Critique of The Weight of the World through feminist standpoint theory
The Weight of the World (1999), originally published as La Misère
du Monde in 1993, is a book by Pierre Bourdieu and a team of collaborators. In the
book, the authors discuss the lived realities of social division and suffering
of the working class in contemporary France. With sixty-nine in-depth
interviews, reduced to fifty-four in the English version, each chapter of the
book engages with one of the interviews, introduced by an analysis executed by
one of the sociologists. In its final chapter, titled Understanding,
Bourdieu explains the reasoning behind the methodology used throughout the book.
As I will highlight later, he focuses on notions of symbolic violence and
reflexivity to defend the use of socioanalysis and the importance of proximity
and familiarity between the interviewer and the interviewee. This essay will
examine the extent to which his methodology is justified, and successful in
delivering the results Bourdieu intends.
To carry out this analysis, I will begin by outlining some key concepts
of Bourdieu’s wider sociology to contextualise the methodology The Weight of
the World, which I will also delineate within the first section. I will
then conduct a qualified critique of the methodology drawing from feminist
standpoint theory, which I will briefly define before proceeding with the
analysis. The analysis will be done on two bases. Firstly, through the concept
of epistemic privilege, I will critique Bourdieu’s socioanalysis in terms of
how much reflexivity he grants his interviewees. Secondly, I will critique
Bourdieu’s ideas around proximity and familiarity and how to best accomplish
them. In the last section of the essay, I will finalise the analysis by
providing an example of an empirical application that benefited from the
critique previously carried out. For this final section, I will be using as an example
a 1976 feminist research on a shelter for battered women.
BOURDIEU’S THEORY AND METHODOLOGY
To adequately discuss the methodology used in The Weight of the World,
I will first explain some of the key components of Bourdieu’s wider theoretical
pursuits. This will consist of a brief description, as an in-depth discussion
of his sociology falls outside of the scope of this essay.
In what Bourdieu labelled as genetic structuralism, he looks beyond the
binary of agency as oppositional to structure. Positioning himself between
structuralist and constructivist sociological accounts, Bourdieu emphasised how
objective structures and subjective phenomena exist in a dialectical
relationship where structures constraint people’s actions and thoughts, which
in turn can affect structures rather than just reproduce them. In this sense, people’s
practices, exist in a space where they are not simply predetermined, nor the
product of free will. Instead, practices result from the interactions between
the habitus – a series of instinctual understandings of the social spaces one
occupies, obtained through previous experiences, that patterns behaviour rather
than determine it (Scamber, 2015) – and the conditions in the field – the
various social spaces, delineated through defined boundaries, in which
individuals hold social positions, such as the intellectual or bureaucratic
fields (Wiegmann, 2017).
From the concepts of field and habitus Bourdieu defined the notion of
doxa. As defined by Bourdieu doxa is the “relationship of immediate adherence
that is established in practice between a habitus and the field […], the
pre-verbal taking-for-granted of the world that flows from practical sense”
(Bourdieu, 1990, p. 69). Following this definition, doxa is an embodied and
practical knowledge of how the world functions, which is unspoken and taken for
granted. Importantly, because the doxa is shaped by the unequal conditions of
the field, the “practical knowledge” lay people internalise is a distorted
knowledge that contributes to their domination (Eagleton & Bourdieu, 1992).
In essence, lower classes come to internalise that they deserve their status
and accept their domination, concealing and naturalising power differences,
thus replacing the need for physical violence with what Bourdieu labelled as symbolic
violence (Eagleton & Bourdieu, 1992). Furthermore, the symbolic nature of
symbolic violence renders resistance more complicated. In Bourdieu’s own words:
“there are many things people accept without knowing. In fact, I think that in
terms of symbolic domination, resistance is more
difficult, since it is something you absorb like air, something you don’t feel
pressured by” (Eagleton & Bourdieu, 1992, pp. 114-115).
The other side of the “practical sense”, is
the scholastic sense or posture. Much like lay people, scholars’ social lives
take place within various fields that inform their habitus, which includes
certain doxic notions (Wiegmann, 2017). However, Bourdieu argues that, when
carrying out research, social scientists must adopt a theoretical or scholastic
posture, a posture directly oppositional to the “practical sense” social agents
gain when experiencing a given social process (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992,
p. 69). This posture is accomplished through reflexivity. Reflexivity requires
the social scientist to “objectivize themselves […] to realize that what their
apparently scientific discourse talks about is not the object, but their
relation to the object” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, pp. 68–69). In other
words, social scientist ought to use the tools of social science to examine the
distortions that influence their understandings. Furthermore, Bourdieu contends
that only through access to academic fields can one experience the epistemic
break needed to access the scholastic posture (Bourdieu, 1977).
To summarise, people’s knowledge of the social world is a practical
knowledge distorted by the power relations of the field. This distortion
conceals the workings of domination, exercising symbolic violence, as class
distinctions become internalised and accepted by the underclass. Awareness of distorted
and limited understandings comes through reflexivity, which can only be
accomplished by those with access to the academic fields. These issues entail
research implications that Bourdieu addresses in The Weight of the World with a
particular interview approach called socioanalysis.
With socioanalysis, Bourdieu contends that, when guided by a
sociologist, lay people can become reflexive, and gain awareness of the
structural constraints that affect them.
“Like a midwife, the sociologist can help them in this work provided the
sociologist has a deeper understanding both of the conditions of existence of which
they are the product and of the social effects that can be exercised by the research
relationship (and through it by the posit ion and primary dispositions of the researcher)”
(Bourdieu 1999, p. 621).
Accordingly, under specific circumstances, the interview process can be an
“absolutely exceptional situation for communication” (Bourdieu, 1999, p. 614).
Two specific circumstances are
important for this paper.
Firstly, the sociologist must have a deep understanding of “the
conditions of existence” of which the participants are a product of, by
engaging in a “preliminary process of information gathering” (Bourdieu, 1999,
p. 613). Due to the conditions of the scholastic posture, the researcher ought
to one, overcome their own dispositions; two, contextualise the respondent’s
answers within structural accounts (Sweet, 2020). In Bourdieu’s own words, “only
active denunciation of the tacit presuppositions of common sense can counter
the effects of all the representations of social reality to which both
interviewers and interviewees are continually exposed” (Bourdieu, 1999, p.
620).
Secondly, the sociologist must have a deep understanding of “the social effects
that can be exercised by the research relationship”. Bourdieu contends that the
research relationship is a social relationship capable of symbolic violence
through the objectification of the interviewee. As a result, the participants
may become resistant to objectification, and refuse “to disclose those aspects
of the social determinants of their opinions and their practices which they may
find it most difficult openly to declare and assume” (Bourdieu, 1999, p. 616).
Therefore, non-violent communication is necessary for successful socioanalysis.
Key to non-violent communication is “acting on the very structure of the
relationship” by selecting interviewers with “social proximity and familiarity”
with the interviewees (Bourdieu, 1999, p. 610). In The Weight of the World,
Bourdieu specifically uses “nonprofessional researchers”, that is, lay people.
I will provide a qualified critique of these two notions in the
following sections of the essay. Whilst it is not the sole avenue of critique,
I will be drawing from feminist standpoint theory.
FEMINIST STANDPOINT THEORY
As in the previous section, a complete discussion of the theory does not
fall within the scope of this essay. Instead, I will focus on “epistemic
privilege”, as it is the claim from feminist standpoint theory that is relevant
to the development of my argument.
Central to feminist standpoint theory is the
notion of “epistemic privilege”. Epistemic privilege refers to the
understanding that the experiences of individuals in marginalised groups are
likely to produce knowledge which is less distorted, as it is emancipated from
the ideologies of the powerful (Sweet, 2020). With epistemic privilege,
feminist standpoint theory does not argue that individuals from marginalised
groups have an epistemic advantage in every field, as there are areas of
knowledge where lived experiences are irrelevant compared to theoretical
knowledge. Rather they are proposing a methodological approach that aims to
theorise power by examining the experiences of those affected by it (Sweet,
2020). The intention behind the approach is to produce knowledge benefits
marginalised groups, by representing their narratives and therefore potentially
challenging, instead of reinforcing, systems of oppression.
CRITIQUE OF THE SOCIOLOGIST AS A “MIDWIFE”
VIA FEMINIST STANDPOINT THEORY
As stated by Sweet, “questions of
reflexivity ask us to consider who we should listen to and why” (2020, p. 924).
As established in the first section, Bourdieu believes that lay people cannot
reach the scholastic or reflexive posture, and that believing that they can is
a “scholastic fallacy or illusion” (Bourdieu, 2000 p. 19). We see this
reflected in Understanding where, drawing from one of the interviews,
Bourdieu states the following:
“When the daughter of an immigrant evokes
[…] the difficulties of her split existence for an interviewer […], she manages,
paradoxically, to have the interviewer forget what is at the heart of the highly
stylized vision of her life that she is putting forward, namely her literary
studies, which allow her to offer to the interviewer a double gratification: a
discourse that closely fulfils the interviewer’s conception of a disadvantaged
group; and a formal accomplishment that eliminates any obstacle relating to
social and cultural difference” (Bourdieu, 1999, p. 616).
What I gather from this statement is that Bourdieu does not think that
the woman he refers to has given any thought to the reality of her
circumstances. Rather, he holds that she is putting forward a narrative that
she believes is appealing to the interviewer. Some issues stem from this
position. At the very least it begs questioning whether Bourdieu is attributing
too much weight to the effect of the interview and the role of the interviewer,
as there is no way of knowing that the interviewee would not have become
reflexive otherwise (McRobbie, 2002). While this is an important discussion,
here I focus on a different matter. Namely, that Bourdieu claims that
socioanalysis and reflexivity are also meant to challenge the habitus and doxic
notions of the researcher.
Given that academic knowledge has its own set of dominant values, that
are not necessarily reflective of structural realities, epistemic break for the
researcher, may only come from attributing weight to marginalised narratives,
thus abandoning reliance on academically established categories. Sweet (2020)
highlights this issue through family violence research carried out in the 70s
and 80s.
“Because they relied on incident-based survey categories and positioned
their findings in family systems theories, they put forth a model of abuse as a
thing contained inside the family unit. […] Family violence researchers reified
the public–private divide because they relied on expert categories that
understood violence as incidents, rather than as power relations rooted in
gendered institutions.” (p. 934-935).
Here, I am not arguing that these researchers were using Bourdieu’s
methodology, as this is likely not the case. Rather I argue that not granting
the interviewees reflexivity, together with the notion introduced earlier that
the sociologist ought to have a “deep understanding of the conditions of
existence” prior to the interview, may lead to similar oversight. In the case
of family violence research, granting epistemic privilege to the women they
were interviewing was useful, as it was women’s accounts of abuse that led
feminist theorists to break the established public-private divide (Sweet,
2020). I will explore this further in the final section of the essay.
There is however an aspect of Bourdieu’s reflexive methodology that I
wish to incorporate here. Bourdieu rightly pointed out that it is possible that
participants may willingly present a decorated narrative for the interviewer or
that they may be unaware of their structural situation. Accordingly, I agree
with Sweet’s (2020) proposal to incorporate reflexivity into epistemic
privilege approaches. As highlighted in the previous section, epistemic
privilege does not suggest that marginalised accounts have an epistemic
advantage in every scenario. Consequently, grounding research in epistemic
privilege does not require automatic acceptance of the interviewee’s
narratives. On the contrary, understanding these marginal narratives calls for
an in-depth analysis of the structural context in which they are formed.
The empirical approach that I will examine in the final section of this
essay, follow this mixed methodology. It grants epistemic privilege to their
participants while grounding their narratives within structural accounts.
CRITIQUE OF BOURDIEU’S APPROACH TO
PROXIMITY AND FAMILIARITY
As stated above, a second key element of Bourdieu’s socioanalysis is
non-violent communication. Bourdieu argues that, to avoid objectifying the
participants, and the resistance that comes with said objectification, social
research should be carried out by researchers with proximity and familiarity
with the interviewees. In The Weight of the World, Bourdieu chose to
accomplish this proximity by using “non-professional researchers” as
interviewers. Angela McRobbie offers a rather complete account on the many
issues this methodological decision carries. She highlights how at times these
lay researchers engaged in “sociological opportunism” that “it is almost as
though the interviewer literally bumped into somebody she thought might have something
interesting to say” and further that “on occasion the respondents appear to be
exploited for their own grief” (McRobbie, 2002, pp. 134-135). Furthermore,
given Bourdieu’s position on reflexivity and the scholastic posture, the
decision to use lay interviewers seems, at the very least, contradictory. As a result,
the interviews do not deliver the results that Bourdieu promised. The accounts
are left outside their structural context, and they offer little to academic
debate as they lack reference to academic knowledge.
This is not a critique of Bourdieu’s argument on the advantage of
proximity and familiarity, rather his choice of non-professional interviewers.
There are certainly advantages to aiming for proximity and familiarity between
the researcher and the interviewee. However, I argue that these advantages can
be better exploited when a sociologist carries out the interview. I once again
draw from feminist standpoint theory to illustrate this point.
Key to feminist standpoint methodologies is establishing avenues for
communication that meet the needs of and generate trust with the participants,
which may in occasion require establishing community ties (Sweet, 2020).
However, as established in the previous section, it is equally important for
the researcher to, not only be aware of, but also confront the biases and
limits of established methodologies and knowledge. Following this, Hill Collins
(1991), argued an “insider-outsider” researcher might be best suited for
certain kinds of social research. A researcher who is an “insider-outsider”,
will recognise the limitations of current sociological assumptions, because
they have the academic knowledge to be familiar with what these assumptions
are, but also the life experience to identify how these assumptions are limited
in their analysis of marginal communities.
EMPIRICAL APPLICATIONS
Throughout the essay I have proposed two amendments to Bourdieu’s
methodology. Firstly, I argued for a standpoint approach that grants epistemic
privilege to the interviewees, particularly if they have experienced power from
a marginal position. Secondly, I argued that the advantages of proximity and
familiarity manifest more clearly when sociologists carry out the interviews. I
will now draw from a feminist study to exemplify how these changes constitute
an improvement on Bourdieu’s socioanalysis.
In their 1983 book Theories of Women’s Studies, Bowles and Klein
reference Mies’ 1978 study Methodological Postulates for Women’s Studies –
exemplified through a project dealing with violence against women. Due to
lack of access to the original study, I will draw from Bowles and Klein’s
examination of it. In this 1978 study, a group of sociologists, who were active
in the women’s movement, carried out a research project on a shelter for
battered women. The project had two central aims, documenting the stories and
lives of the women staying at the shelter, and through these narratives, giving
an account of the collective struggles women experience in society. Due to the
first aim, it was central to the project to grant epistemic privilege to the
women being interviewed. In their words, “the subjective experience of each of
the participating women was validated and acknowledged” (Bowles & Klein,
1983, p. 154). The second aim required contextualising the experiences of these
women within structural accounts of the constraints imposed by the patriarchy.
Despite acknowledging the epistemic privilege of the women they were
interviewing, the researchers did not carry out an “uncritical acceptance of
the women’s statements” (Bowles & Klein, 1983, p. 155). In fact, key to
their methodology was the notion of “faking”. As defined by Bowles and Klein,
faking is giving “socially desirable responses rather than honest
contributions, whether consciously or unconsciously” (1983, p. 150). The
researchers sought to find a way to minimise the impact of faking without relying
on interview “tricks” that could objectify and potentially deter the battered
women from continuing their participation. Instead, the researchers utilised
their proximity and familiarity as women. In brief, the researchers shared
their own experiences of mistreatment under misogyny, in an attempt to
encourage the battered women to open up to them. This approach was successful, although
the women were initially cautious that the researchers might exploit them for
their histories, the caution dissipated when they recognised their lives were
connected to the lives of the researchers. This clearly highlights the
advantages of proximity and familiarity.
Furthermore, I argue that this study highlights the need for granting
epistemic privilege to the participants and for professional researchers to
carry out the interviews. Central to the goals of the study, is a direct
challenge to established knowledge and methodologies in social research. The
researchers had to “become conscious about the inherent sexist biases in the
methods used in social sciences” (Bowles & Klein, 1983, p. 155) when
deciding how to minimise “faking”, which required a certain expertise on the
flaws and limitations of prior research. Moreover, they broke away from
established social knowledge when, as highlighted above, they reimagined the
public-private divide in family violence research, which required an
acknowledgement of the validity of the narratives of the women who had suffered
domestic violence.
From all of the above it can be concluded that Bourdieu’s methodological
approach in The Weight of the World is not as successful as Bourdieu
intended. In this essay, I have examined some of the tensions and
contradictions arising from socioanalysis. I then examined how granting
epistemic privilege to the participants and using professional researchers
address those issues. It must be noted, however, that the solutions I have
proposed are not the perfect solutions to rather complex sociological problems.
Granting epistemic privilege to participants risks that a less than attentive
researcher may uncritically accept “fake” or “distorted” narratives.
Furthermore, whilst proximity and familiarity will reduce the social distance
between the interviewer and the interviewee, the interview relationship will
still be one of power differences. Nonetheless, if done correctly, the
amendments I proposed could be a better methodological approach than Bourdieu’s
socioanalysis.
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