By Nina Damsgaard
Three researchers have been invited on this occasion. They will each speak about their practical application of Bourdieus theory and method. Coffee and cake are ready at hand, and somewhere around 20 interested students have settled in for an afternoon devoted to Bourdieu. The three speakers assume that the students know their basic Bourdieu, and thus that they are familiar with such concepts as field, social space, forms of capital, symbolic violence, and habitus.
On an everyday basis, sociologist Ida Willig works at RUC’s journalistic programme. She starts off the afternoon by speaking about how one may investigate journalism by viewing it as a field. She has as a starting point her own book “Behind the news – values, ideals, and practice”. Ida Willig underscores an important point relating to Bourdieu, namely that he does not make up merely one method. Even though he is probably best known for his correspondence analysis in his work The Distinction, he has also done textual analysis, ethnographic field studies, he has made use of various interview methods and many other things. She explains: “One must use all the methods required by one’s field of analysis. This means that there is a large degree of methodical freedom when using Bourdieu.”
Among other things, Ida Willig has looked at what makes something a news item for jounalists. When it comes to newsworthiness, the uses Bourdieus concept doxa, which describes all the things one doesn’t question. All that is natural and accepted in a field, and of which one thinks no further. Through ethnographical field work in a number of media editorial environments, Ida has investigated how there are, on the one hand, both completely orthodox and explicit news values such as identification, conflict and currency – but also how there are, simultaneously, silent news values, i.e. doxa. An important non-spoken news value parameter is what she calls the solo barometer. In the journalistic field, it carries an enormous value for one media agent to be alone in publishing the story. According to Ida Willig, then, the solo story has the highest symbolic value in the journalistic world.
Ida Willig has also done document analysis of motivations concerning the most prestigious Danish journalistic award, namely the Cavling Award. Here, she was able to identify three types of journalistic capital which have each been dominant at different times. From 1945 and the following 20 years, journalism focusing on communication would win the award – e.g. radio commentaries. From 1965 up until 1984, especially agenda-setting journalism with long-term critical perspectives was desirable. From 1985 to 2004, where the analysis ended, Ida Willig found that exposures and more short-term critique would win the Cavling Award – most recently two journalists from Information won it for their exposure of the Stateless Affair. One of Bourdieus points is precisely that once we’ve investigated with type of capital is commonplace and dominant in a particular field, we may begin to question it, make it explicit, and, thereby, denaturalise it.
Jakob Skjøtt-Larsen is the next researcher in line. He is from Aalborg University and has been part of the large empirical COMPAS survey, writing his Ph.D. within this project as well. COMPAS stands for Contemporary patterns of social differentiation, and the project’s common point of departure is Bourdieu’s The Distinction. The survey takes Aalborg as its point of departure, focusing on the correlation between social positions or objective life conditions and lifestyle or individual choices.
Bourdieu did his analyses in France and wrote The Distinction in 1979. The question is whether one may, today, starting from Bourdieu, speak of Aalborg as a class society, or whether other parameters are more relevant. Jakob Skjøtt-Larsen explains how, based on survey date, he has carried out a multiple correspondence analysis, which is also the basis for The Distinction. Correspondence analysis is a complicated method which, broadly speaking, is about grouping the data collected. Bourdiou plotted his data into the well-known coordinate system where one could see who had the most cultural and economic capital, who drank Cognac and listened to Chopin, and who watched sports on TV or read the local papers. One could also see how people placed themselves in relation to one another. The same has been attempted in Aalborg, involving 892 people.
Among other things, Jakob Skjøtt-Larsen shows us that the lifestyle choices or cultural attitudes follow the distribution of forms of capital, which in nicely in accordance with Bourdieu. For example, there are those with a large amount of cultural capital, who prefer foreign foods and vote Social Liberal, whereas those with a large amount of economic capital vote Liberal. Those with less of either form of capital prefer traditional Danish food and entertainment TV. Of course it must be stressed, as always with Bourdieu, that this should all be understood relationally. All preferences and positions should be seen in relation to other preferences and positions.
Significant differences in lifestyle, then, may be found in Aalbord, simultaneously tied to class differences. That is, if one takes a more differentiated and multidimensional approach to the concept of class. However, dominance relations, such as for instance symbolic violence, which is an important part of Bourdieus class analyses, are not distinctively present.
In spite of delays according to plan, Lisanne Wilken from Aarhus University proceeds in good spirits to speak about a recently started research project which, based on Bourdieu, is to investigate internationalization of advanced education in Denmark. The survey takes Aarhus University as its point of departure because Aarhus University within a relatively short time span, namely since 2006, has had the greatest increase in foreign students. Like Ida Willig, Lisanne Wilken stresses that the greatest point of inspiration from Bourdieu is the multi-methodical approach. Namely how quite distinct types of concept, method, data, and analysis may work together in systematizing the analysis of change in Danish advanced education.
Lisanne Wilken also explains about various deliberations concerning the operationalisation of Bourdieus concept of field. For instance, one may view Aarhus University as a field operation within other fields both internationally, in the Nordic countries, in Europe, and internationally. Here, the theory of fields within fields, or fields in spaces, is also drawn upon. Simultaneously, Bourdieus prosopographical method comes into play, i.e. a form of mapping intended to break with common sense perceptions of programmatic statements. One carries out a quite systematic and detailed mapping of agents in a field, in order to be able to identify differences, similarities, resources, and relations. This is combined with ethnographic field studies so that everything which is not made explicit may also be included in the data set.
In general, the three hours have given an incredibly diverse look into the practical application of Bourdieu. Bourdieu is not only about strange coordinate systems, class in the traditional sense, and abstract concepts. Bourdieus well-equipped conceptual apparatus is highly applicable in practice, just as his manifold methods may be applied in a vast number of ways, whether it be in Aalborg, at an editorial office or some other place.
