Bourdieu and Social Capital: Methodological Challenges

[Updates
16/1/2022: In the title, I replaced 'disciplinary' with 'methodological' as there might be a misreading of the former's meaning;
17/1/2022: confirmed Frisinghelli and Schulteis as curators]

There have for several years been frequent media reports about the various harms caused by large social media enterprises, particularly Facebook.  In spite of the alarm having been raised, occasionally by senior figures such as Sean Parker who warned of its effects on the brain, the businesses have kept on rolling and continue to do so in the face of horrifying testimony divulged by content moderators.  In response, Facebook typically claims that the millions they have invested in research into the impact of well-being demonstrates a generally positive impact.  Even if they were to pour billions more into their research, they would arguably reach the same conclusion.  Why?  Not because of a deliberate policy to evade, but because their research into well-being is based on ‘social capital’, a vaguely defined concept with flaky interpretations. 

I had started drafting a section on this for my Jubilee Centre paper on virtues in the digital world.  I wanted to highlight the considerable influence of this term, though the paper is mainly concerned with cognitive interventions to protect one’s awareness.  I eventually omitted discussion of social capital because the paper was getting lengthy; I felt the need to include quite a bit of preparatory material to an audience unfamiliar with the Buddhist approach I was adopting.

Investigating the Origins of a Notion

So I introduce my thinking on social capital here, initially recapitulating the concern around academic notions, which I first expressed in a paper on sustainable social networking architectures I gave in 2010 (see bottom of first page), and then, in revised form, in Buddhism and Computing (chapter 5), which I largely quote here.

When delving into this, the first problem I came across was the lack of a standard definition, though a certain underlying pattern may be discerned in how systems have been built so far and it carries great significance.  I am particularly grateful to Professor Alejandro Portes, former President of the American Sociological Association, for providing a very useful (and intelligible to me, a non-sociologist) historical overview in Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology.  Portes observed that its sense has broadened from pertaining fundamentally to the individual and their family kinships – rooted in the foundational work of nineteenth century sociologists, particularly Émile Durkheim – to larger-scale social integration.  He credits its first systematic treatment to Pierre Bourdieu, who defined it (for an individual) as 

the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance or recognition – or in other words, to membership in a group…

(The Forms of Capital, page 21, or page 247 in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (Richardson JG, editor).)

Portes illustrates how the research, whilst aspiring to social cohesion, has in fact given rise to many theories that appear equally to allow both positive and negative networks.  The latter include “exclusion of outsiders, excess claims on group members, restrictions on individual freedoms, and downward leveling norms” (page 15).   With definitions being vague or ambiguous, he observes that the personal concept of ‘social capital’ based on kinship relationships has gradually evolved to become more impersonal and more generalised.

Indeed, Bourdieu’s definition could be satisfied by many kinds of entities, including federated Internet-based software services, i.e., the systems in which the social capital is being established online. Whilst these services are like the close-fitting manifestations or shadows of human activity, they should not be equated with human relationships themselves – if you get to know someone by email, it is evidenced by a record of correspondence; but if you then meet in person, you do not need that record or email itself to continue developing the friendship.

The system logs are heavily identified with human activity, and with the interpersonal relationships themselves.  Whilst this readily enables quantification and basic usage figures as garnered for analytics, much of the analysis needs careful interpretation and further in-depth enquiry, for which self-responses to a shopping list of questions are surely inadequate.  It is thus unsurprising that the findings with regard to well-being are very mixed, even in the interpretation of identical data, giving the tech companies a great deal of wiggle room to convince (delude?) themselves that their systems really are conducive to well-being.

How then can we reach definite and meaningful conclusions about what is really of value?  Let’s return to Bourdieu’s work.  The quote above is actually a translation from the French: 

Le capital social est l’ensemble des ressources actuelles ou potentielles qui sont liées à la possession d’un réseau durable de relations plus ou moins institutionnalisées d’interconnaissance et d’inter-reconnaissance, ou, en d’autres termes, à l’appartenance à un groupe …

The original was published six years earlier as Le capital social: notes provisoires (Social Capital: Provisional Notes), which appeared in Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales. 1980 Jan;31(1):2–3. 

In strictly linguistic terms, the translation may be straightforward.  However, the context of the definition is important, especially so with Bourdieu, because the interdisciplinary nature of his work is rooted in ethnography.  

 

Images d’Algérie: An Exhibition of Ethnographic Photography

Bourdieu, born in 1930, was conscripted to the French army in 1955 and deployed to Algeria later that year, during the country’s growing struggles for independence from French colonial rule.   He became increasingly disillusioned by the incongruity of the imposed European culture and sympathetic to the cause of self-determination.  After being reassigned to a clerical role and meeting local scholars, he remained in the country during most of the war, affording himself a rare opportunity to understand the local society in situ.  It was during this period, spurred on by a desire to constructively channel his feelings of resentment, that he undertook ethnographic work, particularly of the Kabyle people of Berber ethnicity, using photography as a tool.  

This was a formational period for Bourdieu, very influential, according Goodman and Silverstein, in terms of his cultivation of the relationship between theory and ethnography.   I think this is very evident in a retrospective exhibition of about 150 ‘reunited’ photographs of his fieldwork, ‘PIERRE BOURDIEU: Images d’Algérie’ – une affinité élective’ (PIERRE BOURDIEU: Images of Algeria – Elective Affinities), hosted by the Chateau de Tours, 16 June 2012 – 4 November 2013.   It was featured in Jeu de Paume (magazine)

The introduction to the exhibition reads:

“The exhibition "Pierre Bourdieu. Images of Algeria" shows the photographic works of Pierre Bourdieu, taken during his fieldwork between 1958 and 1961, in the period of the war of liberation in Algeria. The exhibition places these photographic documents in the context of Bourdieu's ethnographic and sociological studies of that time. Bourdieu's pioneering field research, which is here supplemented by his own photographs, provides an insight into the development of his sociological tenets. In addition to illuminating the evolution of his work, the photographs are also impressive documents of social history, which — even after five decades — have lost none of their immediacy and relevance.”

 

The exhibition has indeed special relevance because it was proposed by Bourdieu towards the end of his career, reaffirming the importance of the ethnographic work 35-40 years after he had carried it out. Bourdieu asserted, “You have to see the photos to have a better understanding.”  In an enlightening ten-minute documentary, the curators,  Christine Frisinghelli (Camera Austria, Graz) and Franz Schulteis (Fondation Bourdieu / University of Geneva), relate that when people came to see them, they’d keep “coming back to the same photo a dozen times, finding a dozen different things”.

The pictures open up access to a foreign culture and are furthermore linked to texts written by Bourdieu; reading the texts enables a better understanding of the photos, so they are mutually enhancing.  For example, a series of photos featuring a village – the cottages and daily activities of the inhabitants – were really about social gatherings.  In one photo, a group of children are collecting water from a fountain.  This is significant because it was traditionally the role of women to act as water gatherers, but now women couldn’t leave the home anymore; it was considered a matter of honour that “women didn’t wander about unaccompanied in public and didn’t meet with foreigners”.   So, they were disempowered, but this requires knowing the history.  This kind of observation contributed to the empirical basis for the theory of habitus that Bourdieu developed, specifically to internal views in social culture, whereby in the face of external colonisers, the locals applied a certain self-constraint in response.

What I find striking is the sympathetic nature of the processes by which these discoveries came about; for Bourdieu the use of photography was a means to express to people, “I am interested in you and your life, in your circumstances.”  I think this disposition helped him understand, as reported by the curators, that observation and reflection change your outlook on life, allowing you to gain a deeper focus.  In that very inclination, we have already a close linkage between subjective and objective, which, was central to his ideas of habitus.   (Incidentally, I would have liked to have asked Bourdieu why is it that in some cultures people sit cross-legged, but not in others.)

A catalogue accompanied the exhibition, under the same title, Images d'Algérie: Une affinité elective.  An insightful blog post in the Amazon reviews section highlights the interconnectedness and complementarity in the diachronic process of photography and writing.  The work subsequently appeared in English translation, as Picturing Algeria.

 

Power as Capacity

In the light of Bourdieu’s fieldwork, social capital can obviously be seen in terms of empowerment.  In English, ‘power’ is all too readily associated with politics, but – despite his considerable interest in power relations – that wasn’t necessarily the root intention for Bourdieu.  As the narrative accompanying the photography exhibition indicates, he was working somewhat like an archaeologist, identifying and peeling off the incongruent layers of European colonial culture to allow the native culture to breathe again.  

This perspective is confirmed in Notes Provisoires, which he wrote twenty years later, discussing how social capital is developed in a group context.  In explaining the durable aspect of social capital, Bourdieu makes particular use of the word le pouvoir (‘power’):

… grâce à ce capital collectivement possédé, un pouvoir sans rapport avec son apport personnel, chaque agent participe du capital collectif, symbolisé par le nom de la famille ou de la lignée, mais en proportion directe de son apport, c’est-à-dire dans la mesure où ses actions, ses paroles, sa personne font honneur au groupe

 

Google Translate renders this (with my minor corrections) as:

… then thanks to this collectively owned capital, a power unrelated to their personal contribution, each agent participates in the collective capital, symbolized by the name of the family or lineage, but in direct proportion to his contribution, that is to say to the extent that his actions, words, and person honour the group

 

This is very much about agency.  When learning French in secondary school in the 1980s, thanks to one of my teachers, I became more aware that it has this sense of ‘capability’ or ‘capacity’; my contemporaneous Collins Robert English-French/French-English dictionary (a reprint of the 1st edition, 1979) gives as the noun’s first entry:

pouvoir (faculté) (gén) power; (capacité) ability, capacity; (Phys, gén: propriété).  avoir le ~ de faire to have the power ou ability to do; il a le ~ de se faire des amis partout he has the ability to make friends everywhere; il a un extraordinaire ~ d’éloquence/de conviction he has remarkable ou exceptional powers of oratory/persuasion; ce n’est pas en mon ~ it is not within ou in my power; it is beyond my power; il n’est pas en son ~ de vous aider it is beyond ou it does not lie within his powers to help you; il fera tout ce qui est en son ~ he will do everything (that is) in his power ou all that can possibly be done; ~ couvrant/éclairant covering/lighting power; ~ absorbant absorption power, absorption factor.

That entry says quite a lot about one’s capacity to form relationships.  It’s really important (in my view).  Taking le pouvoir as a natural capacity to do things, in a society where even simple daily activities are constrained, the meaning is inevitably coloured, so that one has to struggle to have what should be naturally-given pouvoir.  Hence the ‘power relations’ and the political overtones, especially those of control, which came to preoccupy Bourdieu so deeply and for which he perceived a deficit in sociological theories that he sought to remedy.  Nevertheless, I perceive that Bourdieu maintains the primary sense of pouvoir, as given in Collins-Robert; it should be borne in mind that it relates to human agency, which, I believe, is fundamental to our sense of freedom and ability to grow.  Just as luminosity is primarily defined by the sun and not by clouds, so pouvoir as capacity should precede the sense of power and authority, which are more properly conveyed by another term I learnt as a child, la puissance.

Yet, that meaning seems to have been supplanted by what Collins-Robert gives as the second sense (autorité).  Now, in the Collins dictionary, we have as the primary definition:

(= influence, autorité) power 

Le Premier ministre a beaucoup de pouvoir. The prime minister has a lot of power.

avoir pouvoir de faire (= autorisation) to have the authority to do ⧫ to have authority to do; (= droit) to have the right to do

The meaning seems to have become the equivalent of the English word, ‘power’.  Quite a change!  A result of globalisation, perhaps?

 

Lost in Translation?

As his influence grew, Bourdieu became troubled that his ideas were being widely misinterpreted; their cultural translation to the English-speaking world was proving particularly problematic.  In a lecture delivered in French at the University of California, San Diego, in March of 1986, reproduced in Pierre Bourdieu, Choses dites (Paris, Editions de Minuit, 1987, pp. 147-166, and translated from the French by Loic J. D. Wacquant), he opened with (emphasis mine):

I would like, within the limits of a lecture, to try and present the theoretical principles which are at the base of the research whose results are presented in my book Distinction (Bourdieu 1984a), and draw out those of its theoretical implications that are most likely to elude its readers, particularly here in the United States, due to the differences between our respective cultural and scholarly traditions

 

A couple of paragraphs later he determined:

I think that it is particularly necessary to set the record straight here: indeed, the hazards of translation are such that, for instance, my book Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (Bourdieu and Passeron 1977) is well known, which will lead certain commentators…

 

As a disciplinary outsider, it’s not practical for me to work through his large output, in the original or in translation, which is why the exhibition catalogue is so valuable.   Another entry point is Choses dites, one of the main compendia of Bourdieu’s work, in which he tries to reassess and clarify.  Not having it to hand, I’ve consulted an extended review by Dick McCleary, whose own life appears well-travelled.

But I have to admit I don’t feel much wiser.  That may be due to my denseness or the lack of clarity on the part of the reviewer, but I suspect that it’s more the verbal expressions, where definitions are imprecise and wrapped up in very involved discourse (a different world from my background of mathematics).  For example, having watched and listened to the ethnographic photography exhibition, I feel I have a tentative understanding of habitus, at least in a very simple form, but when I turn to McCleary’s account, in which he quotes verbatim from (Bourdieu, Outline of A Theory of Practice, p. 124), it’s another matter. 

In the more general sense it has in the 'symbolic economy' which has been Bourdieu's chief concern, capital consists in the power to control and use the means and social mechanisms required for cultural production to shape perception and understanding in accordance with the shapers' views and interests. The differential distribution of all forms of capital among agents and groups of agents determines their position in the social space of dominant and dominated classes. Their position in turn determines their habitus – the 'system of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures [which constitutes] the socially informed body, with its tastes and distastes, its compulsions and repulsions … '

 

I find the basic notion of capital straightforward enough, but the subsequent expression rambling and nebulous.  Such material is evidently difficult to elucidate, but I feel there’s too much wrapped up together.  It needs unpacking, a proper separation of concerns.

Returning to our original focus of social networking sites, this lack of clarity and succinctness very likely underlies problems with the definition of [social] capital and its current application to the online context.  However, the content also provides important guidance that should inform solutions.  In The Forms of Capital, Bourdieu adds a footnote to the definition of social capital (emphasis own).

Here too the notion of cultural capital did not spring from pure theoretical work, still less from an analogical extension of economic concepts. It arose from the need to identify the principle of social effects which, although they can be seen clearly at the level of singular agents—where statistical inquiry inevitably operates—cannot be reduced to the set of properties individually possessed by a given agent.

I would reinforce what Bourdieu is intimating and assert that the notions he puts forward can barely be understood without attending to the practical context over an extended period; the visuals informed his analysis deeply after due reflection.  It confirms for me that it is unrealistic to think that one can gain more than a shallow insight into social capital generated by people’s online activities through usage analytics and surveys alone.  

We are left then with only the more obvious manifestations, as with the political activities, which have very marked patterns online.  Unfortunately, these are well-known for having fostered ills ranging from addiction to division and hatred (hateful speech), leading to mounting experiences of dissatisfaction, i.e., of negative capital, with perceived powers of corruption and nefarious control.   The promotion of social capital by the big tech companies then seems ironic given that the main driver for Bourdieu’s research was the struggles of the Algerian people against French colonialism – an oppressive regime or system that artificially constrains, diminishing real autonomy and agency.    

With the notions of social capital being so vague and diluted, it is difficult to go beyond the broad-brush macro analyses with its ham-fisted metrics such as page impressions, ‘likes’ and so on.   We are unlikely to build a compassionate society by these means, which is why we need fresh insights and radically new solutions.  We need metta, not Meta …

 

Glimpses of a Buddhist Response

Bourdieu has demonstrated that both the subjective and objective are needed for a proper understanding of habitus.  In that regard, Bourdieu discusses the senses; continuing with McCleary’s quote above,  

the socially informed body, with its tastes and distastes, its compulsions and repulsions, with, in a word, all its senses not only the traditional five senses, but also the sense of necessity and the sense of duty, the sense of direction and the sense of reality, the sense of balance and the sense of beauty, common sense and the sense of the sacred, tactical sense and the sense of responsibility, business sense and the sense of propriety, the sense of humour and the sense of absurdity, moral sense and the sense of practicality, and so on'.

The five physical senses (eye and sights, ear and sounds, tongue and tastes, body and tactile objects, nose and smells) are extended by a list that relate to perceptions, sensitivities and more general views – to properly encompass social capital, one needs deep understanding of the subjective human experience and inclinations, motivating cognitive science, which is central to my recent paper.

From a Buddhist perspective, to the five sense bases and sense organs is added the sixth sense of mind (mano) and mental objects (dhammā), which together comprise the saḷāyatana.  The list may then be approached in terms of conditioned states – the five khandhas (‘heaps’) of form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness – and as dependently arisen processes mediated through the senses: with contact through a sense, feeling arises and consciousness of that.  From feelings, arise perceptions, which in turn condition and are conditioned by mental formations.  These mental formations constitute the habitus, but our interest is not so much in the detail of these formations, but rather in the ethical quality of associated actions in body, speech in mind – for these are the determinants of wellbeing.  Are they pure or impure? 

“What is good, what is bad? What is right, what wrong? What ought I to do or not to do? What, when I have done it, will be for a long time my sorrow ... or my happiness?”

(from Lakkhaņa Sutta [DN 30; iii:157] )

A foundation for the moral sense that Bourdieu identified is termed sīla (moral virtue), which is typically grouped in a threefold mode of practice – dāna  (generosity), sīla and samādhi (mental concentration).  So, a Buddhist approach to social capital concerns the cultivation of these three.

Buddhist teachings do take account of the social context, particularly in the understanding of human relationships.  The pouvoir to form relationships is expounded in the Sigalovāda Sutta.  It covers the various kinds of relationships that Bourdieu mentions, but the value is in becoming a more virtuous person.  Accordingly, this forms the basis of my architecture for Sigala SNS.   It is underpinned by agency, for which in Buddhism is characterised as an autonomous person who can exercise six qualities – initiation, effort, exertion, steadfastness, perseverance and endeavouring, as described in the Attakārī Sutta (teachings on the self-doer).

The Buddha also described another kind of capital, spiritual capital – puñña (merit), which deserves its own blog post.  It too can translate into economic gain through karma-vipaka (karmic fruits), but  regarded spiritually, it is able to create conditions to support deliverance from Samsara.

For now, I need to return to the work of another Frenchman, Fabien Potencier, as I try to familiarise myself with Symfony: The Fast Track so as to code a proof of concept for Sigala.

On 'Friends' and other associations

Note: This article was originally posted in the Connect section on the Educause Web site, at:
http://www.educause.edu/node/167285.
However, this address has since become inaccessible, so the post has been reproduced here as an archive with the same date and approximately the same time. It has also been saved on archive.org.

Having indicated that I would write something about Web2.0, I finally get round to doing something.  Have you ever wondered about the concept of 'friends' in social networking site?  I've been thinking for a long time that they dilute the meaning of friendship and try to address this here by appeal to some Buddhist teachings, particularly the Sigalovada Sutta...

This week's edition of Time Magazine (Europe) [dated 19 Nov. '07] appeared through my letter box this morning with a copy of 'You are not my Friend' by Joel Stein, a humorous essay on social networking sites, already available online.  Whilst many articles, especially in education, have tended to focus on the issue of privacy, Stein's article identified a tendency to embellish or fabricate one's image - so I suppose this means turning them into 'vanity spaces'!  However, the main issue was concerning the lack of differentation between one friend and another.

Whilst at the EDUCAUSE 2007 conference a delegate conveyed in flowing fashion her enthusiasm for Facebook.  Having taken a look at it, I asked about privacy options and she demonstrated various controls and seemed more than content with that, but whilst I thought that looked impressive I wasn't convinced.  (For a useful walkthrough of these options see e.g. Videojug's How to Stay Safe on Facebook).
All fine, but consider the different levels of access control:

• Only me
• Only my friends
• some of my networks and all my friends
• All of my networks and all my friends

There isn't much granularity at the level of 'friend' - in terms of profile views, when someone requests to be your friend you have only the option of granting access to your standard profile or a limited profile.   It's a homogeneous view, whereby each 'friend' (assuming access to the same profile view) can look at the same content (profile, contact details etc) as all the other friends: by implication, the information you share should take the lowest common denominator of all such 'friends.'  I expect this is typically just an acquaintance.

I have wondered why the concept of 'friend' has been flattened so severely and I expect there are a number of factors, not least cultural.  Whilst in Seattle, I chatted about this with a local and he related that in the U.S. it can be customary to use this term almost as soon as you have been introduced to someone, hence 5 minutes later, "Hey John, let me introduce you to my friend, Paul."   Specifically with regard to Facebook, I find there is more to it when I consider the original context.  The physical 'facebooks' have been traditionally provided at some U.S. Universities, including Harvard, for first year students - hence 'Freshman Facebooks.'  Thus, I think they were designed for peers, who were all 'in the same boat'.   Since then, the online Facebook has grown far beyond the original scenario and remit, but perhaps the model for relationships hasn't changed much.

Wondering how the notion of 'friend' can reflect greater depth and breadth I have sought insight from another source, the teachings of the Buddha.  Most of the canonical texts are concerned with training the mind, especially through meditation practice, but a few are concerned with general lay life, including the Sigalovada Sutta, for which a couple of translations from Pali are available at Access to Insight.

In this sutta, the Buddha is instructing Sigala, a young man who has recently lost his father, on how to conduct oneself - we might say today on how to be a model citizen!  The Buddha focuses on how to cultivate a virtuous path and treats relationships, particularly how to discern between good/genuine and bad/rogue friends.  That in itself is probably very useful for any generation, physical or Net.  However, I would like to highlight here the later section that introduces 6 orthogonal relationships, which starts:
And how, young householder, does a noble disciple cover the six quarters?

The Buddha groups 6 kinds of relationships by reference to the cardinal points (East, South, North, West) plus Nadir and Zenith:

• East: Parents
• South: Teachers
• West: Spouse
• North: Friends and Associates
• Nadir: Servants and Employees
• Zenith: Ascetics and Brahmans

For each relationship type, there are different kinds of service that can be provided to enable the relationship to prosper in a wholesome way.  Whatever the value system, the orthogonality is important to enable these different relationships to be distinguished and clarified.

How may we apply this to social networking sites in the educational context?  I would suggest that a more universal (and robust) system would reflect this by allowing one to identify one or more relationship dimensions - what these are I don't know, but although society has changed enormously on the surface, I expect that underneath there is little variation.  You could make these specific, more granular, so for the educational context determine what kinds of relationships are characteristic of the educational environment? Some examples:

• Peer
• Mentor
• Supervisor - supervisee
• Lecturer - student
• Tutor - tutee
• Fresher - final Year student

Then consider the kinds of activities that might be modelled in learning environments.  How can relationships be fruitfully nurtured?   How might this be implemented?   When registering you'd perhaps check one or more boxes for relationship type.  From then on, how one communicates, the options for  sharing etc. would depend on the relationship type.  As a simple example, in the profiling information, a tutor might provide a phone contact for a tutee, but email for a class.

Another aspect is depth of association, which can be at many levels.  The following 7 level model shows progressively closer and closer associations:

• Meeting up
• Getting Closer
• Feeling a liking for one another
• Respecting the other
• Moral Support
• Joining In
• Influencing and instilling behaviour in one another

[This is taken from a section on associations in Chapter 1 of 'A Manual of Peace,' teachings based on the Mangala Sutta ('Blessing of life')]

It seems sensible to me to share differently with those colleagues we know only slightly compared with those we have known for many years.  Some actions would be more appropriate only when you know others after quite some time, especially those that are disruptive and otherwise invasive.

How might this translate online?   There are a couple of aspects: the first is again concerned with the registration process - some marker can be indicated to reflect how well you know someone.  A series of questions might be asked and based on the responses a suggested level might be proffered. Although it is extra effort, it should save in the long run.   In addition, a longitudinal element may also be introduced whereby the options available evolve according to how a relationship develops, similar to how boxes on the BBC Web site would get darker the more you clicked on them.

If the right structures are put in place, I think a system like this could lead to more dependable social networking-based approaches to many systems.  For example, it should allow appropriate lines of authority as needed for a research genealogy project similar in output to individual projects like the Mathematics Genealogy Project . It might indeed herald a FOAF-based approach suggested by Stuart Yeates that should be far more sustainable - present approaches don't scale very well, as mentioned in some ponderings.