Field (Bourdieu) - Social System

Social System

In Bourdieu's work, a field is a system of social positions (for example, a profession such as the law) structured internally in terms of power relationships (such as the power differential between judges and lawyers). More specifically, a field is a social arena of struggle over the appropriation of certain species of capital – capital being whatever is taken as significant for social agents (the most obvious example being monetary capital). Fields are organized both vertically and horizontally. This means that fields are not strictly analogous to classes, and are often autonomous, independent spaces of social play. The field of power is peculiar in that it exists "horizontally" through all of the fields and the struggles within it control the "exchange rate" of the forms of cultural, symbolic, or physical capital between the fields themselves. A field is constituted by the relational differences in position of social agents, and the boundaries of a field are demarcated by where its effects end. Different fields can be either autonomous or interrelated (for example, consider the separation of power between judiciary and legislature) and more complex societies are "more differentiated" societies that have more fields.

According to this rules activity develops in the field, which works like a market in which actors compete for the specific benefits associated to it. This competition defines the objective relationships between participants through factors like the volume of capital they contribute, their trajectories within the field or their ability to adjust to the rules inherent to the field. The extent to which participants are able to make an effective use of the resources they are endowed with is a function of the adaptation of their habitus in this specific field. The habitus is the subjective system of expectations and predispositions acquired through past experience.

The operative capital in each field is the set of resources which can be used to obtain an advantage within it. Therefore capital is a byproduct of the field and doesn't exist outside of it. The different species of capital perform in different fields, which in turn are defined by the power balances exerted by the capital.