181 words!! One sentence by Pierre Bourdieu (1977):

"The conjuncture capable of transforming practices objectively co-ordinated because subordinated to partially or wholly identical objective necessities, into collective action (e .g . revolutionary action) is constituted in the dialectical relationship between, on the one hand, a habitus, understood as a system of lasting, transposable dispositions which, integrating past experiences, functions at every moment as a matrix of perceptions, appreciations, and actions and makes possible the achievement of infinitely diversified tasks, thanks to analogical transfers of schemes permitting the solution of similarly shaped problems, and thanks to the unceasing corrections of the results obtained, dialectically produced by those results, and on the other hand, an objective event which exerts its action of conditional stimulation calling for or demanding a determinate response, only on those who are disposed to constitute it as such because they are endowed with a determinate type of dispositions (which are amenable to reduplication and reinforcement by the “awakening of class consciousness”, that is, by the direct or indirect possession of a discourse capable of securing symbolic mastery of the practically mastered principles of the class habitus)."  (ibid: 82-83)

Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: University Press

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Long? Yes. Also perfectly clear if you take the time to parse what it says. (1) An objective set of conditions does not automatically lead to collective action; (2) collective action occurs only when the conditions are perceived and interpreted; (3) the interpretation depends on a habitus, a matrix of perceptions, appreciations and actions, that is, itself, the product of previous actions; (4) for the habitus to be invoked, the objective conditions, the event, must be of a type that lends itself to the relevant interpretation; (5) only then can the awakening of consciousness and discourse required to shape the action occur.

P.S. Bourdieu is a lot easier to parse when you have read Gary Klein's Sources of Power: How People Make DecisionsKlein is a psychologist who studies how decisions are made in time-pressured situations (firefighters, tank commanders, bond traders, etc). He is an advocate of a theory called recognition-primed decision making, which begins, like Bourdieu's thinking, with the observation that people rarely, if ever, have the time to go through the exercise of systematically comparing possible alternatives in the manner prescribed by rational choice. Instead, we carry around with us a stack of possible models through which we interpret the situations in which we find ourselves, grabbing the first one that looks plausible off the stack and acting on it until incoming information disconfirms it. Then we grab the next one. I like this theory because of the way it accounts for the value of experience. People with experience have accumulated more possible models in their stack and are more likely to find one that's relevant. 

See the diagram at the end of this PDF.

Which reminds me of Bloch's article on language, anthropology and  cognitive science (1991 Man, NS. 26 pp183-198) , in which he suggests that once a set of knowledge is acquired, such as what a "good" swidden patch consists of, or how to drive a car, we mentally pack this away as a "chunk" and are able to act on it withut pulling the elements apart again.

I think Bourdieu is saying a lot about the structures of the habitus which compel people to engage in practice unconsciously, whereas Bloch is saying that the context for action is packed away with the knowledge (ie. why perceptions of the road might differ depending on whether you are driving, cycling or walking, even if you regularly do all of these things) . What I gather from Bourdieu is that the road just "is" and "driver" acts a certain way, agency seems missing from this story.

I like Palsson's retort to Bloch, though- which might also be applicable to the idea of a stack of possible action models- which is to say that the idea of a "natural novice" is part of a normative approach to enskilment based on cultural transmission, where there is a definite hierarchical order between expert and lay-person, Palsson says this is never really the case, and quotes fischer, which is worth reprducing here :

Related to the notion of learning as cultural transmission is the tendency to think of the person in terms of a container, "as if the person possessed a fixed capacity [ of competence] analagous to the amount of liquid that can be placed in a glass" (Fischer et. al 1993: 94 in Palsson, G, 1994: 903, enskilment at sea. Man NS 29(4) December 1994 pp901-927).

Palsson of course advocates a "practice theory" which differs from Bourdieu in assuming a level of agency on the part of the individual which is bound up with skill. An enskilled person, therefore is part of a set of social relations and forms in which the conscious, situated acquisition of skill is the purpose.

But in any case I don't think anyone can beat Bourdieu's incredibly long sentence.

Elaine, what makes you think that Bourdieu's model excludes agency? I see nothing in it but an elaboration of Marx's observation that, "Men [now we would say "People"] make history, but not under conditions of their own making." Bourdieu's analysis deals with what those conditions might be but does not exclude the agent's freedom to act within or against them. I observe that in Bourdieu and Wacquant's Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, they offer as an example a game of football (what Americans call "soccer"). The rules of the game, the state of play, and the player's knowledge of his teammates and opponents combine in the constantly shifting image of what is going on that informs but does not determine what the player does next. Based on my reading it appears that invoking Fischer, Paisson, et all, is attacking a straw man. To me it seems that it is precisely because Bourdieu conceives of actors as neither containers waiting to be filled nor totally free agents that he develops the views articulated in that long sentence. How am I wrong?

Elaine, thanks for the pointer to Gisli Palsson's article "Enskilment at sea." It's a wonderful piece but does not, I believe, point in the direction you suggest. It is written against the premise of cognitive anthropology that culture is in the head, in mental models, isolated from the practical and material realities of technology and social life. It cites Bourdieu and practice theory more generally as among the sources of the theory it is developing.

It is also, I note, consistent with the views of Clifford Geertz, who criticizes cognitive anthropology for similar reasons. 

Why is the piece wonderful to me? I grew up on the water, in a house at the head of a creek that feeds into a small river that feeds into Chesapeake Bay. My younger brother is an avid fisherman, who has made the life of a Chesapeake Bay waterman a serious, serious hobby, while earning his living as a master machinist and model maker for the US Army Transportation command. He has run pound nets and crab pots and spends much of his recreational time on the water with rod and reel. The skills that he has acquired over the years range from the rapid deconstruction of blue crabs into fish bait to eyeing the weather and tides and and remarking that the rockfish should be biting along a particular bit of marshy coastline that his one of his favorite spots to drop a line. He has, over the years, been extremely popular with co-workers and men from his church, who like to go fishing with him because when they go fishing with him they almost always catch a lot of fish. So, reading about the hierarchy of Icelandic fishing boat skippers that Palsson describes, I find myself nodding, Yes, Yes, of course.

I note, however, returning to the logic of Bourdieu's argument, that the technical knowledge and fishing skills and the dispositions and social relations in which they are entangled do not determine his behavior. He is also a gardener and a hunter, and depending on the season of the year or other social demands may be up to all sorts of things.

I described Palssons argument as contrary to cognitive anthropology, and Bloch, and as adding a dimension to Bourdieu which seems lacking. Consider:

"Each agent, wittingly or unwittingly, willy nilly, is a producer and reproducer of objective meaning, Because his actions and works are the product of a modus operandi of which he is not the producer and has no conscious mastery, they contain an "objective intention", as the scholastics put it, which always outruns his conscious." (Bourdieu, 1977:79)

or

"it is because subects do not, strictly speaking, know what they are doing that what they do has more meaning than they know" (ibid)

and, when Bourdieu says: "So long as the work of education is not celarly institutionalized as a specific, autnomous practice, and it is a whole group and a whole symbolically structured anvironment, without specialized agents or specific moments, which exerts an anonymous, pervasive pedagogic action, the essential part of the modus operandi which defines practical mastery in transmitted in practic, in its practical state, without attaining teh level of discourse" (ibid: 87)

then it seems to me that this is a bit different to the idea of enskilment that Palsson uses in place of the enculturation model (which assumes agents are the empty vessel).  In Bourdieu's theory, learning, practice, enskilment just occurs within the habitus, in fact it has to occur. This is true for a lot of everyday practice but as to the question of  certain skills and how these are acquired something else is going on. I think Palsson makes it quite clear that this is agency:

"assuming a social or constitutive model of teh individual is to introduce purpose, agency and dialogue into the process of enskilment- a radical break with the Cartesian tradition of separating ideas and the real world, learning and doing, experts and laypersons, knowledge and practice" (1994: 904).

So while Bourdieu describes passive, unconscious agents, Palsson describes purposeful agents. The two are coming from a similar place- from the idea that practice is situated- and I view Palsson as a development on Bourdieu

PS this keyboard has a sticky J and I have stopped being able to spot them, sorry!

Elaine, apologies for misreading. I see that we are on the same page after all. Almost, at least. I see Bourdieu as leaving space for intention, where it fills the gap left by structure and habitus, with Palsson exploring the conscious pursuit of enskiling ethnographically. How, then, do we see enskiling? A conscious effort to construct a habitus, which if successful recedes from consciousness, becoming a knack or talent whose logic is concealed from casual observation — thus the need for the ethnographer to participate as well as observe to understand what is happening. How does that sound?

P.S. My wife and I are spending a long weekend in Akita, in the north of Japan. May be offline. If I don't respond to messages in the next day or two that will be the reason.

I think its worth remembering this is a translation and it never pays to forget the fieldwork in provincial France and Algeria that gave rise to these concepts

Yes Gavin, you have got a point there. I have no issue with the content, or the length really, except it is remarkable in being so long, and I believe it is the longest sentence ever written in any social science.

I have noticed though that the French translations seem to favour these ,,,,,

I would say, John that it really depends on the sort of skill. I think there is a difference between learning the everyday skills at home, which clearly resembles much more what Bourdieu is talking about, and the special sorts of social relationships which surround very deliberate enskilment processes. Sometimes the reclaiming of certain "lost" skills or traditions is highly politicised so the consciousness aspect is never deliberately concealed. My own research into eco-building as environmentalist critique has taught me that.

For instance in Wales it was traditional to use thatch and daub as building materials, the skills in using these materials were lost as the materials went out of use for this purpose. NOw, environmental activists are reclaiming these skills, but the lore/ skill. techne is re-presented as "new" and "eco" and (!) sustainable. The same skills have changed, from something that would "go without saying" to something which went entirely, to something consciously practiced through the processes of re-skilling within the social worlds which activists create (or re-create?) in order to learn and share these skills.

John McCreery said:

Elaine, apologies for misreading. I see that we are on the same page after all. Almost, at least. I see Bourdieu as leaving space for intention, where it fills the gap left by structure and habitus, with Palsson exploring the conscious pursuit of enskiling ethnographically. How, then, do we see enskiling? A conscious effort to construct a habitus, which if successful recedes from consciousness, becoming a knack or talent whose logic is concealed from casual observation — thus the need for the ethnographer to participate as well as observe to understand what is happening. How does that sound?

P.S. My wife and I are spending a long weekend in Akita, in the north of Japan. May be offline. If I don't respond to messages in the next day or two that will be the reason.

Elaine,

You are right that it depends on the sort of skill. That raises an interesting question: How do we sort skills? From simple (separating egg whites, for example) to complex (playing the saxophone like John Coltrane, for example)? From individual (both of the previous examples) to collective (requiring teams whose members bring multiple skills to the task — baseball or building skyscrapers, for example)? What other dimensions are there?

Your example, use of thatch and daub as building materials by environmental activists, suggests that conscious agency may be another variable. Here the extremes might be a martial arts expert in full flow where "no-self" is the rule and an architect or engineer meticulously checking every detail of a complex plan. It also suggests a difference between everyday and resurrected skills, where the latter may involve not only greater consciousness but alterations in the technologies and operations involved.

I think here of one of our more interesting projects last year, translating the catalogue for an exhibition of ancient glass at the Miho Museum in Kyoto. What made the project interesting was that we were not only translating curators' comments focused on the aesthetics of objects. The objects in question had been non-invasively analyzed using a technique called mass spectrometry to determine their chemical composition, the key to analyzing their distribution around the Mediterranean, Middle East and Central Asia (the whole of the Hellenic world created by the conquests of Alexander the Great). And, in two spectacular examples, Japanese glass artists had been commissioned to recreate objects using traditional techniques. Yes, they were traditional. In one case, the glass used had the same chemical composition as the original. The creation of colored strings of glass, heated until pliable then wrapped around a ceramic form, to create a distinctively striped bowl imitated the work of the artists who created the ancient original. It is hard to imagine, however, that the ancient artists worked with their faces protected by plexiglass shields, wearing heat-protective gloves, and heating the glass over gas flames regulated by mechanical valves not invented until centuries after the original bowl was produced. And, of course, the context, reproducing a work of art for a museum exhibition, only resembles, does not duplicate, the act of producing a bowl for an ancient ruler's table.

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