ETHICAL LEADERSHIP IN EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT 1971997 bookFin de Siècle Social Theoryhas argued from a similar perspective,
criticizing Bourdieu still further for his ‘failed synthesis’—reductionism and
determinism.
Bourdieu frequently responded to these criticisms, nevertheless, there are
shortcomings in his empirical research, possibly which concern less the prob-
lem of failed synthesis than his limited theoretical conceptualization of subjec-
tivity. Bourdieu maintained the working assumption that if researchers seek
to get too close to subjective experience it eludes subject and researcher at
the very point when they think they have captured it! A demonstration of
this dilemma common to phenomenological modes of analysis is offered by
Wittgenstein (1978: 21) who challenges his readers to reflect on how hard it
is to disentangle motives from causes because there is no unique, privileged
means of unequivocal resolution:
... In a law-court you are asked the motive of your action and you are supposed to
know it. Unless you lie you are supposed to be able to tell the motive of your action.
You are not supposed to know the laws by which your body and mind are governed.
Why do they suppose you know it? Because you’ve had such a lot of experience
with yourself? People sometimes say: ‘No-one can see inside you, but you can see
inside yourself’, as though being so near yourself, being yourself, you know your own
mechanism. But is it like that? ‘Surely he must know why he did it or why he said such
and such.’
Bourdieu’s theory of practice conceptualizes social activities such as manage-
ment or employee practice as situated in multiple social fields, which he asserts
possess a measure of autonomy of operation according to their own (field-
based) principles. Fields have been conceptualized in many different ways in
research, and Bourdieu’s concept of field was developed independently and
prior to the institutionalist theories that grew in the USA during the late 1970s
and throughout the 1980s. Fields investigated empirically by Bourdieu during
his lifetime included: the pre-modern and religious, the artistic and literary,
the intellectual and academic, and the educational (Bourdieu 1988, 1990a,
1990 b, 1996). His field concept is sociological rather than psychological, and
applies to areas of specialist and popular discourse within society (Bourdieu
1987, 1991, 1993b). Fields, in Bourdieusian theory, are seen as hierarchically
organized and depend for their continuing existence on the heteronomy of
overarching economic and political fields. Fields are assumed to operate with
a measure of autonomy accorded them in their relations to other fields. Their
autonomous principles of operation constitute a game and stakes that have
to be observed if one wishes to participate in the game and be recognized
by others. According toBourdieu’s theory of practice, fields will always have a
structure and distribution of capital. He divides capital into two major symbolic
forms: economic and cultural. These can be converted from one to the other,
but he believes tend to be in opposition to each other.