for the understanding of the formation of social
  classes.
• Individuals are stratified according to the
  volume and the composition of the capital they
  possess.
• The field of power is delimited to those
  positions that grant control of substantial
  volumes of capital. The field of power does not
  make up a unified elite but rather diverse elite
  groups based on different forms of capital
  struggling over the relative weight of capital
  and the legitimate principle for domination.
• The power relations between occupants of
  different positions are embedded and reproduced
  through key institutions within the field.
• For example elite educational institutions play
  a crucial role in producing and reproducing the
  cultural and political elite. The elite schools
  take the habitus of the dominant group as the
  norm and systematically favour those who possess
  cultural capital in the form of that habitus.

15
Social stratification

• Stratification based on
• Volume of capital (vertical)
• Composition of capital (horizontal)

16
Bourdieu and geography?

• Not a theory of geography, but possibly useful
  thinking tools for geographic studies (see Joe
  Painter in Thinking Space)
• Two recent examples from UiO geographers
• Karl-Fredrik Tangen on the making of Audi as Audi
• Ingrid Kielland on client practices within
  network politics in Sri Lanka