Pluralizing field analysis: Toward a relational understanding of the field of power

Abstract

A crucial yet often-overlooked starting point for any Bourdieusian field analysis is to relate the field under consideration to the ‘field of power’, so as to enable an examination of its relative autonomy or heteronomy, i.e. its relation to other fields of society and to society as a whole. However, Bourdieu and his successors did not implement this key conceptual consideration systematically, or did so peripherally at best. For this reason both the theoretical and the empirical status of the field of power remain, for the most part, unclear. The fundamental philosophy of ‘methodological relationism’ has not been systematically applied, of all things, to a core element of Bourdieu’s theory of society which basically is a theory of power relations. We argue that a relational approach to the field of power is essential for theorizing the relation between (a) fields and (b) fields and the social space.