ABSTRACT
Their substantive differences in theory and method aside, Foucault and Bourdieu shared a will towards making transparent the first principles, assumptions, and practices of academic fields. Bourdieu’s (1972) reflexive sociology is an attempt to “objectify the objectification”, to turn the lenses of the field upon itself as if it were a hierarchical system of cultural exchange. Whereas Foucault’s (1972) archaeological and genealogical methods divorced texts from historical speakers and reconceptualized disciplines as discourses, Bourdieu’s approach was to structurally outline the relationships within a field, looking for the field’s codification in formal academic institutions and structures, and naming its operational principles of exchange and teleological principles of capital. In so doing, both stepped away from traditional assumptions about the scientific disinterest or paradigmatic coherence of disciplinary inquiry (see Albright and Luke 2008, Grenfell et al. 2012).
