Structure, Agency and Power A Comparison of Bourdieu and Foucault

Maria Lauridsen Jensen: 20116208
AU: Central Debates in Anthropology
December 2014
Contents
Structure, Agency and Power: A Comparison of Bourdieu and Foucault ....................... 1
Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1
Post-Structuralism and Post-Modernism ...................................................................... 2
Foucault and Bourdieu .................................................................................................. 3
Structure ........................................................................................................................ 5
Symbolic Violence :: Governmentality ........................................................................ 6
Freedom for agency ...................................................................................................... 8
Case: Central American Migration ............................................................................... 9
Foucault on the Case ............................................................................................... 10
Bourdieu on the Case .............................................................................................. 12
Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 14
References ................................................................................................................... 16

December 2014
Structure, Agency and Power: A Comparison of Bourdieu and

Foucault
Introduction
Human beings and human diversity is the main interest of anthropology. Whether this
object of research should be understood as focusing on individuals or on groups of
individuals is, however, contested throughout the history of anthropology.
Durkheim, one of the founding fathers of the discipline, argued for a focus on the
collective aspects of human life. Indeed he equaled society with God, suggesting that
society determined all human action, and he pointed out that all phenomena connected
to people could be reduced to social facts. To Durkheim the social provided people with
agency; agency in his view was thereby external to human beings (cf. Barnard 2000:64;
Bourdieu 2000:156; Hiris 2010:452-458; Kuklick 2012).
Though Durkheim's theory is the founding pillar of anthropology, it is no longer
fully accepted. In a time of free will, speech and acts, it is indeed depressing if all of our
thoughts and acts are produced by society.
The question of structure (the pre-given causes for how to behave, underlying a
society) and agency (conscious choices of behavior made by the individual) is import to
reflect upon within anthropology. Branding ourselves for paying attention to human
diversity, it would be ironic to reduce human agency to boxes of theory based on
structure. On the other hand, we would not be able to grasp the behavior of other human
beings if nothing connects us at all.
In this text I will address this riddle through the work of Michel Foucault and Pierre
Bourdieu. I find it particularly interesting to discuss the question through their work,
because they share a background of being French intellectuals of the late 20th to early
21th centuries. I will argue that although they have many similarities, their views differ.
My problem statement goes as follows:
I will throughout these pages account for Pierre Bourdieus and Michel Foucaults
approaches to structure and agency. I will discuss similarities and differences and
illustrate with a concrete ethnographic example about migration from Mexico to the
United States of America.

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Both Bourdieu and Foucault have been very productive writers, and I cannot
account for the research question in regards to their entire bodies of work. Therefore
this text is limited to concentrate on chosen chapters from Foucaults The History of
Sexuality (1980), and Foucaults lectures and an interview with Foucault in The
Foucault Effect (1991). In regards to Bourdieu, the chosen texts are A Magnified
Image in Masculine Domination (2001) and the book Pascalian Meditations (2000).
Post-Structuralism and Post-Modernism

For a start, I will situate the concerning part of the structure-agency debate as well as
the two theorists within the tendency of post-structuralism. Post-structuralism is part of
the broader post-modernism within humanities, which thrived in the 1970s and 1980s.
Post-modernism is a reaction against the grand narratives of modernism that each
claimed to give the true account of the world. This was the time when anthropologist
became aware of and critical towards their own historical and colonial heritage, and
started to question whether or not they could give an objective, scientific and
representative description of a culture or a group of people; these were the questions
that formed the crisis of representation (Marcus and Fischer 1986:7-16).
In spite of the crisis, anthropology has remained an academic discipline. The crisis
of representation has, however, led to an increased awareness of and reflection on the
anthropologists role in the formation of truths. Moreover, since there is no longer a
universal truth to be found, anthropologists have turned towards a focus on lived life
with all of the details that formerly did not fit into the theoretical schemes (Marcus and
Fischer 1986:7-16).
Structuralism, which is mainly connected to the French anthropologist Claude
Lvi-Strauss, is one of the grand narratives of modernity; post-structuralism, which
mainly flourished in France, is a critique of that narrative. Post-structuralists do not
fully abandon structuralism, indeed both Foucault and Bourdieu has been greatly
inspired by it. Rather, post-structuralists seek beyond structuralism. Post-structuralism
adds to the former structuralism the post-modern tendency of highlighting the
positioned anthropologist, a perspective on power, and an attempt to combine structure
and agency (Barnard 2000:139-157).

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Another grand narrative of modernity is linked to Max Weber. In a language of

economy, Weber promoted an action-centered approach with a focus on how the
rational individual calculates choices of action (Barnard 2000:82; Sayer 1991:97-98).
Never the less, his view is rather pessimistic. Although he focuses on rationality, he
points out that the individual is not ultimately free to rationalize; rationality is bound up
in capitalism, bureaucracy and religion. To Weber modern subjects are driven to act in
goal oriented ways, but they have forgotten the reason why they do so (Sayer 1991:134155). I mention Webers work here to point out that both Bourdieu and Foucault make
use of it in their theories, thereby mixing the grand narratives of modernity. Bourdieu
(2000:176-178) carries on the focus on how action is constantly generated, whereas
Foucault (1980:5; cf. Mahmood 2005:17) continues the view, that a person cannot think
thoughts that are outside the structure of which that person is part.
Though neither Bourdieu nor Foucault is content of labels, and though both can be
referred to as what Barnard (2000) terms mavericks, I will in the following chapter
account for how they can be seen as post-structuralists and post-modernists.
Foucault and Bourdieu

Michel Foucault is a French philosopher and social historian who has inspired social
scientists across disciplinary lines. His work is widely read within anthropology (cf.
Barnard 2000:140; Mattingly 2012:163). Having said that, according to Marcus and
Fischer (1986:15), the strength of the anthropologist is the ability to see the world
through a jewelers eye an eye for petite details. The jewelers eye is not a quality that
characterizes Foucaults work. In explaining rationality as a product of universal rules
of behavior on the one hand, and a historically constructed rationality on the other,
Foucault indeed seems to use the opposite strategy; he focuses on connections between
phenomena over an enormous time span. Foucault thereby continues the focus on social
structures; yet, he does not seek a universal structure, as Lvi-Strauss did neither does
Bourdieu (cf. Foucault 1988:148; Barnard 2000:120).
Pierre Bourdieu, who is also French, is trained in anthropology, sociology and
philosophy. Bourdieu is closer to applying the jewelers eye than Foucault, which might

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be a result of his anthropological training. However, he does not go all the way to
capture the subjective histories in the part of his work I deal with here. Finding
inspiration both in structuralism and in the tradition of Weber, but satisfied with neither,
Bourdieu creates a theory to bridge: Practice theory, a theory of acting agents (cf.
Bourdieu 2000:150-151; Bourdieu 2001:44).
Practice theory is based on the metaphor of a game. Each player has his or her
interest in acting in particular ways to reach a desired future. The rules of the game
changes in different social situations, which Bourdieu (2000:183) calls fields, but
socially defined qualities of an agent, which he (2000:20) calls capital, can if managed
right be transferred between different fields. Bourdieu (2000:11) uses the term Illusio
to describe the personal investment in the game, and though it is guided by habitus,
which I will explain in the next chapter, it is perhaps the closest Bourdieu gets to
agency. When investing, the agent takes the dispositions in hand, and thereby activates
them (Bourdieu 2000:151).
The introduction of Bourdieus practice theory in the late 1970s carried a move
within anthropology from macroanalysis to microanalysis (Ortner 1984:145). As
mentioned in the previous chapter, the focus on lived life is a feature of postmodernism. Furthermore, practice theory is a post-structural theory because it is a move
beyond structuralism in regards to its attempt to bridge theoretical perspectives.
As Foucault (1980,1991; Foucault et al. 1988:148), Bourdieu argues that all human
beings are historically structured agents, and both Bourdieu (2000:176) and Foucault
(1980) notices that by living in the world people are also involved in structuring the
world back. Hence, by breaking with explaining agency solely on the basis of one
underlying structure of society, and by including a reflection on their own partaking in
the production of truths, Bourdieu and Foucault can be called post-structuralists.
The difference between them is that Foucault focuses on the historical processes
that have produced a certain mode of thinking, whereas Bourdieu focuses on how a
certain mode of thinking is generated in a particular social context. In his book
Pascalian Meditation (2000:176-178), Bourdieu criticizes Lvi-Strauss and Foucault for
focusing on processes that has been carried out, thereby ignoring the active dimension
of symbolic production. Bourdieu (2000:176-178), inspired by Weber, is interested in

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the interaction, negotiation, conflict, interest, motivation and competition that produces
or reproduces structure.
Moreover Bourdieu (2001:6-7) criticizes Foucault for taking a point of departure in
Plato in his History of Sexuality (1980), thereby lacking the history of sexuality that
formed Platos point of view. Bourdieu points out that historical analyses run a high risk
of misinterpretation, because they are interpretations of the interpretations of other
authors. Bourdieu instead argues for a direct study of acting agents. Nevertheless, what
the two authors have in common is the perspective of social constructivism (cf.
Foucault 1980:11,87; Foucault et al. 1988:17-18). The awareness of that a phenomenon
has been socially constructed is characteristic of post-modernism.
Structure
Having outlined the debate, I will now move on to discuss similarities and differences
between the work of Bourdieu and Foucault in regards to structure.
Habitus is a central term in the work of Bourdieu, and it conveys the essence of
his view on structure. Bourdieu (2000:148) describes habitus as practical knowledge
which is a product of its agents history. Habitus is a structure which is structured by the
experiences in the social life of the person it belongs to, and furthermore habitus
structures the field in which the person moves. In other words, habitus is the dialectic
relation between structure and agent. According to Bourdieu (2000:211) the dialectic
between habitus and the probabilities of a social space forms the basis for acts and
thoughts. He points out, one should not say that a historical event determined a
behavior but that it had this determining effect because a habitus capable of being
affected by that event conferred that power upon it (Bourdieu 2000:149). Hence
structure does not ultimately determine behavior.
Foucault (Foucault et al. 1988:22) and Bourdieu (2000:217; 2001:49-53) agree that
it is in the relationship with other human beings that rules and norms for behavior and
speech are formed. Moreover, through the concept of habitus Bourdieu moves away
from the classic understanding that the dispositions for behavior lies in the social, as for
example seen in the work of Durkheim, Lvi-Strauss and Weber, to a focus on bodily
dispositions (cf. Barnard 2000:142; Bourdieu 2000:160). The move towards embodied
structure is a point Bourdieu shares with Foucault (1980:11; 1988:16-19).

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There is an interesting parallel between the Stoic techniques of askesis through

meditation, which Foucault (Foucault et al. 1988: 35-36), in his quest for how human
beings understand themselves, describes as an example of an ancient technique of self,
and Bourdieus notion of habitus. The Stoic meditation is a technique for the subject to
imagine outcomes of an event by using the discourses with which he is armed
(Foucault et al. 1988:35); for Bourdieu that kind of knowledge is internalized in the
body. To Bourdieu (2000:148) action is neither purely impulsive nor purely
rationalized, thus it is a combination of structure and individual consciousness; to
Foucault (1980:5; cf. Mahmood 2005:17) the subject is the result of power and
discourse, thus solely structure.
Bourdieu (2000:151) writes that illusio, the social investment, only is an illusion
from people standing outside the game, whereby the players do not perceive they are
part of a game. Notwithstanding, Bourdieu (2000:157-158) explains that agents take
part in various fields; in each field people with different sets of habitus meet.
Furthermore, a field most often has at least one agent whose habitus does not
correspond to the field. Discrepancy between habitus and field in one or more of the
players opens a window for questioning the nature of the field. Bourdieu points out that
this is more likely to happen at the limits of fields than in the most regulated social
structures.
In the work of Foucault (1980:8-13) it seems as if only the social scientist can
observe the social world from the outside (Foucault et al. 1988:10; cf. Mattingly
2012:175). This is perhaps because the fields Foucault operates with are on societal
basis, whereas Bourdieu looks at niches within a society.
A common critique of post-structuralists is that they undermine how individuals are
confronted with several discourses (cf. Mattingly 2012:179; Navaro-Yashin 2012:98).
Because of Bourdieus point about agents that move between fields and thereby at times
causes discrepancies within the fields, I will exclude Bourdieu from the critique.
Symbolic Violence :: Governmentality

In this section I will argue that there is correspondence between Bourdieus term
symbolic violence and Foucaults term governmentality, but that Foucault and
Bourdieu, never the less, differ in their views of how people can react to domination.

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Bourdieu (2001:1-2,8) operates with the term Symbolic power or symbolic

violence, which is a form of power unnoticed by the people subjected to it, because it
has become doxa. Doxa is the state when the socially constructed is perceived as the
natural order and therefore accepted; it is when categories are perceived as being in the
order of things. Here we see an interesting parallel to the work of Foucault on
governmentality.
Foucault (1991:90-93) traces the word government back to the Italian theorist
Machiavellis The Prince from the 16th century, in which the prince governs for the sake
of his own position without consideration for his population. Foucault then turns to
some of the first anti-Machiavelli literature, where he finds Guillaume de La Perrires
definition of government: the right disposition of things. Notice how the definition
reflects Bourdieus description of doxa. Foucault (1991:92,102-103) sees La Perrires
definition as the beginning of a movement from government as the exercise of
sovereign power, towards disciplinary power through surveillance and control, to
becoming mainly governmentality. Even though governmentality is the most applied
form in the last period of time Foucault identifies, elements of the two former styles of
governing are still incorporated in the new style.
Governmentality is about creating welfare for the population by employing tactics,
patience, wisdom and diligence, whereas sovereignty is about employing laws by force
and violence if necessary. The goal of sovereignty is to make people obey. Through
governmentality the population is made instruments of government without their full
awareness; thus governmentality corresponds to Bourdieus notion Symbolic violence
(Foucault 1991:94-100).
Accordingly, the connections between symbolic violence and governmentality
are evident. Never the less, Foucault and Bourdieu differ in their views of how people
can act on being exposed to power. To Bourdieu (2001:38), symbolic violence works as
a trigger of the dispositions of possibilities within a persons habitus. Therefore, to
Bourdieu the structure, is not solely responsible for a persons acts, nor is a certain
event. To Foucault (1980:24; Foucault et al. 1988:148), on the contrary, people think
and act on the basis of universal rules of behavior on the one hand, and a historical
rationality on the other. Thereby both of Foucaults bases for acts and thought derive
solely from structure.

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So far I have discussed the similarities as well as differences in Bourdieus and

Foucaults views on structure. In the following I will discuss their views on freedom
and agency.
Freedom for agency

Assuming an agent is confronted with the symbolic violence or governmentality
described in the previous chapter, I will now discuss how, respectively, Bourdieu and
Foucault views the agents possibilities to break free.
Bourdieu (2000:221-224) explains that if a person over a long period of time
experiences to be powerless, the luciones, chances, to acquire power are likely to vanish
from the persons habitus. This causes that the person is unlikely to find illusio, reason
to invest, in the game of power over own life. However, Bourdieu notices that people
without a future are likely to behave in ways that contradict their discourse. They often
break with the knowledge of the world obtained in their habitus, and enter the world of
dreams, fantasies and hopes in order not to surrender. Even though Bourdieu (2000:221)
points out that in reality these people are limited by the power that controls their forthcoming, he acknowledges that doxa can be acted upon, and that domination (starting off
mentally) can be overcome.
Drawing on Pascal, Bourdieu (2000:239-240) concludes that human beings are
mortal, and the only way they can legitimate their existence is through the social game.
It is the chase for personal goals which provides life with meaning. Hence, all lives are
to some extended imagined. What makes some lives more verified than others is social
capital, social recognition. Defining an (imaginative) reason to live can thereby be seen
as agency to define ones own life.
Moreover, when the holders of symbolic power create the discourse that constitutes
their powers, they create room for interpretation of the discourse. This is especially the
case with structures that are yet not well established (Bourdieu 2000:236). Bourdieu
2000:234-35, Bourdieu 2001:13-14) terms the multivocality margin of freedom,
because it opens the possibility for turning the symbols to the benefit of the dominated.
He writes, The belief that this or that future, either desired or feared, is possible,
probable or inevitable can, in some historical conditions, mobilize a group around it and
so help favour or prevent the coming of that future (Bourdieu 2000:235). Bourdieu

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thereby opens up for two possible directions of a discourse. Also, we must not forget the
point mentioned earlier that a field is open for questioning and thereby change, when an
agent with a discrepant habitus enters.
Foucault on the other hand leaves no room for thought outside discourse. Giving an
example of this, Foucault (1980) explains that whether the agent speaks up or silences
on the topic of sexuality, the discourse of sexuality is reproduced. It is not that Foucault
believes that changes are impossible, rather he only see the possibility for change
through major structural changes in the given society such as war, economic crisis, and
transgression of laws or rebellion (cf. Foucault 1980:5; 1991:97). Even the Stoic thinker
described earlier, can only think with the discourses he is embedded in.
Indeed Foucaults project (1980:11,33-35) is to trace down the discursive fact,
which is how something is put into discourse, and those techniques of power or webs of
discourses that evade society and thereby control the behavior of individuals.
Bourdieus project is the opposite; it takes a point of departure in the behavior of
individuals to explain structure.
Case: Central American Migration

A large number of people from the Central American countries are currently pursuing
The American Dream a positive imagination of the United States of America. Poverty
as well as violence, threats, extortion and victimization (often connected to drug gangs)
is more norm than exception in the Central American region, and factors like these are
causing the wave of migration to the USA. The journey, however, is not a piece of cake.
The dangers continue. The persecutions do not end. Due to poverty, a great number of
people board the roof of La Bestia (meaning The Beast; a nickname of the infamous
freight trains); many fall of the trains due to physical fatigue, and if they survive it is
most likely with fewer limbs. Rape, organ trafficking and attracts by gangs is also
common (cf. Vogt 2013).
Anthropologist Wendy Vogt has done fieldwork in Mexico's Southern border area,
where she has interviewed migrants in shelters, which mainly are run by a pastoral
organization and receive no direct state support. The shelters function as places where
the migrants temporarily can eat and sleep as they wait to jump on a train (Vogt

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2013:766). I will use her study as a case through which I can illustrate Foucaults and
Bourdieus contributions to the structure-agency debate.
Based on the case of Central American migration, I will now raise the
anthropological questions of why so many Central Americans go on the promising, but
notorious journey to the USA. I will use the perspective of Foucault on the one hand
and Bourdieu on the other, in an attempt to explain the question.
Foucault on the Case

The work of Michel Foucault requires a great deal of historical digging into discourses
that I am not equipped to do here. Instead I will primarily use his work to raise
questions for thought.
First of all Foucault would ask how certain knowledge of the world has come into
being. He would identify the discursive fact (cf. Foucault 1880:11,33-35). It would in
this regard be relevant to view the term migrant as a social construction. How has
migration been put into discourse? And how has the term La Bestia become part of
that discourse? In identifying a web of discourses it could be relevant to question why
migrants are identified as illegal transitory intruders (cf. Vogt 2013:776); and targets
for gangs (cf. Vogt 2013:774); why the US and Mexican states see migrants as
problems that should be controlled and kept out (cf. Vogt 2013:771); and why migrants
themselves see migration as the road to a happier life (cf. Vogt 2013:769).
If, as Foucault (1980:11) suggests, a web of discourses is a technique of power that
penetrates society all the way into the bodies of individuals, it is relevant to see how the
opposing discourses within the web reinforce each other, and to what end. Since social
insecurity is a common reason for migration, I assume it is a big part of the structure in
question.
Vogt (2013:768,770) suggests that the Central American heritage of civil war is a
factor that makes social insecurity thrive, and she points towards the implementation of
neo-liberalism as another. Furthermore, she describes migrants as being embedded in
the structure of global capitalism. Following Foucault, I suggest that these aspects have
the same source, and I suggest they all spring from Western colonialism. Proving this
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would entail a historical investigation of North American and European interests in the
region with a focus on social struggles and social changes.
Capitalism might after all be a good place to start the analysis: The neo-liberal state
requires lowered governmental expenses, for example through a drawback on
government employees in the public; this in turn creates space for gangs to impose fear
and violence in other words social insecurity. Exposed to social insecurity at home,
and stories of the good life in North America, migration seems beneficial. Thereby the
American Dream is what Foucault (1988:148) calls a historical rationality; migration
has become a naturalized response to the social insecurities in Central America.
Migration, as both Vogt (2013:770-771) and philosopher Thomas Nail (2013)
points out, keeps the economy going. Migration is the economic vehicle for human
smugglers, organ traffickers, drug smugglers, extortion, and the sex industry. The
states presence at the border (for example in the form of employees, border posts and a
wall) is a power showoff; it is a disciplinary form of government. Moreover, when
hindering migrants in crossing the border sovereign power is enacted. Furthermore, the
state legitimizes its presence at the border through the notion of securing the citizens
and thereby creating welfare for the people, which according to Foucault is what
legitimizes governmentality. Still governments might have an interest in letting people
slip by their gazes, since the possibility for migrants to do so, ensures the necessity of
the guards and jailers, and thereby their paychecks. Furthermore, Central American
migrants provide the US with a cheap labor force motivated to work hard in order to
send home remittances. The conflicting discourses can thereby be seen as a technique of
government mainly through the mode of governmentality. Migrants are instruments of
the state to earn money, and they are scarcely aware of it (cf. Foucault 1991:94-100;
Nail 2013).
Drawing this Foucault inspired analysis together I conclude that the migrants are
left with no agency for breaking the structure of which they are part. The alternative,
staying home, reaffirms the power of the gangs to control lives. Hence, these people are
domed to stay dominated unless the entire structure of capitalism and insecurities
changes.
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Bourdieu on the Case

I will now apply Bourdieu to the analysis, to illustrate that he ascribes more agency to
the migrants than Foucault does.
As a point of departure I will follow up on the instrumental use of migrants to earn
money as I described in connection to Foucault, and point out that it is what Bourdieu
(2000:1-2,8) calls symbolic violence. According to Vogt (2013:765), the migrants see
the violence experienced on the journey as a continuation of the violence they have
always experienced. The violence and hardship has to some extend become doxa, a
naturalized part of life in Central America. Yet, the nature of living with physical
violence is questioned by the migrants in their attempts to escape it; therefore migrants
only perceive violence as doxa in connection to their home region. When seen as a
discursive construction of the opposition between social insecurity in Central America
versus social stability in the USA, the violence is symbolic. In the following I will move
to the level of lived life, as Bourdieu (2000:176-178) argues for.
Legitimizing Existence
Ordinary life changes, from the moment a person is threated by a gang member. From
that point on the luciones, chances, of working to create the life the person wishes for is
strongly weakened, because the luciones of being violated, raped, kidnapped or killed
have become very real. Thereby the present is taken away from the persons own grasp.
The person becomes what Bourdieu (2000:211) describes as a person without future
this should be understood as without a future of own choice that can be worked towards.
Seen from the view of the analyst there are three possible reactions to threats: to keep
being dominated at home; acting against domination at home; or migrating.
Threats are acts that potentially can trigger habitus, a persons embodied structural
dispositions. Earlier experiences with fatal consequences of threats, increases the
likelihood to either obey or migrate. Capital also triggers the dispositions: Having
money or a social network that can help facilitate migration, increases the likelihood of
a successful migration, in other words it increases the luciones. Such factors are
differently distributed in individuals, causing different sets of combinations between
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event and structure, and thereby different reactions to the same event (cf. Bourdieu
2000:220).
Furthermore, in being without a future, a person is likely to enter the world of
imagination in order to have a mission with life that can make life meaningful (cf.
Bourdieu 2000:221). To act against domination or to migrate are both acts that can be
compared to gambling. Faced with the discourse of the American Dream on the one
hand, and La Bestia on the other, migrants enter a game of life or death. According to
Bourdieu (2000:222-223) gambling and death-defying games, for the time being, can
provide a sense of escape, existence and expectation. As a consequence of having
nothing to lose, the habitus can be suspended, and agency can take over and define life.
I argue that the suspension of habitus is the first move towards structural change.
Migration entails a vision that life is greener on the other side. Migration is illusio;
it is a project with a goal that gives meaning to existence; it is the vision of life without
violence or poverty. Staying to obey is a way of becoming the instrument of gangs,
confirming their dominance, and reproducing the social structure. By obeying the only
thing gained is life, but a life without agency and a personal purpose. Migration, on the
other hand, can be viewed as a personal project. It is the first step in the project of
defining ones own life. Though running away to some extend confirms the power of
the dominators, it is a move away from domination. Ultimately, if migration increases,
there will be no one left to dominate, and what dominator would want that? Migration is
an investment in the game of life, and no investment comes without risks.
On the move
Vogt (2013:765-766) describes migrants as people in liminal spaces, thereby pointing
out that they are in-between having decided to migrate and arriving, and that they are
physically mobile. In Bourdieus terms, the migrants have left the fields that so far have
structured their habituses, and they are moving through new social fields. However as
the migrants are moving towards the USA, there is no need to engage deeply with any
of the fields on the way, and they thereby spend most of their time on the limits of
fields.
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It is then relevant to ask if migrants can have a feel for the game. Through the use
of Bourdieus theory I suggest that the migrants cannot have a strongly adjusted feel for
the game in all the fields they enter into on their journey. I do, on the other hand,
suggest that there is a field composed by migrants. Throughout migration, the migrants
learn to navigate in the field of migration. Furthermore, as in any other field, it is also
possible to accumulate capital while migrating, which perhaps can be made use of in
other fields as well. Nail (2013:125) for example suggests that the ability to overcome
hardship is valued in the North American labor market.
If the migrant succeeds and is able to create a correspondence between habitus and
the fields that make up the new home, luciones to gain in the game of power increases,
and thus the luciones of a heightened degree of agency. The luciones forms the
foundation of illusio. Whereas the initial illusio broke free from habitus, the illusio of a
migrant who has succeeded can be more grounded in reality. In other words, if the
migrant experiences a bit of success, his or her hope for a brighter future will rise, and
thereby the motivation to work towards that future. Migration is taking a chance based
on a vision, and if it succeeds new visions can be made and worked towards. The
succeeded migrant is likely to base the new visions on knowledge accumulated from
experiences.
Throughout this analysis based on Bourdieu, I have shown that people have
different habituses and therefore their reactions to the event of a threat or to the process
of migration will differ. I have illustrated that migration, in breaking with the luciones
defined by habitus, is the first step of agency. I have pointed out that migration is a way
to legitimize an existence, and last but not least I have suggested that migration can be a
means to gain luciones, and thereby a reason to invest anew in ones personal forthcoming.
Conclusion
Throughout this work I have compared the work of Michel Foucault and Pierre
Bourdieu in regards to the structure-agency debate. I argue that although they have
many similarities, their views differ in a number of ways.
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December 2014
Even though neither Foucault nor Bourdieu is a pure anthropologist, their immense
impact on the discipline of anthropology makes it important for anthropologists to take
their work seriously. I have found it particularly interesting to look at Foucault and
Bourdieu in relation to the structure-agency debate, because they, in spite of their
disciplinary differences, share the French post-modern and post structural intellectual
context; they both seek beyond the modern models of structure and agency.
By comparing Foucault and Bourdieu I have reached an insight into how Foucault
traces the history of how structures evolve and affect people, and how Bourdieu turns
the object of study around, and focuses on how peoples engagement in different social
fields forms the structure of the fields that again form the agents back.
I have argued that there is correspondence between Bourdieus term symbolic
violence and Foucaults term governmentality, but that Foucault and Bourdieu, never
the less, differ in their views of the degree to which people can act against power and
structure. Foucault is more pessimistic than Bourdieu, because to him, acting against
dominance, reaffirms the dominance. Furthermore, the structural changes Foucault
refers to are epochal; they do not refer to individuals that challenge the discourse in
their daily lives, but rather changes of a whole society. Bourdieu, on the other hand,
pays attention to the agents, and how they form and rearticulate structure through
negotiation, whereby the structure to some extent always is changing.
To illustrate the theory with a concrete ethnographic example, I have asked why a
great number of Central Americans migrate to the USA, when the journey is known to
be unsafe. In the Foucault inspired part of the analysis I show a network of structural
lines that makes it seem as if the individuals are caught in a network of structure.
Migration is explained as an effect of structure, and capitalism is suggested to be the
main catalyst. In the Bourdieu inspired part of the analysis I illustrate how personal
experiences form the life of an individual, and thereby cause different people to respond
in different ways to the same event. I argue that when a migrant breaks with habitus and
perceive migration as profitable, migration is agency. Through Bourdieu, I have pointed
out that migration is a way to legitimize an existence. It is a step that can increase the
chances of creating the life one desires, and it thereby nourishes the imagination that
facilitates agency.
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December 2014
I find that an analysis that solely draws on Foucault moves too far away from living
people to be anthropological. Including Foucault can, nevertheless, raise some
important questions about the nature of structural forces, that Bourdieu mentions, but
does not go deeper into. Hence the combination of Bourdieu and Foucault can give a
more nuanced analysis.
Lastly, I would like to draw attention towards the rising anthropological focus on
doubt, and point out that in order to doubt one cannot be fully controlled by structure or
blinded by discourse (cf. Louw 2014; Pelkmans 2013). This is an aspect of the
structure-agency debate that would be interesting to investigate in extension to my work
here.
References
Barnard, Alan
2000 History and Theory in Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre
2001 A Magnified Image. In Masculine Domination. Pp. vii-53. Cambridge: Polity
Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre
2000 Pascalian Meditations. Oxford: Polity.
Foucault, Michel
1991 Governmentality. In The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality: With
Two Lectures by and an Interview with Michel Foucault. Michel Foucault, Graham
Burchell, Peter Miller and Colin Gordon, eds. Pp. 87-104. London: Harvester
Wheatsheaf.
Foucault, Michel
1980 We 'Other Victorians'. In The History of Sexuality. Pp. 1-13. New York:
Vintage.
Foucault, Michel
1980 The Incitement to Discourse. In The History of Sexuality. Pp. 17-35. New
York: Vintage.
Foucault, Michel, Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton
1988 Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. London:
Tavistock Publications.
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December 2014
Hiris, Ole
2010 Systemteoretierne. In Antropologiens Idhistorie: 2500 rs Konstruktion Af
Os Selv Og De Fremmede. Pp. 452-490. Denmark: Aarhus Universitetsforlag.
Kuklick, Henrika
2012 Functionalism. In The Routledge Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural
Anthropology. Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spencer, eds. Pp. 311-317. Oxon:
Routledge.
Louw, Maria
2014 The Art of Dealing with Things You do Not Believe in: Dream Omens and
their Meanings in Post-Soviet Kyrgyztan. In Between Magic and Rationality. on
the Limits of Reason in the Modern World. Vibeke Steffen, Steffen Jncke and
Kirsten Marie Raahauge, eds. Pp. 285-312. (In press): University of Chicago Press.
Mahmood, Saba
2005 The Subject of Freedom. In Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the
Feminist Subject. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Marcus, George E., and Michael M. J. Fischer
1986 Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human
Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mattingly, Cheryl
2012 Two Virtue Ethics and the Anthropology of Morality. Anthropological
Theory 12(2):161.
Nail, Thomas
2013 The Crossroads of Power: Michel Foucault and the U.S./Mexico Border Wall.
Foucault Studies (15):110-128.
Navaro-Yashin, Yael
2012 The make-Believe Space: Affective Geography in a Postwar Polity. Durham,
NC: Duke University Press.
Ortner, Sherry B.
1984 Theory in Anthropology since the Sixties. Comparative Studies in Society
and History 26(1):126-166.
Pelkmans, Mathijs
2013 Outline for an Ethnography of Doubt. In Ethnographies of Doubt: faith and
Uncertainty in Contemporary Societies. Pp. 1-42. London: I.B. Tauris.
Sayer, Derek
1991 Capitalism and Modernity: An Excursus on Marx and Weber. London:
Routledge.
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December 2014
VOGT, WENDY A.
2013 Crossing Mexico: Structural Violence and the Commodification of
Undocumented Central American Migrants. American Ethnologist 40(4):764.
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