ABSTRACT
Generally speaking, critical comments on Bourdieu’s field theory have come from sociologists who have problems with his efforts to uncover ‘objective’ relationships and mechanisms within the field of art and to develop a theory based on this effort. The theoretical heterodoxy which Gielen has defended, for example, tends to grant more significance to individual agency in shaping a field of artistic positions, at the expense of the idea that (general) regularities should govern the field. In his approach to the fields of dance and visual arts in Flanders from the perspective of systems theory, he has obviously been strongly inspired by Bruno Latour and especially by what he calls ‘The Glorious Entry of Nathalie Heinich’ (Gielen 2003: 115). Both of them, as well as the Actor Network Theory in general, draw a sharp line between structuralist (and especially critical) sociology and their own practice, referred to by Latour as the sociology of associations (versus the traditional sociology of the social).
