ABSTRACT
Introduction Someone said that Pierre Bourdieu’s theory is good for living with. I have cer - tainly learned a lot from his work: my understanding of the dynamics of power in the contemporary world, my position in it, collaboration and competition in fields I traverse, reproduction of behaviour and life chances, and even social change. I have also learned that there is a lot that has escaped Bourdieu’s attention. I have written against his understanding of gender based on biological found ationalism (Silva 2005), his homogeneous conception of (partnered/conjugal) partnership (Silva 2006; Silva and Le Roux 2011), and I have criticised his sampling in Distinction and its consequences (Silva 2005: 86-87; Bennett et al. 2009). Here my focus is both on Bourdieu’s particular assistance to unravel the roles of objects and materials in the constitution of sociability, and his limited attention to the imprints of materiality in social life, which has consequences for his theory. It is possible to think with and against an author at the same time. Bourdieu
himself often undertook this practice to advance his theory (Bourdieu 1990: 49). This is something that often takes thinking beyond the referent. This is my need and intention as I undertake an exploration of the theoretical implications of the agency of materiality in social fields. As I engage with an extension of the Bourdieusian framework to account for materiality, I explore the relations between two approaches which appear at odds with each other – Bourdieu’s social theory and Bruno Latour/actor network theory (ANT)/French pragmatics (FP).1 First, I present Bourdieu’s concerns with materiality (of bodies and objects) to account for the roles this has in taste and distinction, contrasting this with the approaches of Latour/ANT/FP. Second, I show the centrality of materials in the relationality of agents in the field of household technologies, with a particular exploration of cooking, to discuss the implications of Bourdieu’s disregard for the agency of materiality in field analyses (despite his recognition of materiality in social divisions). This is followed by a discussion of the different processes of knowing in the Bourdieusian and the Latourian/ANT/FP approaches regarding orders of power and causality for what matters in relationality. At this point I trace some of the differences between the approaches of Latour/ANT and FP, which
have a lot in common, identifying in the latter productive guidance for analysing localised, hierarchical and uneven social practices. I argue that while Bourdieu is concerned with inequality, hierarchy and the
direction of power, Latour/ANT focuses on pluralism, being unconcerned with the direction, causes and effects of power. While Latour/ANT, and also FP, are empirically useful for a focus on objects and materials, Bourdieu is stronger and richer for mapping the workings of the social (marked by hierarchies and inequalities) and for an expanded investigation of the inflections of materials and objects in social life. I conclude by arguing for the need to develop the under - standing of agents and relationality from Bourdieu to account for the workings of materiality in fields, a crucial concern for current sociology, which often turns infrastructures of relations invisible, blinding researchers to their operation as forces in social life. To account for this and to remedy some of the shortcomings in Bourdieu’s work, FP offers detailed guidance to empirically consider localised engagements with materialities.
