ABSTRACT
A remarkable feature of the way in which Bourdieu’ swork has been adopted in studies of language in society is theemphasis on Bourdieu as a macro-sociologist providing insightsinto the larger processes of structuration in tightly integrated First-World societies. Yet, Bourdieu himself consistently emphasized theethnographic epistemological foundations of his work, and especially in the last years of his life abundantly acknowledgedinfluences from ethnography. This paper delves into Bourdieu’ sviews on ethnography-as-epistemology, arguing that one of Bourdieu’ s central concepts, habitus, should be seen as inextricably linked to situated ethnographic inquiry. Taking habitus asan ethnographic concept, we may find better ways of investigating problems of voice – the conditions for speaking in society. This point is illustrated with examples from the Belgian asylumprocedure, where habituated conversational practices by the interviewer simultaneously appear to contain proleptic moves that ‘prepare’ the story of the applicant for the next step in the asylumprocedure. We see in this form of simultaneity the on-the-spot, layered deployment of macro-social (institutional) conventionsthrough conversational, co-operative practices.
