Northern Theory: The Political Geography of General Social Theory Author(s): Raewyn Connell Source: Theory and Society,

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Theor Soc (2006) 35:237-264 DOI 10.1007/s11186-006-9004-y

Northerntheory:The politicalgeographyof general social theory

Raewyn Connell

? SpringerScience + Business Media B.V. 2006

betweengeopolitical Abstract Therelationship positionandgeneralsocialtheoryis examinedby a detailedreading threeimportant of Foundations SocialTheory, texts,Coleman's of Bourdieu's Logic of Practice,and Giddens'sConstitution Society.Effectsof metropoliof tan positionare tracedin theoretical of strategies, conceptions time andhistory,modelsof of and features theirtheorizing. Fourtextualmoves agency,ideasof modernity, othercentral areidentified together that constitute northernness generalsocialtheory: the of uniclaiming fromthe center,gestures exclusion,andgrand of erasure. Somealternative versality, reading different relationswiththe globalSouth,arebrieflyindicated. pathsfor theory,embodying Butone shouldnot lose sight of the real. Frantz Masks Fanon,BlackSkin,White In a shortbut disturbing paperexaminingthe 14th WorldCongressof Sociology, Heinz of Sonntag,a formerpresident the LatinAmerican SociologicalAssociation,demonstrated the institutional dominanceof world sociology by academicsfrom the rich countriesof the globalNorth.In termsof organizational withinthe International authority Sociological in of of the Association, theconvening Congress sessions,andin the authorship papers, same of pattern repeatsitself-massivepredominance the developedcountries.l As Sonntagwoulddoubtlessagree,the professional of organization sociology is not the root of the problem.Vastinternational of resources,especiallyin the size and inequalities wealth of highereducationsystems, shape all academicdisciplines.But global inequalities may also be embedded withina discipline,in the way intellectual workersdefinetheir andcarryout theirwork. problems It is time we exploredthis issue for a key elementof sociology's disciplinary culture, is Socialtheory overwhelmingly in theglobalNorth. Thisis perfectly general theory. produced well known,but - except in a specializedliterature "post-colonial of theory"- remains
R. Connell Faculty of Educationand Social Work,A35, Universityof Sydney,NSW 2006, Australia e-mail: r.connell@edfac.usyd.edu.au 'Heinz R. Sontag, "How the sociology of the Northcelebratesitself,"ISABulletin 80 (1999): 21-25. Springer

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discourse.It is one of those uncomfortable facts "in frontof unspokenin our theoretical of "whichare critique politicalthinking, yournose,"as GeorgeOrwellputit in a memorable obviousandunalterable, whichwill haveto be facedsooneror later."2 and I proposeto studythisuncomfortable by a close reading influential fact of textsof general theoristsof the last generation, James S. theory.I focus on three of the most influential Coleman,AnthonyGiddens,and PierreBourdieu.FromtheiroeuvreI focus on the books thatmostexplicitlystatetheirgeneraltheoretical perspectives. A smallset of textscannotrepresent whole of social theory, if we areto examine the but influential the genreat all, theseseem a good placeto start.Theycome fromthreecountries of theoretical work- onebuilding in thehistoryof sociology,andrepresent contrasting styles schemeof categories,and the a tightly-knit system,the secondan elaborate propositional as thirda practicaltool-kitfor analysis.The authorsall have reputations majortheorists. in Theirwork is, for instance,prominent CharlesCamicand Neil Gross's 1998 surveyof The in "contemporary developments sociologicaltheory." Webof Scienceon-line database solid evidencethattheseparticular textsarewidelyknownandused.In the last ten provides Bourdieu'sThe of years, Giddens'sThe Constitution Societyhas 2279 citationsrecorded, has Foundations Social Theory 1860.3 Practicehas 1236, andColeman's of Logic of it bedtimereading,generaltheoryis muchadmired; has Althoughit maynot be popular a certainhegemonyin the collectivelife of sociologists.Books of generaltheorywill, we of features the socialworldareandwhatthebest way expect,tell us whatthemostimportant themis. to understand in I valuewhatsuchtextstryto do. General theoryis important enablingsocial scienceto force.Butthe way theoryis donemayalso be severelylimiting.In this article,I be a cultural in thanwhatpropositions particular raisethe questionof whatin the genreof theory(rather to theories)we needto re-think, allow social scienceto play a largerrole in the world. Northernchoosers: Coleman'sFoundationsof Social Theory in of was Foundations SocialTheory published 1990as thesummation JamesS. Coleman's of had career. author beenforthreedecadesa leadingfigure The intellectual a verydistinguished in US sociology,workingin fields as diverseas youth studies,quantitative methodology, educationalinequality,and rationalchoice theory.Famousfar beyond sociology for the of on "Coleman Report" raceandschooling,Colemanalso hadan agendafor the re-making the discipline,whichthis book spells out. is solo flight in recentsociology. Across Foundations perhapsthe most single-minded of a thousand pages it makesa heroictraverse sociologicalproblemsrangingfrom socialColemanshows the izationandthe familyto corporate management, state,andrevolution. in how existingknowledgecan be re-written a single languageof choices in everychapter evolves into a mathematical and choosers.In the final sectionof the book, this re-writing modelsof socialprocesses,stronglyinfluenced game formalization, by algebraic presenting as The piece of socialtheory by theory. bookwas greeted somereviewers themostimportant
2Bart Moore-Gilbert,Postcolonial Theory:Contexts,Practices, Politics (London:Verso, 1997); George OrNose: CollectedEssays, Journalismand Letters,Volume 1945-1950 (London:Secker well, In Frontof Your IV, and Warburg, 1968). 3Charles Camic and Neil Gross, "Contemporary developments in sociological theory: Currentprojects and conditions of possibility," Annual Review of Sociology 24 (1998): 453-476; Web of Science, http://www.isinet.com/products/citation/wos/. Springer

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of on since Parsons's Structure SocialAction,andColemanas a "master social thought" of a parwithWeberandDurkheim.4 Althoughthe book offershardlyany new conceptsandis noticeablyisolatedfromother becauseof thepointof view it crysin is trends sociology,Foundations important theoretical of and had tallizes.Coleman beena leadingadvocate practitioner methodological positivism, which has dominated empiricalsociology in the UnitedStatessince the 1930s but has had limitedimpacton theory.This book is modempositivism'sgreatmomentin sociological dominance economics of are Its timelybecauseof the current theory. arguments particularly Coleman'smodel for theoryofin the Westernsocial sciences and publicpolicymaking. dilemmaof marginalization, fers a solutionto sociology's current orientingthe discipline towards hegemonicscience.5 the consciously Ambition "A in in is theoretical ambition announced his firstsentence: central Coleman's problem social for of "Somekind" scienceis thatof accounting thefunctioning somekindof socialsystem." of an definition whata social systemis. A becomes"anykind," through extremelyabstract in linkedby transactions, which they must engage to social systemis a set of individuals havesomecontrolovertheresources becausetheotherindividuals satisfytheirowninterests and betweenindividual system,the micro-macro need. The interplay link, becomesa they and in Coleman'stheorizing, is generallya centralproblemin modem formative problem positivism.6 is Lessnoticed,becauseit is so commonin sociologicaltheorizing, Coleman's assumption microandmacro, and thatthislanguage individual system,interest, of control,andresource, in The relevance. conceptscanbe applied anytimeandplace.Thisis in accord is of universal with the epistemologyof the positivistschool. The attemptto makeuniversalstatements, that (in Levy'sphrase) couldbe testedempirically, generalized propositions" Marion "highly Coleman'sambition,consistently,is to was always theirkey strategyof theory-building. of accountof the functioning social systems.7 applicable producea universally Thetwostarting points is: also Colemanis explicit,indeedinsistent,aboutwhathis starting-point "theindividual," These are the "elementary actors"of social called "the person"or "the naturalperson." actors actors"are introduced but the corporate theory,up to the point where "corporate to Resourcesandrightsmaybe transferred havealready beendeducedfromthe individuals. In actors,buttheybeginwithindividuals. one of the few passageswhereColeman corporate

4Peter Abell, "Review article: James S. Coleman, Foundationsof Social Theory,"European Sociological of Review7/2 (1991): 163-172; MichaelHechter,"Reviewof JamesS. Coleman,Foundations Social Theory," Public Choice 73 (1992): 243-247; ThomasJ. Fararo,"Reviewof James S. Coleman,Foundationsof Social Social Science Quarterly72/1 (1991): 189-190. Theory," 5 For the earliermethodologicalposition, see James S. Coleman,"Themethodsof sociology,"in R. Bierstedt, AmericanAcademyof Political editor,A Designfor Sociology: Scope, Objectives,and Methods(Philadelphia: and Social Science, 1969), 86-114. 6 James S. Coleman, Foundationsof Social Theory(Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1990), 1, 29. 7Marion J. Levy, Jr, "Scientific analysis as a subset of comparativeanalysis,"in J.C. McKinney and E.A. 1970), 100; cf. HubertM. Tiryakian,editors, TheoreticalSociology (New York:Appleton-Century-Crofts, Blalock, Jr.and Ann B. Blalock, editors,Methodologyin Social Research(New York:McGraw-Hill,1968).
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is approaches eloquence,he insiststhateven in the processeswheresovereignty transferred "individual do haveprimacy."8 to collectivities, persons Some critics,suchas Neil Smelser,have seen this as the centralweaknessof Coleman's work, a paradoxical attemptto constructa social science from individualist assumptions. individualism the ghost of Durkheim Colemanis sensitiveto the chargeof exaggerated canbe heardoff-stage,groaning buthe has an answerto the chargein his laterinstitutional He does get to collectiveprocesseseventually.9 analysis. The moreimportant is problemaboutthis starting pointis whatkindof individual being in sociology into play. Colemanis sharplycriticalof the "intellectual brought disarray" fromvaryingconceptions the person: of resulting Thecorrect one:to maintain singleconception a pathforsocialtheoryis a moredifficult not of whatindividuals like andto generate varyingsystemicfunctioning from are the of different but structures relations withinwhichthese kindsof creatures, fromdifferent 10 creatures themselves. find Whenwe examinewhatthe "natural So whatkindof creature does Colemanmaintain? of do in his text,it becomesclearthattheyarecreatures a very specifickind.They persons" their own interests,they make calculationsaboutcosts and benefits,they bargain pursue actionstowards with others,they give up rightsor receiverights,they engagein purposive in a goal. In short,they behavelike entrepreneurs a market- all the time. Olof Dahlbaick are and put it succinctly:Coleman'stheoryassumes"thatindividuals rational thatthey are egoistic."'1 in economics Thisis not surprising. is, afterall, the modelof the individual marginalist It This modelprovidesthe assumptions to fromwhich Colemanwas borrowing. required set of of the formalization socialexchangesin PartV of the book, "TheMathematics Social up Action." as in is ButthisshowsthatColeman notquiteaccurate claimingtheindividual the"starting of his pointis a conceptof themarket thesocialstructure Equally, starting point" his theory. Colemanis more sociologicalin his kind of "individual." thatgives rise to thatparticular thanhe admitshimself. underlying reasoning Colemanis well awarethat there are many social situationsthat are not competitive structures But for relations. he consistently markets, instanceauthority analyzesnon-market individuals" consistsof only market that into play "aset of independent actors, by bringing It In and contemporary. is a calculating bargaining. this respect,his sociology is strikingly of of the vision of people and social relationscharacteristic modem grandgeneralization neo-liberalism.12 Theoretical strategy of Colemanfollows the time-honored simpleto (apparstrategy movingfrom (apparently) of Indeedthis providesthe architecture the book as a whole, ently) complexphenomena.
8Coleman,Foundations,3, 32, 367, 493, 531. 9Neil J. Smelser,"Canindividualismyield a sociology?" Contemporary Sociology 19/6 (1990): 778-783. 10 197. Coleman, Foundations, " Coleman,Foundations, passim, e.g. 34-37; Olof Dahlbick, "Reviewof James S. Coleman,Foundationsof Aeta Sociologica 34 (1991): 139-140. Social Theory," 12 Coleman,Foundations,66 et seq. Springer

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as well as the shapeof manymoves withinit, e.g., "Socialrelationsbetweentwo persons This allows him to startwith are, of course, the buildingblocks of social organization." and construct less-simplederivation, thencompare a radicalabstraction simplification, and the product with some actualset of events.13 An illuminating case in point is his discussionof Palestinian resistanceto Israeliocof cupation.He examinesthese events as an illustration the relationbetween frustration and the outbreakof revolutions. This "case"is not forced on him by any logic of arguto ment. Colemanhas not been analyzing,for instance,Islam'srelationship the European him to look at these eventsand no others.The case is simply world,which wouldrequire Anothercase fromanother an exampleof a certainkind of relationship. periodof history, indeed any othercase from any periodof history,would serve equallywell. The theoretical strategythus leads to a consistentdisembedding actualeventsfrom theirhistorical of 14 contexts. In place of historicaltime, Coleman'sargument workswith an abstract time. Processes occurwitha beforeandafter, notwitha date.Alternatively areabstracted but fromtime they the indifference curvesof the formalized"linearsystemof action." put To e.g., altogether, it another in the positivisttheoretical is treatedas homogeneousand way, strategy, history non-cumulative. eventsdo not changethe logical structure laterevents;thereis Historical of no dialectichere.(Howevera disjunction assumedin Coleman'streatment modernity, is of discussedbelow.)15 Thesite Coleman'sactorsmovein an energetic and on dance,calculating, bargaining, exchanging, a dancefloor.It is not entirelyaccidental his visualmodelsof actionsystems featureless that resembleteachingdiagrams the fox-trotand the jazz waltz.The featurelessness the for of dancefloorfollows fromthe ahistorical method.In each derivation, samelimitedset of the elementsand possible relationsis set in motion.The theoretical logic will not work, any morethanone candancea fox-trot, the dance-floor lumpywithfootprints if is fromprevious dancesor with the bodiesof previousdancers. Touse another Coleman's own:ateachimportant in theargument Coleman metaphor, step has to imaginea space in which the building(he repeatedly invokes"building blocks")of the social systemcan go ahead.His theoryis an accountof a buildingoperation, account an thatpresupposes clearedspaceof the buildingsite. His bookhas no namefor this space, the in whichthe "setof independent individuals" providehis "theoretical that foundation" can be conceivedto exist. It is a significant silence.As I show later,we can findandnamethis text.16 space,butonly by steppingoutsideColeman's Raidinghistory Coleman's theoretical and is strategy, preciseaboutderivations formalization, muchvaguer aboutthe role of evidence.This was a key point for sociologicalpositivisma generation
13Coleman, Foundations,43. 14Coleman,Foundations,484-486. 15 Coleman, Foundations,30, 190, 213, etc.; indifferencecurves, chapter25. 16Coleman, Foundations,66. For an example of diagrams,see 889. Springer

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ago, and marksa certaindistancebetween Coleman'spositivismand strict sociological empiricism.Colemanis not very much concernedwith verificationor falsification.But he is consistentlyconcerned illustratehis argument. to Brief workedexamplespepperthe text.17 Theprinciple thetheoryis universally that relevant allowsColeman dipinto anyperiod to of historyfor these examples.As the book unfolds,examplesarepluckedfrommodernUS a US fire, demography,theatre transnational corporations, highschools,theSouthSeabubble, a studentdemonstration, medievalEuropean land tenure,the constitution the USSR, a of Eskimopolarbearhunts,and many more. In this respect,Foundations printingunion, of is Social Theory strikingly traditional. This is the way evidencewas deployedin Sumner's War and had Folkways otherbooksof the pre-World I era,thoughone mustadmitSumner a richerstoreof ethnographic detail.18 of is fromany place, any Again a strongassumption homogeneity at work.Illustrations Indeedimaginary for time,havethe samerelevance. exampleshavethe samestanding Colemanas realones. The text worksas if the theorydescribesnotjust the real social worldbut the only conceivable social world. But a few of the examplesfeel different. Mostof Coleman's cases aredrawn unproblemAt aticallyfromthe life of NorthAmericaandEuropein the twentieth century. one pointin the text,however, of Colemanspeaksof "primitive" societies,at another "primitive tribes," at another "natives" of (citing,for the firstand only time, FrantzFanon).Late in the book he gives, withan airof amusement, exampleof a Bedouinhusband the ridingwhile his wife carriesa burden foot - andan American on wife takesthe familycar.Earlyin the book,two such cases pop up together: "nomadic tribesof the Sahara" dividingrightsto a camel, and Eskimosdividingthe carcassof a bear.19 of It seems that,despitethe assumption homogeneity, of thereis a heartland Coleman's of This sociology,andalsoanexoticperiphery. is notjust a matter a few colorfulandamusing in here- a dichotomy goes back that examples.Thereis something significant the theorizing to the earliestdaysof sociology. Modernity Whatis Well into the text, at chapter Colemanopens a discussionof "modern 20, society." of condistinctiveaboutthe modern,Colemanproposes,is a predominance "purposively over ones. This is partof: structed" relationships "natural" is in naturalenvironment a long-termhistoricaldevelopment which the primordial, constructed one. The change occurs in both the physical replacedby a purposively environment the social environment.20 and actors" over of constructed Thismeansthepredominance "thenew,purposively corporate actorsbasedon them(family,clan, ethnicgroup,and ties andthe old corporate "primordial A overthe last few centuries. community)". societyof a new typehas been produced
17For the earlieremphasis on

for to to attention thisdifference. revised edition I Bedminster, 1963). amgrateful C.Calhoun calling (Towota: and GinnandCompany, [reprinted 1906 Mores, Morals 1934]). (Boston: 19 Foundations, 607,480,783, 59. 325, Coleman,
20Coleman,Foundations,552. A William GrahamSummer,Folkways: Studyof the Sociological Importanceof Usages, Manners,Customs, 18

in verification,see Hans L. Zetterberg,On Theoryand Verification Sociology,

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of Here Colemanis replayingthe argument an earlierbook, TheAsymmetric Society. This line of thoughtis centralto his politicalagendafor sociology,since he sees the loss of to ties" a "primordial as constituting deep social crisis.Colemannotes a similarity Weber's I and storyof rationalization. wouldgo further, say his theoryat this point dependson the very traditional figureof sociologicalthoughtthat constructsa global differencebetween the modernandthe primitive. This grandethnography, characteristic nineteenth-century of even in Coleman'sreply to critics of Foundations, evolutionary sociology, is reproduced wherehe evokes "a fundamental structural differencebetweenthe societies now emerging and all thosethathavegone before."21 because he has no theoryof accumulation. Colemandoes not speak of "capitalism," He generallylumps the state and corporations together,on one side of a divide that has "thefamily"on the other.This is actuallymore like Spencerthanlike Weber.Modernity actors(in more familiar is both the creationof the new purposively constructed corporate and the dissolutionof the old. This yields a fluid terminology, large-scaleorganizations) worldof "freestanding" a eitherto natural actors"without fixedrelation personsor corporate In to othercorporate actors." factthisis ourgoodfriend,market Coleman's theorizing society. thusarrives whatit presupposed the start.22 at at
The map of the world

The exotic examplesnow fall intoplace.The "primitive tribes" whose members huntbears, cut up camels,andmakethe wives walk,arebeyondthe edge of the modern. At a coupleof pointsin the text,this edge is almostin view. One is the discussionof the Palestinian revolt.ThePalestinians beingdrawn "prosperity" theIsraelieconomy, are into by yet turnagainstit, and startthrowingrocks and committingarson.However,Coleman's interestis not in how this conflictof cultures interests and arose;it is in how well the course of eventsmatchestheoriesof frustration revolution. and his of of a Although account the"constitution" a socialsystemis overwhelmingly consensus theory(drawing social contract on modelswith a whiff of Parsons), Colemanacknowlconstitutions" edgesthatsomesystemsarecoercive.He calls theverycoerciveones "disjoint whereone set of actorscreatesarrangements "imposeconstraints demands a difthat and on ferentsetof actors." mightsoundto youorme likethedefinition anempire, perhaps That of or the structural adjustment policiesimposedon LatinAmericaby US banksandthe IMF.But Coleman'sprincipalexampleis Stalinistpaperconstitutions that definedthe workersas beneficiaries otherclasses as targets!23 and Coleman'saccountignoresthe whole historical of experience empireandglobaldomination.He nevermentionscolonies. He treatsslaverybrieflyelsewhere,mainlyin termsof the intellectual problemthatslaverycreatesfor an exchangetheoryof society.(His memorablesolutionis thatit is rationalfor the slave to acceptenslavement the alternative if is death.)24

21James S. Coleman, The AsymmetricSociety (Syracuse:Syracuse UniversityPress, 1982); James S. Cole-

man, "The problematicsof social theory,"Theoryand Society 21/2 (1992): 263-283. For the idea of grand ethnography,see R.W. Connell, "Why is classical theory classical?"American Journal of Sociology 102/6 (1997): 1511-1557. 22Coleman, Foundations,579. 23Coleman,Foundations,327-328. 24Coleman,Foundations,327, 86-88. Springer

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of misses or misrepresents ambitions the theory,then,Foundations Despitethe universal social experience. vast tractsof humanhistory,and ignoresthe majorityof contemporary This is a striking which,as we shallsee, is not uniqueto Coleman. asymmetry, In summary from of that buildsa picture thepersonandsocialrelations is drawn Coleman's general theory thehypertrophy and socialexperience, recentEuropean especiallyNorthAmerican reflecting modelof socialprocesspresupposes clearedspaceandsuppresses a of themarket. central His historicaltime. His theoreticalstrategyfor the most parthomogenizeshistoryand social Thereis every indication of experience,thoughit allows a linearnarrative modernization. different fromthatof his own society, for to thatit is difficult Coleman "see"anyexperience Yet a exceptthrough residualidea of the primitive. the formof the theorymakesuniversal individual claimsaboutsocialsystemsandprocesses. Thus,market societyandthebargaining all becomethe standards whichwe understand social process. by of Agents of the gavotte:Giddens'sConstitution Society of In 1984Anthony The Giddens of published Constitution Society,withthesubtitle"Outline of His This theTheoryof Structuration." texttoo wastheculmination a longproject. approach of whichgavean account NewRulesof SociologicalMethod, canbe seendeveloping through on between whichexpanded therelation Problems Social Theory, in action,Central practical whichcriticized and actionandstructure, A Contemporary Materialism, of Critique Historical Marx'sview of worldhistoryandproposedan alternative.25 of The Constitution Societyoffers a summary fact, threesummaries) the matured (in of a detailedexpositionof some of its themes,andsome illustrations structuration framework, to couldbe applied. a bonus,Giddens As of howtheperspective appends mostof thechapters shortessays on othertheorists,in the style of his Profilesand Critiquesin Social Theory, wheretheirworkcorresponds andwhereit falls shortof, structuration to, theory. explaining All the theorists discussedaremen, andall areFirstWorld.26 Ambition was The task Giddensset himself in the series of books from New Rules to Constitution of of a reformulation social theoryas a whole, the reconciliation conflictingintellectual for and traditions, the creationof a consistentconceptualframework social researchand effortof synthesis,on a scale socialcritique. Thismagnificent projectinvolvedan enormous It hardlymatchedin modernsocial thoughtexcept by Habermas. is wider in scope than Giddens Bourdieu's deeperthanColeman's.In the Constitution, projectand intellectually accounts thedevelopment of frompsychoanalytic research criticizesandincorporates ranging of debateson the originsof the state,innovative of trustto Goffman's anatomies encounters,

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AnthonyGiddens,New Rules of Sociological Method(London:Hutchinson,1976); AnthonyGiddens,Central Problemsin Social Theory:Action, Structureand Contradictionin Social Analysis (London:Macmillan, 1979); Anthony Giddens,A Contemporary Critiqueof Historical Materialism. Vol.I: Power Property,and the State (London:Macmillan, 1981). 26AnthonyGiddens,Profilesand Critiquesin Social Theory(London:Macmillan, 1982). ' Springer

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workin geography, the empiricalsociologyof education,takingin Parsons,Blau, and and Foucault the way. along This tremendous rangeof referencemakessense becausethe objectof knowledgeis so broad.Giddenssays at the start: Thebasicdomain studyof thesocialsciences,according thetheory structuration, of to of is neither experience theindividual the of northeexistenceof anyformof societal actor, but ordered acrossspaceandtime.Human socialactivities, like totality, socialpractices some self-reproducing itemsin nature, recursive... To be a humanbeingis to be a are purposive agent,who bothhas reasonsfor his or her activitiesandis able,if asked,to elaborate discursively uponthosereasons.27 The field of theory,then,is unbounded. concernssocialpractices humanbeingsin It and The theoryof structuration embracesall social relations,all social structures, and general. all societies.So Giddenscan dip into the storyof neo-Confucian thenancientChina, China, the financialmoguls of the City of London,a car factory,a concentration camp.Because the theoryconcernsall possiblesocialrelations, like Coleman, no hesitation has in Giddens, as well.28 analyzing imaginary examples LikeColeman, he almostnoexamples fromthecolonizedworld.A striking however, draws is Giddens's discussion thedevelopment autonomy chapter Giddens of of in 2. makes example effectiveuse of ErikErikson's modelof humandevelopment. he makes But psychoanalytic no use of Erikson's famouscross-cultural and analysisin the verybook, Childhood Society, The handsis a universalized, account abstracted, beingquoted. resultin Giddens's completely of humandevelopment very muchat odds with the emphasison plurality diversityin and the modernsociologyof childhood.29 Thebusinessof theorizing Giddensframeshis task,in the "Introduction," termsof the historyof social theoryand in - forinstance,comingto termswiththe"linguistic turn." repeatedly He re-writes philosophy familiarsociologicalor psychologicalconceptsin the languageof structuration, much as Coleman in re-writes the languageof markets choice.30 and Giddensalso undertakes transcend to dichotomies existingtheory.Althoughhe does in this for variousminorissues, by far the most important the dichotomy(also transcended is this by Bourdieu)between objectivismand subjectivism. Transcending dichotomyleads to Giddens'sbasic principleof the "dualityof structure," whose child is structuration itof self, "thestructuring social relationsacrosstime and space, in virtueof the dualityof structure." fundamental The concept in Giddens'stheorythus arises, not from any confrontation with social problems,crises or transformations, from a refinedprofessional but

Anthony Giddens, The Constitutionof Society: Outlineof the Theoryof Structuration (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984), 35. 28Giddens, Constitution,165-168, 319-326, 128, 62; for imaginaryexamples 8-11, 81-82, etc. 29Erik H. Erikson, Childhoodand Society (London:Imago, 1950); for a good example of modernchildhood research,see MarjorieFaulstichOrellana,BarrieThorne,Anna Chee and WanShunEva Lam, 'Transnational childhoods: the participationof children in processes of family migration.'Social Problems 48/4 (2001): 572-591. 30Giddens, Constitution,xxii, 193ff. Springer

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of American intellectual practice- reflectionon the internalantinomies a European/North tradition.31 The unbounded objectof knowledgeandthe theorist's willingnessto re-writeotherpeofeatureof Giddens's ple's work in a more abstractlanguagegive rise to a characteristic on The text of Constitution alternates betweencriticalcommentary existing literwriting. Even a favorable atureand frequent burstsof definitionand concept-elaboration. reviewer such as Jonathan when Constitution came out, was moved to remarkon the first Turner, "definitional texture" the book.The glossaryat the end is needed.32 of This is the oppositeof Coleman'sstrategy takingthe smallestset of categoriesfor the of walk. Giddens'sworkreadsas if the vastnessof the field createsvacuums longestpossible and thattheorymustexpandto fill. The resultis often both enthusiastic banal- as we see in a modelof social changeso generalized it coverseveryepisodein the historyof the that world,yet says almostnothingaboutthem.33 Theknowledgeable agent WhereGiddensis in no degreebanal,wherehe has a strongline andargueseloquentlyfor it, is in the theoryof the agent. Giddens'sagent is not only active, as with Colemanand but Bourdieu, also knowledgeable: of The knowledgeof socialconventions, oneself andof otherhumanbeings,presumed and of in beingableto "goon"in thediversity contextsof sociallife is detailed dazzling. All competent of members society arevastlyskilledin the practical accomplishments of social activitiesand are expert"sociologists." knowledgethey possess is not The of to incidental thepersistent to patterning sociallife butis integral it... Humanagents consciousness... .34 alwaysknowwhatthey aredoingon the level of discursive Thereare momentswhen Giddenson practicalconsciousnesssoundsvery like Bouris Bourdieu dieu on practical emphazlogic, as will be seen, buthere the contrast marked. and ises misrecognition, Giddensemphasizesknowledgeability competence.Accordingly, in Giddens's writingthereis littleof the ironyone findsin Bourdieu's. Giddens'sidea of the knowledgeable agentis drawn,as the allusionsin this quotation not and suggest,fromthe laterWittgenstein fromethnomethodology, fromMarxisttheories of praxis(wherethe ideaof purposive skilfulactionwas bothmorecollectiveandmore and This genealogy has two consequences.Giddens's closely tied to social transformation). is and "agent" an individual is abstract.35 are I By "abstract"do not meanthatrealindividuals entirelyabsentfromGiddens'stext, in agency is understood termsof the universal thoughthey mostly are. More importantly, of Consider,for instance,Giddens'svery effective requirements the dualityof structure. to argument againstthe positivistsearchfor "laws"in social science:"according the view

46, 31Giddens,Constitution, xx, 26, 162, 376. 32Giddens,Constitution, 35, 176, 244; JonathanH. Turner, "ReviewEssay:The Theoryof Structuration," 31, AmericanJournalof Sociology 91/4 (1986): 969-977. 33Giddens, Constitution,244ff. 34Giddens, Constitution,26. 35Karel Kosik, Dialectics of the Concrete:A Studyon Problems of Man and the World(Dordrecht: Reidel, 1976); John W. Murphy,"Yugoslavian(praxis) marxism,"CurrentPerspectives in Social Theory3 (1982): 189-205; for the agent as individual,see Giddens, Constitution,163. Springer

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of not suggestedhere,it producesa formof reifieddiscourse trueto the real characteristics humanagents." The "realcharacteristics" the competenciesthat allow actorsto constituteand reare To social systemsthrough theirroutineactivitiesandinteractions. Giddens,these constitute the for, capacitiesappear samein all timesandplaces,becausewhatthe agentis required in modelof the agent"is therefore "stratification the theory,is alwaysthe same.The recursive in as described termsas universalized the modelof the dualityof structure.36 and Yet whereColeman'sandBourdieu's alwayswith a agentsaretacticians bargainers, and Giddens does aremuchmoresubdued orderly. outfor a deal,Giddens's agents sharp eye in fact, have a market modelof the person.His accountsof agencyemphasize routine, not, of the trust,andcoordination, interlocking activitiesbetweendifferent agents.If Coleman's seem to be tacticiansseem to be weavingacrossthe floorin a fox-trot,Giddens'sdiagrams full dancers.37 of a statelygavotte,executedby a ballroom of well-trained maps the Explaining social does not start The agentmay be an individual, Giddensis emphaticthathis theorizing but with the individual,that to him, society is equallyreal. This is certainlytrue:Giddens's conceptof agencydoes dependon a notionof the social order.But so does his conceptof of of the social dependon the notionof agency.In fact,the principle the "duality structure" fromthe other,as in Coleman's locks the two levels togetherlogically.Oneis not emergent or and of conceptions the subject.38 theorizing, (fromtheotherend)in Althusser's Foucault's with theorizes socialin two divergent the Giddens ways.Inthefirstmode,he is concerned socialexistencecanoccurandpersist.As Urryputit, how societyis possible,how organized withconstituting ontologyof the social." muchof Constitution "principally is concerned an relate to these questions,and their extremeabstraction Conceptssuch as "structuration" resultsfromGiddens that tryingto give answers will be validforanyknown,or anypossible, formof humansocial existence.Hence, such enormous between categoriesas "reciprocity actorsin contextsof co-presence" (Englishtranslation: "peopledoingthingstogetherfaceto-face").39 Concernwith the classic conservative problemof how societyis possibleleads Giddens to re-definesome social-scientificconceptsdrastically. "Structure" itself is one of these both the notion of discoverable concepts.Rejecting empiricalpattern(as in Lazarsfeld's latent structure and reversiblesystem of transformations in Ldvi-Strauss's (as analysis), at structural Giddensarrives this definition: anthropology), Structure refers,in socialanalysis,to thestructuring thus allowingthe"bindproperties of time-spacein social systems,the properties which make it possible for dising" cerniblysimilarsocial practicesto exist acrossvaryingspansof time and space and whichlend them"systemic" form.40

36Giddens, Constitution,179, 5, 29. 37Giddens, Constitution,29. 38Giddens, Constitution,163. 39JohnUrry,"Bookreview:The Constitution Society,"Sociological Review34/2 (1986): 434-437; Giddens, of

28. Constitution,

40Giddens,Constitution,17. Springer

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As A hard-edged conceptis thus dissolved into - to coin a term- "structurishness." is it Giddensdevelopsthe argument, becomes clear that "structure" whateverthe theorist in of needsto postulate, orderto accountfor the persistence anykindof social order. Theconcern with"howto go on,"notonly atthelevel of theindividual playinga language of to anequallyabstracted treatment power. gamebutalsoatthelevelof society,leadsGiddens in is re-defined Parsonsian "Power" disconnected frominequalityand oppression, style as of "themeansof gettingthingsdone,"andmadea property all action: ... ... actionlogicallyinvolvespowerin the sense of transformative capacity. Poweris of not intrinsically connectedto the achievement sectionalinterests.... In this concepnot tion the use of powercharacterizes specifictypes of conductbut all action.... We as builtinto social institutions in shouldnot conceiveof the structures domination of some way grinding "docilebodies"....41 out is has A few pagesdownthetrack, blandness becomeanexplicitconservatism: this "power and notaninherently noxiousphenomenon," we canneverhavea societywithout domination, withGiddens's at whatever socialistssay.Thereis a significant the contrast, leastin emphasis, of Critique 1981, and The writingin otherbooks of the period,such as the Contemporary in Nation-State Violence, and which appeared 1985. In the firstof these, Giddensproposes In a strongconceptof exploitation. the second,whereGiddensis concretelystudyingthe statesystem,he has a strongemphasison coercion,militaryforce, of the European history eachother,butit does seem that bookscontradict andwar.Onecouldnot say thatGiddens's of in Constitution leads to a marked the task of creatinguniversal de-politicization theory relatedto power.42 concepts Thegaze on history Yet Giddensis also awareof the glorious diversityof humansocial experience.He has in in readwidely andis interested history.So he has a secondmodeof theorizing, whichhe and of elaborates typesof time,typesof regionalization, categories socialsituations processes: and types of society,types of resources, so forth.43 typesof context,typesof constraint, but Thesecategories areabstract, in a different fromthe"structuration" too categories. way thanwhatis commonand differ,rather Theyaremeantto catchthe ways in whichsituations whole to necessary all socialprocesses.Nigel Thrifthas suggestedthatthe nubof Giddens's that is that"socialtheorymustbecomemorecontextual."Thesearethe categories argument allowhim to mapthe diversityof social action'scontexts.44 for WithGiddens'senthusiasm definitionand his fertilityin elaborating concepts,they which one can gaze on humanhistoryfrom a great add up to a tremendous grid, through on height,seeing whereeach episodefits in an intelligiblescheme.This view-from-above of morereminiscent to the whole storyof humancivilizationgives a grandeur Constitution in andComtethanof Giddens'scontemporaries the social theorytrade. Spencer

41Giddens, Constitution,15-16, 283. 42Giddens,Constitution,32, 256ff., 283; AnthonyGiddens, TheNation-Stateand Violence:VolumeTwoofA Polity Press, 1985). Contemporary Critiqueof Historical Materialism(Cambridge: 43Giddens, Constitution,35, 121, 132, 176, 181-182, 258. 44Nigel Thrift,"Bearandmouse orbearandtree?AnthonyGiddens'sreconstitution social theory," of Sociology 19/4 (1985): 609-623. Springer

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The most important of this griddefinestypesof society.Giddensis no functionalist, part andso he does not fall into the trapof assumingsocietiesareneatlyboundedsystems.He is of or also no evolutionist, Marxist, Hegelian,so does not assumeanyunfolding a grand logic that in history. he comesupwitha hierarchy has a littleflavorof both- andis, in its way, But and as and as traditional Bourdieu's Coleman'sschemesof modernity pre-modernity.45 is schemedistinguishing: Giddens'sgrandethnography a three-fold (1) Tribalsociety with cities butwithoutfactories) (2) Class-divided society (roughly, (3) Class society,or capitalism This is obviouslyintendedas a historicalorder,the laterlisted arisingafterthe former, scheme." different The typesof societyare thoughGiddensinsistsit is not an "evolutionary "contradictions" andaremarked different "structural by by principles" distinguished different of The character Giddens's and re-writes de-politicizes). traditional Giddens (another concept Tribal societiesarecloserto nature; to is especiallyclearin relation his firstcategory. thinking to i.e., they by theyare"cold," not adapted change;theyaredominated kinshipandtradition; aresegmented; etc.46 How are these types of society relatedto each other?To Giddens,the most important point is that they are logically distinct.If a society is one, it is not the other.However, once the laterformscome intobeing,different typesof societycan co-exist,in contactwith Giddensinventsthe term"time-space each otherwithinan inter-societal edge"to system. or to another, as we mightsay in ordinary definewhereone structuring principlegives way The relationship across a timelanguage,where one type of society encountersanother. be one of domination of symbiosis,the conceptitself is neutral.Thus, or space edge may withoututteringthe to Giddensarrivesat a way of referring somethinglike imperialism word.47 Missingthe empire the that does The relationship Constitution not theorizeis colonization, structuring principle it does not explicitly name is imperialism,and the type of society that never enters its is once in the index- as a referenceto classifications the colony. ("Colonization" appears on Goffman's research asylums.) in of written theheartland thegreatest Fora world-spanning of generalsocialtheory, book imperialpower the world ever saw, this is interesting.There seems to be somethingin Giddens'sprojectand frameof referencethat makesit difficultto addressthis aspect of was and globalhistory.The strugglefor de-colonization certainlyone of the most dramatic lifetime.All thatthetheoryof structuration important changes,on a worldscale,in Giddens's can findto say aboutit is: "What a 'liberation is movement'fromone perspective mightbe a 'terrorist fromanother."48 organization' That is it. That quotationis all there is to say about anti-colonialmovements,deis colonization,neo-colonialism,and post-independence struggles,as far as Constitution concerned.
45Giddens, 163ff,236,etc. Constitution, 46Giddens, Constitution, 193ff. 182,
47Giddens, Constitution,184, 244, 164. 48Giddens, Constitution,337. Springer

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In Giddens's otherbooksthereis a littlemoreattention theissue. TheNation-State to and Violence offersa critique world-systems of sailorsoutgunned theory, suggestswhy European and in of others,andincludes"colonized" "post-colonial" a classification typesof state.But the limitsof Giddens's areindicated the factthatcolonizingstatesarenotnamed thinking by in the sameclassification. metropole The vanishesfromview (subsumed underthe category of "classical" Nowherein Giddens'swritingof the 1970s and 1980s did the social states). relationsof empirecome into focus as a majorissue. And when,in the late 1990s,he came to write a book aboutglobalization, it us RunawayWorld, was to persuade thatwe are all and de-traditionalized, that old-style imperial and democratic, becominginter-dependent, domination no more.49 is Theproblem notjust the absenceof factualdetailaboutthemajority is worldin a bookof Themodelof typesof society,i.e., thepartof thetheorywhereGiddens the is general theory. mosttraditional leadsto a doctrine systematically that thesignificance sociologist, downplays of imperialism the experience conquered colonizedsocieties.In a crucialpassage and of and of Constitution, Giddens the explainsthatmodemcapitalism, thirdtypeof society,is notlike the others,anddid not evolveout of them.Rather, resulted it from"massive discontinuities" thatwere: introduced theintertwining politicalandindustrial of revolutions fromtheeighteenth by onwards. The distinctivestructural of the class societiesof modem century principle of capitalismis to be foundin the disembedding, interconnecting, state and ecoyet The tremendous nomic institutions. economicpowergenerated the harnessing of by allocativeresourcesto a generictendencytowardstechnicalimprovement matched is in "reach" the state......50 of expansion the administrative by an enormous Thatis to say, Giddenssees modernity an endogenous as changewithinEurope(or "the a that West"),producing pattern is afterwards exportedto the rest of the world.This is, of in course,the standard sociologicalview of the originsof modernity, encapsulated ideas of the "industrial revolution" the "democratic and revolution." crucialshiftsoccuraround The the late eighteenthcentury.This pictureis partlyderivedfrom Comte,partlyfrom Marx, and andhas beenre-worked Foucault othersin a darker, structurally but similar,view of by andEnlightenment. modernity The actualdatingis important, we can see in the best-known as account.In alternative Immanuel the Wallerstein's model of the capitalistworld-economy, crucialshift is in the sixteenthcentury.To Wallerstein, capitalisminvolvedfrom the starta colonial economy: withinEurope,in relationto Polandand Scandinavia; overseas,with the conquestsof the and followedby theDutch,theBritish,andtheFrench; overland, and Spanish thePortuguese, with conquestsby the Russiansand the NorthAmericanEuropean settlers.All of these some were long over,andthe beforethe late eighteenth century, conquestswere underway account,conquest powershadalready foughtwarsoverthe spoils.In Wallerstein's imperial of and colony/metropole relationsare not a by-product what Giddensblandly calls "the of of Rather societies." ascendancy Western capitalist theyareconstitutive modem increasing as a system.51 capitalism
49 Anthony Giddens, The Nation-Stateand Violence: VolumeTwoof a Contemporary Critiqueof Historical Materialism(Cambridge: (London:ProfileBooks, Polity Press, 1985), 269; AnthonyGiddens,RunawayWorld second edition 2002). 50Giddens,Constitution,183.

51ImmanuelWallerstein,The Capitalist World-Economy (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1979); Giddens, Constitution,185. ' Springer

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This is a veryloadeddifference. view impliesthat"theWest"is dominant, not Giddens's The becauseit conquered rest of the world,but becauseof its "temporal the precedence." and first: Westindustrialized modernized of Rather thanseeingthemodemworldas a further accentuation conditions existed that in class-dividedsocieties [i.e., type 2, urban/agricultural pre-industrial but societies], it is muchmoreilluminating see it as placinga caesurauponthe traditional to world, which it seems irretrievably corrodeanddestroy.The modemworldis bornout of to with whatwent beforerather thancontinuitywith it. It is the natureof discontinuity this discontinuity the specificityof the worldusheredin by the adventof industrial capitalism,originallylocatedand foundedin the West - which it is the businessof sociologyto explainas best it can.52 with guns came andshattered Othersocial ordersarepassingaway,not becauseEuropeans butbecausemodernity irresistible. thispoint,Giddens is On remained them, entirelyconsisbecausethis was to be the core of his modelof globalization, too. tent, In summary of Giddensundertakes sweepingreformulation social theory,operating a entirelywithina The Americanintellectualtradition tryingto resolve its antinomies. and European/North theoretical categories objectof knowledgeis anunbounded conceptof the social,thecentral are statedin universal terms.A non-market highly abstracted but modelof the knowledgein able agentis developed. Conceptssuchas powerandchangeareformulated an abstracted a and de-politicized way. The conceptual gridfor viewing husystemconstructs universal is man history,as a systemof differencesamongsocial forms.A grandethnography confrom otherforms of society, the productof structed,seeing modernityas discontinuous endogenouschangewithin"theWest".The whole issue of colonialismand empireis thus occluded.

Southerntacticians:Bourdieu'sLogic of Practice Its PierreBourdieu's Logicof Practicewas also the child of a long gestation. firstform The as an Outlineof a Theoryof Practice (Esquisse,which can also mean a sketchor draft) in in was published Frenchin 1972;a revisionwas madefor the Englishtranslation 1977;a further hit revision,meantto be definitive, printin 1980 as Le senspratique,andwas in turn translated Englishin 1990.Butall thiswasonlythelaterstageof anenterprise began into that in Algeriain the 1950s, as a studyof Berber-speaking in farmingcommunities Kabylia.A in largepartof the Logic (andthe Outline)describesthe daily lives of these communities, denseethnographic interspersed methodological comments.53 text with At the empiricallevel therecouldhardlybe a greater contrast with Coleman'sand Giddens'stexts.Herethefocus is overwhelmingly the globalSouth.Norwas this an arbitrary on choice of subject-matter. Bourdieu's Algerianexperiencewas, on his own account,forma52Giddens, Constitution, 131. 239,
53PierreBourdieu, Outline of a Theoryof Practice (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1977); Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990); Pierre Bourdieu, "Retour sur l'expdrience algdrienne,"in Franck Poupeau and Thierry Discepolo, Pierre Bourdieu, Interventions, 1961-2001: Science sociale et action politique (Marseille:Agone, 2002): 37-42. Springer

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fromphilosopher social scientistand in shapinghis distinctive tive in his "conversion" to As to Yacineshows approach socialscience,especiallyhis concernwithreflexivity. Tassadit in some detail,the young Bourdieubecame a field researcher close collaboration in with students colleaguessuchas Abdelmalak and Algerian Sayad.54 This did not make Bourdieuan anthropologist the conventional in sense. As early as a 1958 Bourdieu as Sayadremarks, "v6ritable entrepreneur scientifique" hadpublished de l'Algerie.Fourteen whentheEsquissecameout,Bourdieu also had Sociologie yearslater, influential workin the sociology of educationand the sociology of culture.By published the time Le sens pratiquecame out he hadalso published Distinction,on class hierarchies. the time the Logic appeared English,Bourdieuheld the most prestigiousacademic in By chairof sociologyin France. in Bourdieu certainly was grounded anthropological theory- a discussionof L6vi-Strauss a point of departure the Logic - but constantly is for respectful the subverted distinctionby which anthropology studiedthe primitiveand sociology the advanced.55 Ambition TheLogicof Practiceis anattempt developa credible to basisforsocial-scientific knowledge, in the form of an analyticstrategyand conceptuallanguage,and to show this approach at work. What is at stake is more than academic.Bourdieuthinkshis projecthas cultural, As rhetoric the endof the at political,andphilosophical importance. he saysin characteristic Preface: at of in By forcingoneto discover externality theheart internality, banality theillusionof the of rarity, commonin thepursuit the unique,sociologydoes morethandenounceall of the impostures egoisticnarcissism; offersperhaps only meansof contributing, it the if only through of otherwiseabandoned awareness determinations, the construction, to to the forcesof the world,of something a subject.56 like To get to the place where"something a subject" like will come into view, Bourdieuhas to deal with existingaccountsof the social andsubjectivity. openingchapters His therefore both"objectivism," represented structural as and linguistics,L6vi-Strauss, struccritique by turalist and as and Marxism; (moresummarily angrily)"subjectivism," represented Sartre by andrational choice theory. Bothcritiques of raisethequestion thetheorists' ownplacein thetheory. Thispointabout the structuralists sustained is the book, andis a clue to Bourdieu's intention.He is through to definelimits of social science as well as stateits foundations, also to suggest and trying a view of intellectuals. the one hand,he rejectsstructuralism becauseit takesa god-like On view of social reality.The theoristsare not presentin the worldbeing theorized,therefore cannotlearnfromanalyzing In theirown socialpractice. consequence, theyimposea formal on a worldto which formallogic does not really apply.On the otherhand,Bourdieu logic
TassaditYacine, "L'Alg6rie,matrice d'une oeuvre,"in Pierre Encrev6 and Rose-Marie Lagrave,editors, Travailleravec Bourdieu(Paris:Flammarion,2003): 333-345; TassaditYacine, "PierreBourdieu,amusnaw in Kabyle ou intellectuelorganiquede l'humanit6," G6rardMauger,editor,Rencontresavec Pierre Bourdieu Sayad in (Bellecombe-en-Bauges:Editions de Croquant,2005): 565-574; AbdelmalekSayad, "Abdelmalek in Interview"(1996), reprinted Derek Robbins,editor,Pierre Bourdieu(London:Sage, 2000): 59-77. 55Bourdieu,Logic, 21.
54

56Bourdieu,Logic, 16, 75, 41. Springer

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on becauseit refusesto recognizethe constraints social action,thinking rejectssubjectivism thatpracticecan be understood purelyfromdecisionsof the will. Thedomain sometimesdropsin a remark "allsocieties"do thisor that,he is not that AlthoughBourdieu afteruniversal in generalizations Coleman'sstyle. Indeed,he is sharplycriticalof theorists who thinkthey have discovered transhistorical - this is not his idea of generaltheory. laws Nor is he constructing grandclassificatory a system as Giddensdoes. His projectis more and than epistemological methodological theirs. Nevertheless Bourdieudoes sweep acrosstopic, time andplace in fine style. While his mainexamples comefromKabylia, alsooffersanextended he casestudyof a villagein southwesternFrance,andfromtimeto time offersexamplesfromFrench class politics,or French or even further afield.Forinstance,in arguingthatpracticescan be coordinated dynamics, withoutbeing governed designor law,he remarks: by The coherence withoutapparent intention theunitywithoutanimmediately and visible (is this not what makes the 'eternalcharmof Greek art' that Marx unifying logic refersto?)arethe product the age-oldapplication the sameschemesof actionand of of as can which,neverhavingbeenconstituted explicitprinciples, onlyproduce perception an unwillednecessity...57 Universalsocial laws mightbe fetishes,butBourdieucertainly workson an assumption of the methodological of tool-kit homogeneity the whole of humanhistory.His theoretical is intendedto workanywhere everywhere. and WhatBourdieu universalizes not a set of is but in propositions, a schemeof analysis,expressed a core set of conceptsandexamplesof how to use them.RogersBrubaker this nicely captures by suggestingthatwhat Bourdieu offersis not a fixedpropositional schemebuta theoretical a manner of habitus, well-defined doingtheorizing.58 Thepracticallogicianand his world Bourdieulays out the tool-kittwice in Logic:brieflyin the preface,and more extensively in Chapters3, 7, and 8. These are the now familiarconcepts of practiceand structure, socialreproduction, The habitus,field, symboliccapital,anddomination. concepts strategy, of symbolicviolenceandthe cultural central Bourdieu's to arbitrary, sociologyof education, arenot muchin evidencein theLogic,buttherestof his contribution modern to sociological theoryis in view.59 My purposehere is not to criticizethese concepts;I did this some time ago, andmany othershave done so since.60 as Rather, with Coleman'sand Giddens'sconcepts,I want to
57Bourdieu,Logic, 13; for the village example, 147-161. 58Rogers Brubaker,"Social theory as habitus,"in Craig Calhoun, EdwardLiPuma, and Moishe Postone, editors,Bourdieu:CriticalPerspectives(Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1993): 212-234. 59Bourdieu,Logic, 16; PierreBourdieuand Jean-Claude In Passeron,Reproduction: Education,Society and Culture(London:Sage, 1977). 60Craig Calhoun,EdwardLiPuma, and Moishe Postone, editors, Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives(Chicago: Universityof ChicagoPress, 1993); R.W.Connell, "Theblackbox of habiton the wings of theory:Reflections on the theory of social reproduction," WhichWayis Up? Essays on Sex, Class and Culture(Sydney: Allen in andUnwin, 1983); DerekRobbins,editor,Pierre Bourdieu(London:Sage, 2000); David L. SwartzandVeraL. Springer

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ask whatview of the worldand its inhabitants at workin them.At one level, thereis a is with Coleman's with Giddens's. The "agent" in and striking similarity theorizing a contrast Bourdieu's uses practical world,thepersonwho engagesin practice, logic, andis the bearer of the habitus,is very much a tactician,maneuvering advantage a world where he for in confronts othertacticians, who arealso maneuvering. of "Evenwhentheygive everyappearance disinterestedness," Bourdieu remarks towards theendof his exposition, neverceaseto complywithaneconomiclogic."Strategies "practices of are alwaysseeking"profit" one kind or another. Bourdieu's peasantis a more sophistiin cated bargainer than Coleman'srationalchooser,maneuvering simultaneously several dimensionsof social reality,andletting some strategies unfoldover long periodsbeforea returnis reaped.But the vision of the agent as bargainer, the social world as a terand rain of deals, is equallystrong.Bourdieuenergetically extendsthe marketvision into apfields of social life, and goes even further than Colemanby dealing parentlynon-market denied by the people with cases in which the marketlogic is systematically extensively themselves.61 ThisgivesBourdieu's ironicflavor. is constantly He sociologya strongly debunking pretenas the that be sions,andrevealing advantages soughtby maneuvers cannot acknowledged maneuvers whicharetherefore a This systematically mis-recognized. remained centraltheme in Bourdieu's afterthe Logicas well as before. writingaboutcultureandsocialhierarchies in Herethe Bourdieu's worldthanColeman's. However, agentgoes bargaining a lumpier debt to L6vi-Strauss Marxismis clear.Thereis no clearedspace;the social worldis and that alreadyshapedby structures, especiallythoseof class andkinship.It is these structures the of relieson a blackgive riseto thehabitus, internalized principles action.(HereBourdieu of box treatment socialization.) of Thesestructures re-generated are the through deal-making the agents,who maneuver alwayswithinlimits set by the habitus.Thus,Bourdieu's theory a Another of practicebecomes,systematically, theoryof social reproduction. layerof irony is piled on. Dance of the happyshades at A society or social formation, set then,is at one level a self-regenerating of structures, and another level a set of agentsengagedin an endless dance of strategizing, bargaining, the this Through dance,whoserulesareset by the structures, structures reproduce exchange. the themselves.("Thestrategies by produced the habitus... alwaystendingto reproduce that objectivestructures producedthem...") On this theme, Bourdieu'stheorizingmost resemblesGiddens's.62 on Thedanceunfoldsin time.Bourdieu insistsstrongly thispoint.He hasa wholechapter on it, pointingout, for instance,thattime is of the essence in gift exchange.It is his most effectivecriticismof structuralism, makespossiblethe realismof his vivid discussions and of practical and strategies tactics.63 as Bourdieu's "time" nevertheless, is, quiteas date-free, thetimeinvoked quiteas abstract, as in Coleman'sderivations. is strikingthata theoristas sophisticated Bourdieu,and as It

Zolberg,editors,AfterBourdieu:Influence,Critique,Elaboration(Dordrecht:Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004). 61Bourdieu,Logic, 122, 109. 62Bourdieu,Logic, 61. 63 Bourdieu,Logic, 105-106. Springer

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uses the "ethnographic awareof colonialism,nevertheless present" withoutthe constantly treatise. This anomaly or conceptual slightesthesitation discussion- in this,his fundamental abouthis theoretical tells us something project. important The ironic effects of it Time in Bourdieu'stheorizingis not only abstract, is circular. Bourdieu well aware is bendseventsbackinto theirformerpatterns. the habitusconstantly to that in real life things do change, and the good old habitusbecomes partlyirrelevant But new circumstances. structural explains.It is a familiar changeis not whathis theorizing tool-kitdoes not containdevices for criticismof Bourdieu'ssociology thatthe conceptual To way, agentsand practicesare able to be analyzingsocial transformation. put it another to modelinsofaras theiractivitiescorrespond the modelof social theorizedby Bourdieu's reproduction. The danceof practice,then, is a danse macabre,in which the ghostlyemissariesof the structures revels,and at the end of each cycle of practicesink performtheirsemi-scripted Time is of the essence, in the steps backinto theirgraves,i.e. theirplaces in the structures. of the dance.But at the level of the whole, historyis frozen. Where womenare the To make the roughsocial psychologyof the habituswork as a mechanismof reproducColemanblandly of has tion, Bourdieu to makea strongassumption cultural homogeneity. of in individuals the "constitution" social sysconsensusby freely-choosing presupposes than Bourdieu tougher-minded that,he can see domination is tems. clearlyenough.But his a unified,interlocking social order. also persistently presupposes theorizing This may sound strangein the sociologist who made differencesin culturalcapitalso the Yet to central thesociologyof education. in theLogic,Bourdieu constantly presents social of Archer shownthata similar has andMargaret as order culturally assumption homogeneous, in the The moststriking educational Bourdieu's example sociology. homogeneity underpins as modelof "TheKabyleHouse," presented simplereality.Bourdieu Logicis the ideal-type but well the laughsthisoff as "perhaps lastworkI wroteas a blissfulstructuralist," he thought device occursthroughout it book,andthe samerhetorical enoughof it to reprint in another the Logic.In theLogicthereseemto be no debatesamongthe Kabyle,no religioustensions, and no radicalmovements, no prophecy.4 This featureof Bourdieu'stheorizingis very markedin relationto gender,an issue to betweenthe in whichhe gives a lot of attention the Logic.He drawsan absolutedichotomy man'sworldand the woman'sworld,makingclear interalia thathis energeticbargaining and as is "agent" a man.Thegendersystemis mapped a simpledichotomy a simplehierarchy. is In a vivid passage,whereBourdieu explaininghow the habitusis builtinto the body,he woman describesthe stancesof the manlyman(upright, alert,etc.) andthe well-brought-up downcast, (stooped,eyes etc.).65 so Thisschematic archaic and modelof patriarchy, muchatoddswithcontemporary gender it wasnotconfinedthere. out but was research, worked for Kabylia, Bourdieu clearlythought the In MasculineDomination, of his last books, he presented same idea as a modelof one

64MargaretArcher,"Process without system,"ArchivesEuropgennesde Sociologie 24/4 (1983): 196-221;

Bourdieu,Logic, 9; PierreBourdieu,Algeria 1960: Essays (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress, 1979). 65Bourdieu,Logic, 217, 70-72. Springer

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universal Becauseof Bourdieu's fameas a theorist badlyoutdated this formulation patriarchy. is now havinga considerable influencein some areasof genderstudies.66 Grandethnography Inmostof thetext,Bourdieu treats worldof theKabyle,theworldof metropolitan the France, His flow andothermilieux,as methodologically continuous. arguments withoutinterruption fromone case to the other. This does not meanthathe thinksall societies are of the same type. His experiencein viewin socialscience.Inseveral with that,inagreement theestablished Algeriaargued against of the Logic, Bourdieudiscussesthe "pre-capitalist In passages economy." the chapteron Bourdieu in "modesof domination" dichotomizes a verytraditional sociological especially, manner.67 This consistsof presenting of and as opposingpictures the modern the pre-modern types of society.In Bourdieu's the material andthe symboliceconomyare economy pre-modern, worldreduced to mixed.In the modern,after"thedisenchanting the natural of inextricably its economicdimensionalone,"they are separated into distinctfields. In the pre-modem, social advantage must be continuously re-created personalattentionand effort. In the by this For by modern, is accomplished institutionalization. instance,modemsocietyallowsthe free circulation cultural of a capitalthrough systemof credentialling.68 Whatis crucialhereis the formof argument. Bourdieu does not concernhimself in The social betweenmodernand pre-modern Logic of Practice with the practical relationship formations (thoughhis own researchin Algeriaand Bearnhad given him dataon this isa like sue). Rather, Colemanand Giddens,Bourdieuas a generaltheoristconstructs grand a definedvia a sweepingcontrastwith the pre-modern. ethnography, conceptof modernity in In Bourdieu's is detail,becausehe actually case, the pre-modern described muchgreater livedandstudiedthere.Yetthe underlying frameof thoughtis similar. Lightin the house some phoIn his prefaceto the Logic, Bourdieu tells a memorable story.He was admiring The of tographs storage jars he had takenduringhis old fieldwork. reasonthe photographs wereso good was thattheroofof thehousewherehe foundthemhadbeenmissing.Theroof was missingbecauseit hadbeen destroyedwhen the Frencharmyexpelledthe occupants. in Thepassagethatincludesthisstoryis, I think,theonlymention theLogicthata war,indeed and was anexceptionally bitter war,of colonialrepression liberation ragingin Algeriaduring the time Bourdieu doinghis research.69 was war This is reallyremarkable. Howcouldsuchan eventas the Franco-Algerian not seem do? relevantto the analysisof practice,when fine detailsof parallel-cousin marriage It is not becauseBourdieu not knowthe story.He hadbeen sent to Algeriato do his military did left and service,stayedto research teachin a hostileenvironment, eventually Algeriaunder

66Bourdieu,Logic, 77-79; Pierre Bourdieu, Masculine Domination (Stanford:Stanford University Press, 2001). 67 Bourdieu,Logic, 113, 123, 126; R.W. Connell, "Why is classical theory classical?"AmericanJournal of Sociology 102/6 (1997): 1511-1557. 68Bourdieu,Logic, 117, 129-131, 132. 69Bourdieu,Logic, 3. Springer

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He the threatof violence fromcolonialistdie-hards. workedwith Algeriancolleagues,did some researchunderthe eyes of the militaryin "relocation camps"designedto frustrate and weapons.In texts of the amongpeasantscarrying guerillawarfare, did otherfieldwork effectsof colonialismand aboutthedisintegrating late 1950sandearly 1960she hadwritten But an thecolonialwar,andin theLogiche proposed ethicof human solidarity. still Bourdieu for of did not see the anti-colonial struggleas essentialmaterial his own statement general
theory.70

to Theremay be some biographical background this. The most famoustheoristof this Bourdieu'stime in Algeriabut like strugglewas FrantzFanon,who not only overlapped Bourdieumade researchtripsto Kabylia,before leaving the countryto work openly for the AlgerianFLN (NationalLiberation Front).Fanon'sL'an V de la revolution algerienne in 1959, The Wretched the Earth(with a famousprefaceby Sartre)in 1961, of appeared while Bourdieuwas still deeply engagedwith Algerianissues. These books deal directly the wroteabout,yet theyarenever that withthe practice was transforming societyBourdieu in mentionedin The Logic of Practice. No otherparticipants the Algerianstrugglehave of their ideas consideredin the Logic, either.Bourdieuhad long been contemptuous the Fanonand that on schematictheoriesof revolution circulated the Frenchleft. He regarded the of Sartre specificallyas purveyors myth;he supported colonizedbutwishedto distance his of himselffromthe doctrine the FLN.He seemsto haveconsidered own earlysociology as a cold dose of facts neededto educatepeopleon bothsides of the Algerianstruggle.71 of but at Nevertheless, thedeepestlevel,it is notBourdieu's politicalhistory hisconception like irrelevant. arrive "something a subject," To at thatmakestheanti-colonial theory struggle In the European framingis self-sufficient. the centerof this debate,as Bourdieu conceptual therewere no voices fromAfricaor knew it fromhis earlystudiesin philosophy onwards, a tool-kitgavehimno reason of own Asia. Bourdieu's project creating universally applicable the to searchout colonialvoices, becauseit madeirrelevant specifichistoryof the societies whichthe tools areillustrated muchas Coleman'sandGiddens's examplescould through come fromanywhere. a as Nordoes his tool-kitrequire to address liberation him struggle a socialprocess.Since tendtowards theoryof social a solutionsto structure/agency Bourdieu's constantly problems As the reproduction, questionof the dynamicsof changeis marginalized. we see in many otherwritings,Bourdieuis scathingaboutprivilegeand social domination; projectsof yet meethis sociologicalirony.72 social transformation frequently Bourdieu doubtlessdid not intend,but The result,in the Logic, is a text with a structure world.Knowledgeabouta aboutthe majority thatis all too familiarin European writings and fromthemetropole deployedin a metropolitan colonizedsocietyis acquired anauthor by of the debate.Debatesamongthe colonizedareignored, intellectuals colonizedsocietiesare The and unreferenced, socialprocessis analyzedin an ethnographic time-warp. possibilities of existedin Bourdieu's structure knowledgethatundoubtedly for a different earlyresearch areneverrealizedin the latertheorizing.
70Pierre Bourdieu, Algeria 1960 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1979); Bourdieu, Logic, 15, 112-113, 27-28. 71David Macey, Frantz Fanon, a Life (London: Granta,2000); Pierre Bourdieu, "Retoursur l'experience algerienne,"in FranckPoupeauand ThierryDiscepolo, Pierre Bourdieu,Interventions,1961-2001: Science sociale et action politique (Marseille:Agone, 2002): 37-42 72For his scathing view of educationalhierarchiesover three decades see PierreBourdieuand Jean-Claude Passeron,Les Hdritiers:Les dtudiantset la culture (Paris:Editions de Minuit, 1964); PierreBourdieu, The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996).
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In summary Bourdieu buildsa picture theagentandsocialpractice is extensively of that illustrated froma colonizedsocietybutresponds debates.He treats intellectually only to European conceptual different societiesandperiodsas methodologically He homogeneous. developsanaccountof theagentas a bargainer strategist, all dimensions sociallife. Buthe sees thepractices and in of involvedas constrained ways thatreproduce in social structures themselvesunderstood in termsof schematathatconstructdichotomiesbut not dynamics.Practiceunfoldsin time, but time is circular. The exceptionto this is a very broaddistinctionbetweenthe modern andthepre-modern. Bourdieu drawsthis as a conceptual betweentypesof social opposition in of formation,not as a concreterelationship, disregard his own knowledgeof French colonialismin Algeria.

The northernnessof general theory Havingconsidereddifferencesin the ways Coleman,Giddens,and Bourdieutheorizethe the As at social,we arenow in a positionto formulate commonground. I remarked the start, no smallgroupof texts can perfectlyrepresent whole genre.Nevertheless problems the the thatemergefromthesethreecan be foundverywidely in modernsociologicalthought. fourmaintextual Metropolitan geo-politicallocationfindsexpressionin theorythrough whichI call here(a) theclaimof universality, reading fromthecenter,(c) gestures moves, (b) of exclusion,and(d) granderasure.

Theclaimof universality Ineachof thethreetexts,thereis a strong repeated and claimtouniversal relevance. Coleman's ambition analyzeanykindof socialsystem,Giddens's to unbounded and objectof knowledge, modelsof the agentandof reproduction, a commonclaim. Bourdieu's generalized embody To these authorsand many others,the very idea of theoryinvolves talkingin universals thatreferto the social, structure agencyas such,etc. It is assumedthatall societies are and and in knowable, thatthey areknowable the sameway andfromthe samepointof view. Thatthispointof view originates themetropole notexplicitlyacknowledged. in is Indeed, this fact has to remaintacit - for if it were made explicit, universal relevancewould imcannotuniversalize loca mediatelybe calledin question.Social scientistsin the periphery becauseits specificityis immediately obvious.It attracts proper a ally generated perspective American and name,suchas "Latin theory," the firstquestionthatgets askedis dependency - how far is this relevantto othercases? It is only fromthe metropolethata credibletacit claimof universality be made. can The claim of universality not confinedto the practiceof makinguniversal is statements. The claimcan also be madethrough method.An exampleis the practiceof re-writing other socialscientists'workin one'sownconceptual a of language, common practice bothColeman and Giddens.This re-writing neverjust a translation. is a subsumption, which the is It in universal relevanceof the preferred is theoryis implicitlyclaimed.Eachre-writing offered as an example,withthe implication anyothercase couldbe subsumed the sameway. in that
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Reading from the center Contributions general to as of theoryareoftenpresented resolutions someantinomy, problem, or weaknessin previoustheory.All threeof our texts presentthemselvesthis way. It is a But professional requirement one mustrelateone's workto theliterature. whoseliterature? All threetexts addressproblemsthat arise in a metropolitan theoretical and literature, no other. of Forinstance,GiddensandBourdieu bothfocus on the antinomy objectivism subvs. This is a classic problemfor European culturaland social sciences.But it is not jectivism. a centralproblemfor colonial intelligentsias, eitherin conquered culturesor colonies of and settlement. reasonis apparent The whenwe look at whatobjectivism subjectivism share. of picturing are alternative oneself at the centerof a world,alternative models They ways of actionsor systemswith no specificexternal To cases:In determinations. takeBourdieu's a ClaudeLdvi-Strauss's thesystemof transformations constitute structure that "objectivism," of kinshipor mythis logicallya closed system;the theoriststandsat the centerfromwhere alonethetransformations be seenas a system.InJean-Paul can Sartre's "subjectivism," praxis is analyzedin orderto buildan accountof the collectiveagentof a uniqueworld-historical which alone will transcend universalconditionof scarcity.A general the transformation, social theoryshapedaround objectivism/subjectivism the a problemnecessarilyconstructs actionon therest socialworldreadthrough metropole notreadthrough metropole's the the of the world.73 It is commonfor metropolitan theorists, usinguniversal languagebutbasingthemselves on personalknowledgeor local research,simply to generalizethe specific experienceof countries. modelof agency,basedon the entrepreneur the North in Coleman's metropolitan American is market-place, a classic example. Bourdieu'stheorizingis more complexin this respect,since he is using a case study fromthe South.But he achievesa similareffectby bracketing mostof whatmakesthatcase Forinstance,he almostentirelydeletesIslamfromhis pictureof Algerians,so the specific. argument profit-seeking bargainer emergesas a puretype. Even his subtleand interesting the that aboutthe incoherence practical of logic dependsbothon postulating indeterminacy is really a characteristic the metropole,and on bracketing colonial situationof the of the Kabyle.Thus,Bourdieuplaces his case studyin the magicallyundetermined space of the ethnographic present. A veryimportant of readingfromthe centerconcernstime.All threetheorists case treat time as an important issue. The time theirtheoriessupposeis generallyabstract, datei.e., circulartime, and Giddens'sreproduction free, and continuous(with Bourdieu's cycles, a of specialcase).In the grandethnographies, offerthe world-time anintelligiblehistoric they succession(pre-modern modem,pre-capitalist capitalist, to to etc.). in Continuous time, and the time of intelligiblesuccession,is time as experienced the Colonialtime is different. colonizedand settlersocieties,time involvesfunIn metropole. damental Timeinvolvesa successionthatis, fromwithinindigenous culture, discontinuity. One cannotpredictcolonial conquestfrom withinthe social experienceof unintelligible. the about-to-be-colonized In society.Let me give one example,froma multitude. the early nineteenth the century, Britishimperialstatetook overfromthe Dutchin SouthAfrica,and

73Claude Ldvi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology(New York:Basic Books, 1963); Jean Piaget, Le structuralisme (Paris:P.U.E, 1968); Jean-PaulSartre,Critiqueof Dialectical Reason: I. Theoryof Practical Ensembles (London:New Left Books, 1976). Springer

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soon stepped the level of colonialviolence,burning killingin Xhosasettlements. and The up historian B. Pieresdescribesthe Xhosaexperience: J. Totalwarwas a new andshattering for experience the Xhosa...The havocwrought by the colonialforces was not only cruel but incomprehensible...Now thatthis foreign as therewas no tellingwhereit wouldall end.74 entityhadcrystallized a threat Forcolonizedcultures,conquestis not evolution,rationalization, transformation, or but Colonization introduces fundamental into social experiencethat catastrophe. disjunctions in time.This simplycannotbe represented metropolitan theory'smodelsof changethrough is not a matterof just one historicalmoment,the instantof conquest.It is carriedforward in the structure colonialsociety,and carried of forward againinto the post-colonialworld. thisdisjunction a basic flaw in manycontemporary is accountsof globalization. Ignoring Gestures exclusion of addressed problems to Theorizing arisingin thecultureof the metropole generallyproceeds anddebating othertextsfromthe metropole. theorist's The by quoting readinglist is always an interesting document. Who is not on the readinglist is as interesting who is. as I havenotedthe significant absenceof Fanon,indeedthewholeAlgerian liberation movement, from Bourdieu'sexpositionof the theoryof practice.Theoristsfrom the colonized worldareveryrarely citedin metropolitan of generaltheory. texts Thereis a notableabsence of referenceto Islamicthought,given the historicinterplayof Islamicand Christian culIt to tures,andthe wealthof Islamicdiscussionsof modernity. wouldbe interesting see how Coleman's individual" wouldsurvivewithina cultural of "sovereign presumption "Tawhid," the unityof the divine and of the world,whichhas been seen by some intellectuals the as foundation an Islamicapproach science.75 for to At times, texts of generaltheoryincludeexotic items fromthe non-metropolitan world. Examplesare Coleman'sreferencesto Eskimosand Bedouin,and Giddens'spassage on Confucian China.These addcolor to the texts, butdo not affecttheirintellectual structure. do not introduce ideas from the periphery have to be consideredas partof the that They dialogueof theory. More integralto the theory(and perhapsexplaininghow the "color"items work) are mechanisms define"us" "them." that and are I Particularly important theformulae havecalled the distinction. Grandethnography "grand ethnography," emphasizing modern/pre-modern now often includes"post-modern society"as a category(thoughnot in the threetheorists discussedhere).Alternatively, and "modern society"can be seen as expanding swallowing all the rest.This is Giddens'sview in Constitution, elaborated TheConsequences later in of and It World. is a widespread Modernity Runaway sociologicalview of globalization.76

74J.B. Peires, "Nxele, Ntsikanaand the origins of the Xhosa religious reaction," Journal of African History 20/1 (1979): 53-54. "Is 75BehroozGhamari-Tabrizi, Islamicscience possible?"Social Epistemology10/3-4 (1996): 317-330. For the Iraniandebate on modernitysee FarzinVahdat,God and Juggernaut:Iran's IntellectualEncounterwith Modernity(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2002) - a book that strikingly illustratesthe problem of of "readingfrom the center"since the treatment Iranianthoughtis framedby Kantand Hegel! 76AnthonyGiddens, The Consequencesof Modernity(Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress, 1990); Anthony How Globalisationis Reshapingour Lives (London:ProfileBooks, 2002). Giddens,RunawayWorld: Springer

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In eithercase, the social thoughtof colonizedculturesis rendered to irrelevant the main It theoretical conversation. is construed belongingto a worldthathas been in one way or as another surpassed. Granderasure Michel Foucault'sDiscipline and Punish begins with a famouscontrast:the spectacular of and brutalexemplary punishment a would-beroyal assassinin the eighteenthcentury, with the regulated, of concealedmanagement juvenile offendersin time-tabled, compared the nineteenth Twodifferent Foucault, century. penalstyles,remarks defining"anew age for was penaljustice."By the mid-nineteenth century, punishment becominghidden,"punitive practiceshadbecomemorereticent.One no longertouchedthe body,or at least as little as possible."77 and notes thatthis changetook place in "Europe the United Quitein passing,Foucault He to States." gives no reasonfor confiningthe argument thoseregions,butit is just as well he did. If he had includedthe colonies, the argument wouldbe false. One hundred years afterthe executionof Damiensthe regicide,whenFoucault's "reticence" supposedly was in full flow, the Britishexecuteda largenumberof men they captured while suppressing the in "Indian mass Mutiny" 1857-58. Theydidit in public,withexemplary brutality, including andfloggings,caste degradation leaders,andblowingrebelsfromthe cannon's of hangings mouth.Public,spectacular, remained favoredtechnique British of collectivepunishments a and Frenchcolonialismfar into the twentiethcentury.Notableexamplesare the punitive massacres SdtifandKerrata 1945,to intimidate populations northern at in the of Africa,just afterFranceitself hadbeen liberated fromthe Nazis.78 was againused by Western forces Followingthe suicidalatrocityof 9/11, the technique in on Muslimpopulations, Afghanistan Iraq."Operation and InfiniteJustice"devastated a a in for Trade Center attack. US The societyanddestroyed government retaliation theWorld assaulton Fallujain 2005 produced hundreds deathsimmediately, morein the long and of for "Shockandawe,"the sloganof run,as punishment the killingof fourUS mercenaries. the US military the on of we during attack Iraq,is not a baddefinition whatFoucault thought hadleft behindin the eighteenth century. Colonial war is erasedfrom Bourdieu'sLogic. Colonialrelationships all kinds are of erased by using the ethnographic The inherentlydivided cultureof colonialism present. cannotbe modelledin Bourdieu's nor Nor, for reproductionism in Coleman'sderivations. thatmatter, it be modelledin sociologicalfunctionalism anthropological can or structuralism, nor in ethnomethodology's notionof the competent memberof a culture,whichunderpins Giddens's notionof the agent. The definingpolitics of colonial and post-colonialsociety cannotbe modelledby the notionsof powerin GiddensandColeman, by exchangetheorygenerally. nor de-politicized Theimpossibility sufficiently is indicated Coleman's ludicrous to by attempt theorizeslavery withinrational choicetheory, wheretheslaveis supposed haveboughthisrightto stayalive. to Theerasure colonialexperience socialprocessis so commonin metropolitan of and social theorythatit usuallygoes unnoticed.It may even be builtin to the orthodoxdisciplinary view of a key issue, as in the erasure imperialism of frommainstream sociologicalaccounts of the emergence modernity. of
77 Michael Foucault,Discipline and Punish: TheBirth of the Prison (New York:Pantheon,1977), 7, 11.

78Saul David, TheIndianMutiny,1857 (London:Viking, 2002); 145-146.

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even moredrasticcan happen.In discussingColeman'stext, I notedhow his Something clearedspace,andI suggested a accountof social system-building presupposes featureless, not we coulddiscoverwherethatspaceis. It is certainly in Europe.But it does exist in the of neighborhoods ChicagoandSydney. wherespacewas cleared was an exemplary townin a colonyof settlement, new Chicago the of the UnitedStates- a processof eliminating society,and the "westward expansion" by that muchof the population, hadbeen therebefore.Sydneywas also a new town,the main In portof entryfor the Britishconquestof Australia. Britishlaw, Australiaat the time of An was as settlement understood terranullius,"land belongingto nobody." entirecontinent at for be couldtherefore claimed thecrownanddistributed thecolonialgovernment's pleasure. had that Thedeepconnection a wholeexistingpopulation to thelandwas simplyobliterated.79 for Terranullius,the colonizer'sdream,is a sinisterpresupposition social science. It is and of invokedeverytime we try to theorizethe formation social institutions systemsfrom block"in a treatiseof social I scratch,in a blankspace.Whenever see the words"building theory,I wonderwho usedto occupythe land. Looking south of features generalsociological In the body of this article,I haveshowndeeplyproblematic I now turnbrieflyto the question by theoryas practiced some of its most eminentfigures. for Can of alternatives. we havesocialtheorythatdoes not claimuniversality a metropolitan fromonly one direction,does not excludethe experienceand point of view, does not read on and of social thought mostof humanity, is not constructed terranullius? I believe we can. In fact, we have a good deal of it already thoughnot muchis on the lists of coursesin sociologicaltheory.Thereare even momentsin texts of general reading flickersinto theorythatsuggestnew possibilities,momentswhenthe edge of the metropole the view, whenlightcomes through roof. is The alternative "northern to theory" not a unifieddoctrinefromthe global South.No such body of thoughtexists nor could it exist. Indeed,one of the problemsaboutnorthern idea theoryis its characteristic thattheorymustbe monological,declaringthe one truthin one voice. It seems to me thata genuinelyglobal sociology must,at the level of theoryas be research practical and well as empirical amongmany application, morelike a conversation voices. On this view, elementsof a far more inclusive sociology exist in a numberof wellmentioned. Oneis theIslamicdebateaboutmodernity bodiesof thought. established already and the possibilityof an Anotheris the Africandiscussionof "indigenous knowledges" and of A Africanrenaissance. thirdis the theorization autonomy, dependence, globalization feministcritiqueof metropolitan in conducted LatinAmerica.A fourthis the international A feminisms. fifthis the of and hegemony, the development globaldialogueamongdifferent voice anddevelopment."80 Indiandebateon whatAshis Nandycalls "culture,
79MurrayGoot and Tim Rowse, editors, Make a Better Offer: The Politics of Mabo (Sydney: Pluto Press Australia,1994). 80FarzinVahdat,God and Juggernaut:Iran's Intellectual Encounter with Modernity(Syracuse: Syracuse UniversityPress, 2002); CatherineA. OdoraHoppers,editor,IndigenousKnowledgeand the Integrationof Knowledge Systems: Towarda Philosophy of Articulation (Claremont:New Africa Books, 2002); Milton Santos, Por uma outra globalizagdo (Rio de Janeiro:EditoraRecord, 2003); Chilla Bulbeck, Re-Orienting WesternFeminisms:Women'sDiversity in a Postcolonial World(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, Springer

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This list is far from complete,but may serve to indicatethe wealth of resourcesfor the theorizing social thatcan be seen whenwe look beyondthe metropole. in The extremeabstraction the threetheoriesexaminedin this articlesuggestsanother line of thought.Creatinga separatedomainof generaltheoryis not the only way to do in on conceptualization social science. It may be thatthis form of specialization, the face claimto a view of the whole, uniquelyembedsmetropolitan of it reflecting metropole's the If traditions that drawon othersocial-scientific hegemony. this is so, we mayveryfruitfully the havelinkedtheorizing withsocialstruggle, thathavetriedto democratize production and of knowledge.81 exist.As we followthem,a number problems of Other therefore, promptly pathsfortheory, I arise.Do non-metropolitan intellectuals also writenorthern theory?Certainly. can speak has withsomeauthority and here,as I havedoneit myself- Gender Power,forinstance, most in of the marksof "northern identified this paper.Yet when social scientistsin the theory" for theorize if fromtheNorth, as difficulties theunderstanding theycreate profound periphery formation such as of social relationsin theirown regions.The dilemmasof an intellectual "Australian as tracedin the recenthistoryby John Germovand TaraMcGee, sociology," largelyarisefromthisprocess.82 in intellectuals Ontheotherside,canmetropolitan escapetheeffectsexplored thisarticle? of Indeedthey can. But thereare costs in doing so, includingthe very heavy commitment time involvedin cultural andrisksto professional (considerwhatan credibility re-tooling, NorthAtlantic citationlist is for a paperin a "mainstream" journal).And there acceptable in aremanydifficulties metropolitan for socialtheorists entering dialogueswiththe majority and world- amongthemdifficulties language, limitedpersonal of of contact, ethicalproblems of aboutthe appropriation knowledge. In this article,to get the analysis going, I have operatedwith the simplestpossible of model.Yetbothtermsin thisdichotomy complex.Theproduction are metropole/periphery in and countries suchas Australia poor enterprise affluent peripheral theoryis a verydifferent This difference to countries suchas Indonesia. partlycorresponds the distinction peripheral betweensettlercolonialismandcommercially-driven conquest,andthus involvesdifferent on The like historical directly a trajectories. socialtheoryof a writer Nandyin India,drawing in fromtheoryproduced settler richindigenous intellectual will readdifferently history, very in suchas the Afrikaners SouthAfricaor the Britishin Australia.83 communities Fromtheperiphery, metropole the oftenappears a solidbloc, edgedwithprivilege.But as too and for This themetropole hasits hierarchies, exclusions, struggles legitimacy. is perfectly shownby PierreBourdieu's dramatic froma lower-middle-class rise familyin a remoterural of comer of Franceto a pinnacleof influencein the most prestigiousinstitutions Paris.It is not surprising these hierarchies a centralthemeof his sociologyof intellectuals. that are

1998); VinayLal, Empireof Knowledge:Cultureand Pluralityin the Global Economy(London:Pluto,2002); Ashis Nandy,Bonfireof Creeds:TheEssentialAshis Nandy (New Delhi: OxfordUniversityPress, 2004). 81Not a new idea - cf. Sven Lindqvist,Griiv diir du star: Hur man utforskarettjob (Stockholm:Bonniers, 1978). 82R.W.Connell, Genderand Power: Society,the Personand SexualPolitics (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1987); John Germov and TaraRenae McGee, editors, Histories of Australian Sociology (Melbourne:Melbourne UniversityPress, 2005). 83For the Afrikanercase, see HermannGilomee, "'Survivalin Justice':An Afrikaner Debate over Apartheid," ComparativeStudies in Society and History 36/3 (1994): 527-548; for the Australian, see John Germov MelbourneUniversityPress, and TaraRenae McGee, editors,Histories of AustralianSociology (Melbourne: 2005). Springer

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Acrossthe Atlantic,similarpointsaremadein CamicandGross's"newsociologyof ideas." Internal such as the internalcolonialismaffectingthe Black population the of hierarchies, UnitedStatesandthe guest workers Europe,mustaffectthe way the metropole of operates in the globalproduction socialknowledge.84 of For all these reasonswe shouldnot underestimate difficultiesof a more inclusive the theoretical Butdo we haveanychoice?It seemsto me thattheproject metropolitan of project. social theory,in which the work of Giddens,Bourdieuand Colemanrepresentgenuine is The in pinnaclesof achievement, now exhausted. problems mapped this articlecannotbe overcomewithinthis tradition thought. of At thesametime,socialscienceis verymuchneededas a cultural force,withtheworldwide of theneo-liberal market andtheretreat fromdialogue thepart dominant on of triumph agenda, powers,bothpoliticalandeconomic.Andtheoryis a crucial of whatmakessocialscience part a cultural force.But underthe conditions now face, monologicalnorthern we theorycannot do thejob.Wereallyhaveno choicebutto face thedifficulties "doing of in theory" a globally inclusiveway.85
Acknowledgments This article was first presented at the Theory Section mini-conferenceon Theoretical Cultures,at the 99th annualmeeting of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, 17 August 2004. I am grateful to the discussant, Craig Calhoun, to Michele Lamont and Neil Gross, and to all other Excellent advice for revision was given by Theoryand Society reviewers.In the longer run, this participants. article derives from my "ClassicalTheory"course at the Universityof California,Santa Cruz;my thanksto and JohnSanbonmatsu, Paul Lubeck,and Terry participants colleagues, especially Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, Burke. I am gratefulfor advice and materialsfrom FredericVandenberghe Dean Ashenden. The project and was encouragedby Universityof Sydney colleagues in a recent explorationof social theory,Toni Schofield, Robertvan Krieken,and JulianWood. This articlebenefitedgreatlyfrom the dedicatedresearchassistanceof JohnFisher and Molly Nicholson.

About our contributor

Professor the University Sydney,andauthor, at of co-author, Raewyn Connellis University

or editor of nineteen books, including Ruling Class Ruling Culture (1977), Making the Difference (1982), Gender and Power (1987), Schools and Social Justice (1992), Masculinities

(1995), TheMen and the Boys (2000), and Gender(2002). Connellis an Editorof Theory andSociety.A contributor research to in journals sociology,education, politicalscience,gender studies,and relatedfields, her current researchconcernssocial theory,neo-liberalism, and labor. masculinities, corporate genderpractices, intellectual

84CharlesCamicandNeil Gross,"Thenew sociology of ideas,"in JudithR. Blau, editor,BlackwellCompanion to Sociology (Cambridge: Blackwell, 2001). 85The case for the specific historicalimportanceof sociology (broadlyunderstood)in a period of neo-liberal dominance is made in R.W. Connell, "Sociology and world market society," ContemporarySociety 29/1 (2000): 291-296. Springer