The (Mis)uses of Pierre Bourdieu s practical epistemology in accounting-related social research

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1 The (Mis)uses of Pierre Bourdieu s practical epistemology in accounting-related social research Abstract: The objective of this paper is to offer a discussion about Bourdieu s practical theory with a focus on his epistemology, in order to inform accounting researchers understanding or utilisation of his theoretical approach in their own research. It is observed that some of the uses of Pierre Bourdieu s practical epistemology in accounting-related research are noteworthy and commendable; others appear to be weaker or selective in focus. This has cast further light on what many think of as a difficult theoretical framework; and yet there is much to be gained from continuing to advance Bourdieu s contributions in the spotlight of critical research. 1. Introduction Pierre Bourdieu is seen by many to be a leading thinker of our time. Pierre Bourdieu s theory of practice has influenced social researchers in many different countries since he first wrote in his native France in the late twentieth century. While his theory of practice may be well recognised, understanding it - in particular with a focus on informing a social study - remains a challenge. Different philosophical and disciplinary perspectives all contribute towards building a better understanding but these attempts are rarely reconciled with each other sufficiently to reach a consensus. For example, Throop and Murphy (2002) propose Bourdieu s epistemological stance is against Husserl s phenomenology; Chia and Holt (2006) have a different view. They suggest Bourdieu s habitus is close to Heidegger s dwelling, another body of phenomenology. Such diverse interpretations may be seen as unsatisfactory: these may result in an unfair evaluation of Bourdieu, as well as an inappropriate or undesirable application of his theory (Griller, 1996; Malsch, Gendron & Grazzini, 2011). The objective of this paper is to present a discussion about Bourdieu s practical theory with a focus on his epistemology in order to inform accounting researchers understanding or utilisation of his theoretical approach in their own research. Some of the uses of Pierre Bourdieu s practical epistemology in accounting-related social research are noteworthy and commendable; others appear to be weaker or selective in focus. This is the motivation for this paper: to cast further light on what many think of as a difficult theoretical framework in the hope that the value of his theory of practice may be appreciated even more widely than it is at present. This discussion is based on eleven books written by Bourdieu, and seven books of others written about Bourdieu s contribution. These include his Outline Of A Theory Of Practice (1972); The Logic of Practice (1980); Distinction (1984); In Other Words: Towards A Reflexive Sociology (1990); The Craft of Sociology (1991 With Chamboredon & Passeron); Language and Symbolic Power (1991); Sociology in Question (1993); The State Nobility (1996); Practical Reason (1998); Masculine Domination (2001); and The Social Structures of the Economy (2005); as well as those by Swartz (1997, 2002); Fowler (1997); Biggart (2002); Jenkins (2003); Inglis and Hughson (2003); Wacquant (2006); and Field (2008). A further twelve articles either review Bourdieu s epistemology or are closely related to such an objective, as included in the reference list. The objective of this paper is achieved in the following sections: (2) an introduction to Pierre Bourdieu, the person; (3) Bourdieu s world view of social research; (4) the theory of practice enacted [1]

2 in social research; (5) conducting such social research; (6) its application in a selection of topics relevant to accounting professionalisation research; followed by some discussion in the Conclusion. 2. About Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu ( ), French, is a leading thinker in our generation, a thinker who may enjoy the same status with those giants in social science such as Durkheim, Marx and Weber. His theories, in particular the theory of practice, have influenced social researchers of different academic domains. Bourdieu spent his life endeavouring to overcome the contradictions between binary structures such as objectivism versus subjectivism, ontology versus epistemology, and ethnography versus phenomenology. He introduced habitus (and its associated concepts such as capital, field and doxa) as a hybrid construct of objectivity and subjectivity, both for understanding the social world and for theorising social research about this world. Habitus makes Bourdieu s theory unique, and is key to appreciating his position and status (Swartz, 1997; Jenkins, 2002; Wacquant, 2006). Bourdieu s academic span is a wide one: philosophy, sociology, anthropology, education, language, economy, politics, sport, and art, to name a few. But it has also received its fair share of criticisms. The main focus of such criticism is towards Bourdieu s structures, where his practical theory is seen to overemphasize iron-clad structures while overlooking the social actors self-agency (Jenkins, 2002; Throop & Murphy, 2002). In epistemology, he is accused of being too much a positivist, in the sense to treating humans as things (Griller, 1996). In his Outline of a Theory of Practice (1972) and Social Space and Symbolic Power (1990), he distances himself from Durkheim, Saussure and other positivists many times, highlighting his subjective and interpretive stance. His theory is about culture, not nature. He said he was afraid of his own theory because it often turned out to be a weapon against him. But he is also a modest man, offering his theory as a temporal construct, not something monumental (Jenkins, 2003). 3. Bourdieu s world view for social research Bourdieu believes the social world is objective, but objective only in what social researchers can realise about it: The degree to which the social world seems to us to be determined depends on the knowledge we have of it. (Bourdieu, 1993, p.25) So it is effectively a subjective world or a world of subjectivity. This world is constructed by social researchers using their theories or presumptions (Bourdieu, 1990). As a result, [t]he social world may be described and constructed in different ways in accordance with different principles of vision and division. (ibid, p.132) Because this world is constructed by theories, if there are problems these are the problems in theories. This is because: Facts do not speak Those who choose to restrict their means of interrogating the real (and of interrogating their methods for doing so) thereby deny the observation presupposes construction, inevitably end up observing a void. (Bourdieu et al., 1991, p.37) Because of Bourdieu s approach towards offering the social world as subjective, for studying it, one needs to adopt two important aspects: the symbolic and the relational. [2]

3 3.1 The social classes are relational and symbolic In Bourdieu s view, the social classes are real not in the sense of substances but in relations (Bourdieu, 1989, p.16). He breaks Marx s conception that social classes are real, real in terms of physical existence. In order to make his point clearer, he refers to the failures of the planning economies of Soviet Union and China, where the working classes were treated as some real organisations (Bourdieu, 1991). As he sees it, The real class, if it has ever really existed, is nothing but the realized class, that is, the mobilized class, a result of the struggles of classifications, which is a properly symbolic (and the political) struggle to impose a vision of the social world, or, better, a way to construct that world, in perception and in reality, and to construct classes in accordance with which this social world can be divided. (Bourdieu, 1998, p.11) So, classes are a product of ideation. In other words, it is a matter of point of view. But, [T]he point of view, he stresses, creates the object. (Bourdieu et al., 1991, p. 33) Although the classes are subjectively created, once they are created, their relations with each other become objective. That is why Bourdieu (1990, p.126) suggests that sociology has the sense of objectivity: [s]ociology, in its objectivist moment, is an analysis of relative positions and objective relations between these positions (p.126). But it is a sense, not the essence. The essence is that sociology is still the sociology of symbolic forms (1991, p.164), and different symbolic forms will be translated into different social forms in the society. The objectivity of the meaning or sense of the world is defined by the consent or agreement of the structuring subjectivities (sensus = consensus) (1991, p.164). The resulting consensus is doxa (ibid, p.165), the legitimate ideologies which are the source for validating the objective dominations and inequalities in the society. Thus social orders are settled and stabilized. 3.2 Aspects of doxa Because the social world is relational and symbolic in nature, it becomes a field of struggles between different ideologies. In social research, one might say there is a struggle between social researchers theories or theoretical taxonomies (Bourdieu, 1980, P.93) and the social actors primitive logics (Bourdieu, 1993, p.17) or practical taxonomies (Bourdieu, 1980, P.93). The latter, although primitive and practical which may favour positivist and empiricist stances, tend to see the world on the appearances, and this is unlikely to reveal the doxa which in contrast, is something deep and tacit (Jenkins, 2002, p.92). As Bourdieu argues, doxa is an invisible power which can be exercised only with the complicity of those who do not want to know that they are subject to it or even they themselves exercise it (Bourdieu, 1991, p.164), Therefore it is unlikely to be reflected by the social actors unless they are alert to those possibilities. Besides, the social actors primitive logics also tend to see the truth partly: agents have a subjective experience that is not the full truth of what they do but which is part of the truth of what they do (Bourdieu, 1993, p. 17). In whichever case, to reveal the doxa, Bourdieu suggests a second order (ibid, p.58) analysis. This analysis follows Husserl s phenomenal analysis, the first order analysis is on the appearances, the spontaneous sociology (Bourdieu et al., 1991, p.20) constructed by the social actors (Bourdieu, 1972, 1980). The second order analysis prioritizes the use of social researchers theories, to break the social [3]

4 actors primitive logics or practical taxonomies in order to interrogate ideologies underpinning the appearances. Furthermore, the theories are used not only to break the commonplace (Bourdieu et al., 1991, p.36) world, but also to construct the broken world back to an analogical unity: The theoretical model is simultaneously a construction and a break, since one needs to have broken free from the phenomenal resemblances in order to construct the deep analogies, and this break with apparent relations presupposes the construction of new relations among the appearances. Thus the theoretical model is characterized by its capacity for breaking with appearances and its capacity for generalization, these two qualities being inseparable. (Bourdieu et al., 1991, p.54-56) Lastly, the analogical unity needs to be united through applied rationalism (ibid, p.57), a procedure of confirmation to confirm the relations (or the facts) that are constructed by the theory, and this confirmation is within the rationality or sense-making (ibid, p.65) of the theory, because [e]xperimentation is only as good as the construct that it tests the facts that validate the theory are only as good as the theory they validate (ibid, p.58-60). Therefore: If it is true that in their most complete form, scientific propositions are won against the phenomenal appearances and that they presuppose the theoretical act which has the function, as Kant puts it, of spelling out the phenomena so as to be able to read them as experiments, then it follows that they no longer find their proof anywhere except in the full coherence of the whole system of facts created by and not for the theoretical hypotheses that are to be validated. (Bourdieu et al., 1991, p.64) 3.3 The theory of practice for social research Theories, as already discussed, are very important for social research. This brings us to now ask what is the theory that Bourdieu uses to break and construct the social world? There could be several, but the theory of practice is perceived as the most central one (Griller, 1996; Swartz, 1997). This theory claims its centrality because of habitus, its very spinal concept which shapes Bourdieu s world view as well as his practice in his social research. The reasons for claiming such centrality are: (1) habitus lays the foundation for studying all the other concepts which Bourdieu proposes, such as capital, field and doxa; (2) in Bourdieu s view, habitus, as structured and structuring dispositions (Bourdieu, 1980, p.53) is the source engendering the social structures and social actors; and (3) habitus integrates the things of logic and the logic of things ; both are important for a social study, but neither is enough. In his Outline of a Theory of Practice, Bourdieu (1972) explains why he thinks habitus is introduced and also essential for social research. He is not satisfied with Durkheim s objectivism, which may lead to mechanism (ibid, p.73) or treating social actors as a part in machine, and equally, he disapproves Sartre s subjectivism, which may lead to finalism (ibid, p.73) or treating social actors as a rational actor (1980, p.46) who determines their ideal world. In Bourdieu s view, there are objective limits of objectivism (Bourdieu, 1972, p.2) and on the other hand, there are problems such as omission (Bourdieu, 1980, p.49) and bad faith (ibid, p.50) associated with the subjectivism. Both are unaware [4]

5 that practice can have other principles than mechanical causes or conscious ends and can obey an economic logic without obeying narrowly economic interests (ibid, p.50). Thus, to Bourdieu, habitus are: systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as principles which generate and organize practices and representations that can be objectively adapted to their outcomes without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends Objectively regulated and regular without being in any way the product of obedience to rules, they can be collectively orchestrated without being the product of the organizing action of a conductor. (ibid, 53) Therefore in an objectivist nature sense, it is the habitus that deserves the study. But, for studying habitus, one has to return to social actors practice: One has to situate oneself within real activity as such, that is, in the practical relation to the world its things to be done and said, things made to be said To do this, one has to return to practice, the site of the dialectic of the opus operatum [efficacy for an action] and the modus operandi [the action]. (Bourdieu, 1980, p.52) It is these views, the ontological view of habitus and practice for both the social world and social research that sets Bourdieu apart from the other leading thinkers in particular Durkheim, Marx, Weber, Sartre, Husserl, Goffman and Schutz (Griller, 1996, Throop & Murphy, 2002; Wacquant, 2006). Within the comprehensive philosophy offered by Bourdieu (1972, 1980, 1984, 1991,Bourdieu et al.,1991; Bourdieu 1993, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2005), from philosophy to sport, science to art, or from economy to politics, his practical theory and its component concepts such as habitus, capital and field can be observed being applied in different arguments and in different analysis. 3.4 Bourdieu s theory: applied by means of analogy For Bourdieu, the theory of practice is a universal theory which is applicable to all the social fields (Bourdieu, 1980). The social world is an expansive field, under which there are many sub-fields. Fields are homological (Bourdieu, 1972, p.143) with each other, notwithstanding their invariant properties, Among these invariant properties is the very fact that they are the site of a struggle of interests, between agents or institutions unequally endowed in specific capital (as specific resources or specific weapons for the conquest presuppose a consensus on what is at stake in the struggle. (Bourdieu, 1990, p.111) However, each field is different and autonomous (Bourdieu, 1993, p.72) for it has its own stakes and specific rules (in particular, hidden rules). Because of the specific rules, different classes are allocated with different resources and opportunities, therefore, there is a dominant pole and a dominated pole, and from that moment there are antagonistic truths (ibid, p.59). While the specificity of a field suggests that it is always a valuable focus of study, the homological property enables such study to be studied in an analogical way, that is, to apply the invariant logic from a field known to an unknown. What is the invariant logic? It is Bourdieu s theory of practice. This theory, as a meta-theory, (Griller, 1996), is applied to a specific field at some lower level, and helps to establish the theory for that field: Bourdieu s research is not about testing this theory, but rather is about deductive testing of lower [5]

6 level theories through hypothesis testing the hypothesis that there is an almost perfect homology between the space of the stances and the space of the positions held by their authors in the field of production. (Griller, 1996, p.16), To Bourdieu, it is the analogy that enables new discoveries; analogical models aimed at apprehending the hidden principles of the realities they interpret analogical reason can fulfil its function as an instrument of discovery (Bourdieu et al., 1991, p.53). The analogical application can be seen in Bourdieu s own work, for an example, in Distinction, he applies his field, capital and habitus and their interrelationship (The Logic of Practice) which were observed in Kabyle society, (Kabyles are the largest Berber group in Algeria); and also in the cultural tastes of different classes in French society. Analogy is the tool empowering Bourdieu s theory. 4. The theory of practice enacted in social research Bourdieu s theory of practice has such universal dimensions it can be used to explore any field in the society. Thus the following section examines how theory of practice may be enacted in social research with his theory being constituted by three key concepts: capital, habitus, and field. The interrelationship between the three concepts is conceptualised and presented by Bourdieu (1984, p.101) in his Distinction, as: [(Capital) (habitus)] + field = Logic of practice Each of the concepts is further discussed as follows. 4.1 Capital In The Forms of Capital, Bourdieu (in Biggart, 2002) acknowledges that he takes capital from Marx s economic theory, meaning the useful resources that can be used by social actors to distinguish and compete with each other. In the social space, capital includes economic capital, cultural capital and social capital, the forms of which are in the material senses, along with symbolic capital, which is a form of the previous three forms but in an ideological world: According to my empirical investigations, these fundamental powers are economic capital (in its different forms), cultural capital, social capital, and symbolic capital, which is the form that the various species of capital assume when they are perceived and recognized as legitimate. Bourdieu (1990, p.128) Capital has an important practical sense. For it to function, it has to be misrecognised or takenfor-granted by social actors: A capital (or power) becomes symbolic capital, that is, capital endowed with a specifically symbolic efficacy, only when it is misrecognised in its arbitrary truth as capital and recognised as legitimate and, on the other hand, that this act of (false) knowledge and recognition is an act of practical knowledge which in no way implies that the object known and recognized be posited as object. (ibid, p.112) In this sense, economic capital, cultural capital and social capital are all symbolic. These are in the minds of social actors and dictate their practices. Different forms of capital are efficacious in different aspects of the field. Economic capital, in Marx s notion, controls the relations in production. These are resources which distinguish the bourgeoisie from the proletariat, capitalist class from working class. In the professional field, economic capital is translated to human capital (Schutz, 1961), or the power of [6]

7 intelligentsia (Weber, 1978 [1922] p. 218), which relates to skills and knowledge that can be used to make money or to claim an expertise privilege. Cultural capital is different from economic capital which is relatively well defined. It has three subforms: objectified, as in paintings and music; institutionalised, as with educational qualifications and athletic awards; and habitus, the internalised dispositions that are carried by a social actor (Bourdieu, in Biggart 2002). Unlike economic capital, which controls relations in the production arena, more often outwardly observed in (conspicuous) consumption. The efficacy of cultural capital, as Bourdieu describes, is thus: Those people who drink champagne are opposed to those who drink whisky, but they are also opposed, in a different way, to those who drink red wines; but those who drink champagnes are more likely than those who drink whisky, and far more likely than those who drink red wine, to have antique furniture, play golf, ride horses or go to see light comedies at the theatre. (Bourdieu, 1990, p.132) Bourdieu s perception links to Weber s (1978 [1922]) claim in Economy and Society, that tastes and lifestyles do distinguish people in social struggles. Social capital has a final say in the social arena. Visible in the cliché it doesn t matter what you know but who you know (Field, 2008, p.3), it downplays the role of economic capital but highlights the importance of social connections. Such social connections are used not only for social exclusions; more importantly, they pave the way for cultural capital such as qualifications, professional experiences and expertise to be recognised and thus converted to economic capital (Bourdieu, in Biggart, 2002). Whichever the form of capital, it works in the field as means and also as ends for the social actors (Bourdieu, 1980; Throop & Murphy, 2002). Just like economic capital in its narrow sense, it is the labour hours (Bourdieu, in Biggart, 2002, p.49) in which investment occurs; and it this takes the labour hours to progress towards the future. 4.2 Habitus Habitus is an actor s cultural dispositions, which correspond to his position in the social space. It is a relatively stable scheme, a historical sediment (Bourdieu, 1980, p.58) of social structures in the actor s mind. The scheme generates and re-generates the ways or patterns of the social actor s practices (Husserl, 1970). As described by Bourdieu (1972, p.82-83) in his Outline of a Theory of Practice, habitus is: [T]he strategy-generating principle enabling agents to cope with unforeseen and ever-changing situations 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. Habitus can be both conscious and unconscious to the actor who possesses it. In describing the unconscious part, Bourdieu (1990, p.11) says, The habitus entertains with the social world which has produced it a real ontological complicity, the source of cognition without consciousness, intentionality without intention, a practical mastery [7]

8 of the world s regularities which allows one to anticipate the future without even needing to posit it as such. Conscious or not, it is a factor to determine the actor s strategy but not a factor of his or her intentionality. This is a point where Bourdieu departs from Goffman, Schutz and others who emphasize an actor s intention and self-agency (Bourdieu, 1990). As he perceives, The habitus, a system of dispositions acquired by implicit or explicit learning which functions as a system of generative schemes, generate strategies which can be objectively consistent with the objective interests of their authors without having been expressly designed to that end. (Bourdieu, 1993, p.76) The concept of habitus applies not only to each individual actor, but also to a group, an organisation, or a society. Everett (2002), for example, interprets a society as in the individual as the habitus because, [t]he field, as a structured space, tends to structure the habitus, while the habitus tends to structure the perceptions of the field. (Bourdieu, in Everett, 2002, p.65) When it is applied to the larger group we may term society, it becomes a force to underpin the doxa (Bourdieu, 1972, p.159), the defensive discourse of orthodoxy (Bourdieu, 1993, p.73), the unifying cultural code (Everett, 2002, p.65), the hidden rules or misrecognised ideologies (Bourdieu, 1980, p.122), which cause symbolic violence (Bourdieu, 1991, p.170) to the society. Symbolic violence, unlike the physical means of the police or the army, enacts its enforcements by the ideologies set by the dominant class. Such ideologies are followed not only by the dominant classes, who benefit from them, but also by the dominated, who check on themselves based on the ideologies set by their dominating counterpart. In order to illustrate the efficacy of symbolic violence, Bourdieu (2001) gives an example in masculine domination. He presents a doxic ideology that Men perceive, and women are being perceived (ibid, p.63), and, as Bourdieu observed, some women of a modern society would prefer to sacrifice their breakfast in order to do their make up if on a time limit, to partially control such a perception. 4.3 Field Habitus and doxa occur in a field: When habitus encounters a social world of which it is the product, it finds itself as fish in water, it does not feel the weight of the water and takes the world about itself for granted. (Bourdieu, in Wacquant, 2006 p.43) At the same time, a field is where habitus and doxa are conditioned and meaningful; habitus being the social incorporated, it is at home in the field it inhabits, it perceives it immediately as endowed with meaning and interest. (Bourdieu, 1989, p. 45). The state of a field, as mentioned in Section 3.4, is full of struggles. The struggles which take place with the field are about monopoly of the legitimate violence (specific authority) which is characteristic of the field in question, which means, ultimately, the conservation or subversion of the structure of the distribution of the specific capital. (Bourdieu, 1993, P.73) In these struggles, [8]

9 Dominant class fractions, whose power rests on economic capital, aim to impose the legitimacy of their domination either through their own symbolic production, or through the intermediary of conservative ideologues the dominated fraction always tends to set the specific capital, to which it owes to its position, at the top of the hierarchy of the principles of hierarchization the ideological systems that specialists produce in and for the struggle over the monopoly of legitimate ideological production reproduce in a misrecognized form. (Bourdieu, 1991, P.168) Because of the legitimatised ideological systems or doxa, each field not only validates its specific capital, but also appreciates (and therefore nurtures) its own habitus: In order for a field to function, there have to be stakes and people prepared to play the game, endowed with habitus that implies knowledge and recognition of the immanent laws of the field, the stakes; and so on.a field may simply receive and consecrate a particular type of habitus that is more or less fully constituted. (Bourdieu, 1993, p72-73) Further, they have different capital and habitus, actors in the field are put into different positions that are in competition. To succeed in such competition, they will need to take different strategies which correspond to their position as well as to the doxic rules, so that: Those who, in a determinate state of the power relations, more or less completely monopolize the specific capital, the basis of specific power or authority characteristic of a field, are inclined to conservation strategies whereas those least endowed with capital (who are often also the newcomers ) are inclined to subversion strategies, the strategies of heresy. (Bourdieu, 1993, p.73) 4.4 The relationships between capital, habitus and field: the logic of practice The relationship between capital, habitus and field, as we can see from the discussion above, is an interactive one. Capital, in particular cultural capital, contains habitus, a form of cultural dispositions. As compared to other forms of capital, such as economic capital and social capital, habitus is more likely to be unconscious, and hard for the actor who carries it to recognise. Nevertheless it is an important factor in distinguishing one from another in the social space. Capital, habitus and field are explained with and for each other in the social actor s logic of practice. On the one hand, capital and habitus are forced to comply with the rules of the field, thereby gaining a status of practical efficacy, the doxa. On the other hand, the field is where capital and habitus function, and claim both their legitimacy and potency in practice. The intertwining between capital, habitus, and field, makes a three-way ontological triad (Griller, 1996, p.7): one cannot exist without the existence of the other two. They must be studied together. Practice is where capital, habitus, and field interrelate, and where they are manifested. The actors do not need to speak a word; their actions will tell because: Practical action may be described by analogy with the orthē doxa of Plato in Meno, as the right opinion : the coincidence between dispositions and positions, between sense of game and the game, explains that the agent does what he or she has to do without posing it explicitly as a goal, below the level of calculation and even consciousness, beneath discourse and representation. (Bourdieu, 1989, p.44-45) The unspeakable practice is particularly important for studying the unconscious habitus, because it is the natural proxy for the habitus, which is reflectable by social actors in their feel for the game as [9]

10 explained: The habitus is this kind of practical sense for what is to be done in a given situation what is called in sport a feel for the game, that is, the art of anticipating the future of the game, which is inscribed in the present state of play. (Bourdieu, 1998, p.24) Because, [t]he essential part of the modus operandi which defines practical mastery is transmitted in practice without attaining the level of disclosure. Bourdieu (1977, p.87). In this sense, to enact Bourdieu s practical theory in a social study, practice has to be studied: and it is studied to expose the habitus, the very foundation of the theory. 4.5 Enacting the theory of practice in social research For social researchers including those in accounting, Bourdieu suggests three approaches to enacting the theory of practice: (1) reveal the field as a field that composed of different capital and habitus; (2) map out the field in terms of relationship between positions and dispositions (habitus); and (3) investigate the doxa, through studying the social actors practice (Bourdieu, 1997). For the second approach, the mapping out of the field, he uses a statistical method, but this method is used for description not for explanation. Some commentators are of the view that this statistical approach is less significant than his ethnographical effort (Griller, 1996). As an explanation, it is suggested that Bourdieu disapproved of statistical models because they assume human behaviours are intrinsically rational and calculative (Jenkins, 2002, p.72) which conflicts with his notion for the unconsciousness. Instead, for the first and third approaches he uses the ethnographic method; a method perceived by himself (Bourdieu, 1990) as well as by others (e.g., Jenkins, 2002; Griller, 1996) as the most successful approach. In his ethnographical approach, Bourdieu makes explicit his distinctive stance for the relational thinking and reflexivity (Bourdieu, 1990, 1993). The relational thinking, as discussed in Section 3.1, treats the social world as a world of relations. The classes can be subjectively created, but the relations between the classes are objective, and it is these relations that are the objects deserving of empirical study. Reflexivity acknowledges the situation that social researchers are studying an object which they themselves are a part in it (Chia & Holt, 2006; Hall & Callery, 2001). Social researchers need to attach to the social actors in their studies, to get their native voices and practical taxonomies (Bourdieu, 1980, p.86), but at the same time, keep a distance (Griller, 1996, p.3) or epistemological vigilance (Bourdieu et al., 1991, p.72) from what they have voiced or taxonomised. While the attachment resembles Husserl s phenomenological stance (Chia & Mackey, 2007; Throop & Murphy, 2002), the epistemological vigilance avoids the researchers theoretical taxonomies being overruled by the social actors practical taxonomies. Therefore, reflexivity has a close relationship with the attention to social actors practice: Reflexive attention to action itself, when it occurs remains subordinate to the pursuit of the result and to the search for maximum effectiveness of the effort expended Scientific analysis thus encounters and has to surmount, a practical antinomy when it breaks with every form of presuppositions of practical logic, and when it seeks to understand, in and for itself, and not to [10]

11 improve it or reform it, the logic of practice which understands only in order to act. (Bourdieu, 1980, p.91) Are the social researchers presuppositions of practice logic here contradicting Bourdieu s prioritization of their theories as presented in Section 3? No. His intention for reflexivity is really to objectifies the objectifier (Griller, 1996, p.13), to avoid the ethnocentrism (Bourdieu, 1990, p.34) of the social researchers. While he uses his practical theory in the themes of capital, habitus and field to break a field, he allows the social actors voices under these themes to reveal their own practical taxonomies In this sense, Bourdieu s ethnography is also an approach of phenomenology but under the umbrella of his theory of practice. Now to come back to Bourdieu s first approach, that is, to reveal a field as a field of capital and habitus. Why he takes this approach? This is because, The primary differences, those which distinguish the major classes of conditions of existence, derive from the overall volume of capital, understood as the set of actually usable resources and powers economic capital, cultural capital and also social capital. (Bourdieu, 1984, p.108) And within the cultural capital, the habitus needs particular attention because it is inculcated in the social actors life trajectories which set another important dimension for social distinctions (Bourdieu, 1984). The main idea for Bourdieu to approach a field with the lenses of capital and habitus is that: in social battles, it is not really about who is against whom, males against females, blacks against whites, and so on, it is their capital and habitus (life trajectories) that fight. Then how to investigate the doxa; Bourdieu s third approach? As discussed in Section 4.2, doxa is a collective habitus, and part of the habitus lies at the social actors unconsciousness. This brings a challenge for social research because on the one hand, habitus is so essential for the social actors; on the other hand, it cannot be reflected by them. For breaking this dilemma, Bourdieu doesn t provide a clear instruction. What can be inferred from his books (in particular, Bourdieu, 1977, 1980, 1984, 1990, 1991), are his attentions to: the practice, as mentioned in Section 4.4; the history of the field; Freud s psychoanalysis; and Hegel s dialectics. In the history of the field, Bourdieu takes Marx s historical materialism view. He believes doxa is a historical construct, and it is the main mechanism which produces and reproduces both the dominating group and the dominated group in the social field (Swartz, 1997). To study doxa, researchers need to study the history. From Freud s psychoanalysis, Bourdieu pays particular attention to the social actors self-reflection of their life trajectories. He believes the doxa or social conditions can be reflected in their recalling. Further, Bourdieu sees the relations between dominate groups and dominated groups as in Hegel s dialectics. In The Logic of Practice, Bourdieu claims Levi-Strauss is perfectly justified in stating that the two opposing positions amount to exactly the same thing (1980, p.164). Followed this view, dominating and dominated are a pair of thesis and antithesis, and the thesis can be found in the antithesis. Like a male and a female, the maleness can be found by the female in their associations. This being said, Bourdieu is particularly interested in Hegel s slaves standpoint in order to reflect the slavery structure that binds them. The slaves not only seek their masters recognition and appreciation most importantly, but are the handicapped therefore are in a better position to reflect the structure which binds them: [11]

12 The truth of doxa is only ever fully revealed when negatively constituted by the constitution of a field of opinion Crisis is a necessary condition for a questioning of doxa. (Bourdieu, 1972, p ) Who are likely to be at crisis? Those who are dominated or disadvantaged, and are deprived of the required capital. 5. Conducting social research Social research starts from theory and comes back to theory. Henceforward, the hypothesis is a synthesis (Bourdieu et al., 1991, p.63). The capital, habitus, and the doxa underpinning them, as discussed in Section 4.4, find themselves in the unity of practice. Therefore, the practice becomes the stone to test for gold to validate whether the discoveries of capital and habitus are correct, and whether the explanations behind the discoveries are acceptable to an outsider who may be reviewing the robusticity of results. Put it another way, if the practice cannot be explained by the social actor s capital, habitus and the doxa, it is not robust explanatory research. Such research must be rigorous. For rigor, Bourdieu requires a research to be performative (Bourdieu et al., 1991). Research featured with strict positivist objectivity (which is in fact imitating what natural science does), either in the sense of resembling Durkheimians treatment of human as thing (Bourdieu, 1990, p.125), or in Husserl s epoch (Throop & Murphy, 2002, p.190) to reduce their relations to humanity, without discoveries (in particular the discoveries of habitus and doxa), would be valueless. Such an approach, to the most, is an attempt of spurious neutrality (Bourdieu et al., 1991, p.40) or spontaneous sociology (ibid, p.20). Although its procedures may well be faithful or truthful to what the social actors reflect, it has no break of the appearances, therefore falls into the shallowness. It is not enough just having the appearances broken. The broken pieces need to be reassembled to obtain findings, and the reassembled findings must be confirmed with the theory, in the rationality inherent in the practical theory. The confirmatory step is what is termed by Bourdieu as applied rationalism : Applied rationalism breaks with spontaneous sociology above all by reversing the relationship between theory and experiment. The most elementary of operations, observation, which positivism describes as a recording that will be faithful insofar as it eschews theoretical presuppositions, is in fact scientific only insofar as the theoretical principles win which it is armed are conscious and systematic What is observed is often neither relevant nor significant, and what is relevant and significant is often very difficult to observe The facts that validate the theory are only as good as the theory validate The object, it has been said, is what objects. (Bourdieu et al., 1991, p.59-61) As a Chinese person might say, The one who tied the bell unties it, the theory triggers the research and wraps up the research at the end. Bourdieu, in his last words for confirmation, concludes research has two criteria: fidelity to the real, and coherence in theory (Bourdieu et al., 1991). For fidelity to the real, the real means the real in the symbolic or ideological world, not the real physical existences. The ideological real is significant at habitus and its collective sense, the doxa, which dictate the social actors, their practice and dominations in reality. The coherent in theory is a state of theoretical unity which makes sense (Bourdieu et al., 1991, p.65) of what is found in the findings, in very similar terms the logic of progress of physics, a symbolic painting in which continual retouching gives greater comprehensiveness and unity whereas each detail of this picture, cut off [12]

13 and isolated from the whole, loses all meaning and no longer represents anything. If the theory of practice is used, then such unity means the interrelationship between the capital, habitus and doxa which are specific to the field under study. The specific capital, habitus, and doxa must be explained in the social actors practice, with and for each other. The last part of this study offers a review of how these theories are used in one particular topic in research: that of accounting professionalisation research, to illustrate the range and selectivity of its application. 6. Applications of Bourdieu in accounting professionalisation research The preceding discussion reviewed Pierre Bourdieu, his epistemological stance, and his practical theory. This last section will review how Bourdieu s theory is applied in accounting professionalisation research. Malsch, Gendron and Grazzini (2011), three Canadian accounting scholars, have already provided an extensive analysis of Bourdieu s influence on the accounting literature. They found Bourdieu s theory is less used frequently by accounting researchers, when compared with Foucault, Latour or Giddens (ibid, p. 201). If it is used, it is used in piecemeal manner rather in its holistic framework to mobilize the three concepts: capital, habitus and field and their dynamic interrelationship. Among the three concepts, habitus is the core but is given less attention (ibid, p.217). This means many accounting researchers might have missed a chance to use Bourdieu s theory holistically. Instead, some have picked some dislocated /disembodied components of his work, thereby not being rewarded with a full harvest of the benefits that may be brought about with his Theory of practice. Within the 10 year period from Malsch et al. examined the three key journals in the critical paradigm: Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Accounting, Organizations and Society, and Accounting, Auditing and Accountability. This provided 18 articles that used Bourdieu s theory substantially. Among these, two articles are related to the accounting professionalisation field of this study. The first one is Jacobs (2003) examination of the hidden processes of big accounting firms recruiting trainee accountants. Through mobilizing Bourdieu s concept of habitus, he is able to present a sharp argument that recruitment criteria are in fact based on the class and status backgrounds, not merely meritocracy. This recruitment process is camouflaged by the so-called transferable skills that are reiterated by the employers, and such skills are more likely to be acquired by the children of middleclass families. They are a kind of habitus that is passed on through generations within the middle-class families, and so the best-fit candidates for the profession are prepared on an ongoing basis. This class preparation underground invalidates the claim and effort for equality on the surface. The way Jacobs uses Bourdieu s theory is impressive, quintessential. His focus is habitus and he addresses it clearly and logically. To enhance the logic, Jacobs also employs Marx s class concept and Weber s status power to lay further foundation for the use of Bourdieu s theory. Another impressive work is that of Haynes (2008) study of how an accountant s professional identity may be conceived, retained; and then compromised by pregnancy. It is related to accounting professionalisation research.in that it reveals the criteria how a professional accountant is identified. Starting with Giddens agency and a structured dichotomy, Haynes (2008) presents Bourdieu s theory as a theory to best reflect the dialectic relationship between the biological body and the professional identity. In Bourdieu s view, the body is socially constructed, and it is a social entity (Bourdieu, 2001, p.64). Haynes (2008) integrates all the attributes which formed in the professional social context, as found by Grey (1998), Anderson-Gough et al. (1998) and others, into a female s self-consciousness. The way Haynes uses Bourdieu s theory, according to the judgment of Malsch et al. (2011), is [13]

14 appropriate. Her focus is on the habitus, and more specifically, on internal conflicts within a habitus. She would otherwise not be able to present an insight that is so in-depth and sensitive to touch the reader s heart. Malsch et al. (2011) identify that it is rare that Bourdieu s triad is used as a whole set. Such rarity hasn t been materially impacted since the 10-year period they examined. Ikin and Johns and Hayes (2012) 1 offered a historical study of processes whereby women entered into the Australian accounting profession. Spence and Brivot s (2011) offered an examination on the social exclusion of Francophones from the Canadian accounting profession. Ikin et al. (2012) start their argument with presenting the professional field as a field of hierarchies and the hierarchical order is determined by the capital that the social actors possess. Their focus is on capital. They treat accounting expertise and its social recognition as a form of symbolic capital, which before the World War II, was traditionally attached to male accountants. The male symbolism was a habitus which dominated the profession for a long time. It was challenged by mechanisms within the accountancy labour market when men were in short supply: men were leaving the field to fight the war. This created the urgency for employers to employ people from the reserve army pool, and women responded to this urgency very positively. They took up the roles which were left by men and proved equally good. The male symbolism in the profession has since changed, and thus we see more and more women entering into the profession. The manner in which Ikin et al. (2012) apply Bourdieu s theory, as compared with Jacobs (2003) and Haynes (2008), may be open to slightly more criticism. This is because from the premise that the professional field is a field of hierarchies determined by capital, one cannot relate it to the fact that the reason for women entering into the profession is the outbreak of war. Admittedly, Ikin et al. (2012) do provide an avenue through symbolic capital, which in their view, contains the maleness habitus. The fact women happened to enter into the profession has changed the collective habitus or doxa, and thus changed the symbolic capital they possess. They therefore were able to take positions at a higher hierarchical level. The premise that underpins their logic is that habitus is changeable and it is changed according to the change of the social environment. But would it be changed so abruptly, as to fill the urgency brought by the war? It seems to contradict with the concept of habitus which Bourdieu has intended. Bourdieu, in The Logic of Practice, the book to which Ikin et al. referred, makes it clear that habitus is a historical impetus, a regenerative scheme of the past history (Bourdieu, 1980, p.54) 2. If this were not true, it would not become the key to produce and reproduce the social and cultural domination for the profession the premise which supports Jacobs (2003), Haynes (2008), and others arguments. Yes, Ikin et al. (2012) may argue that increasing numbers of women entering into the profession is a gradual process, taking years to become a phenomenon impacting sufficiently on the gender profile of the profession; but in the end, they leave the readers with some unanswered questions. The problem lies at the way they use Bourdieu s theory. They could have focused on habitus primarily. How women have attempted to enter into the profession and how they have overcome the barriers within society (sticky floors and glass ceilings) as well as individual choices made by each person may better inform their research question? If they set the habitus as the focus, they might have offered a more sensitive research (Malsch et al, 2011, p.217). They might have indicated in a more direct manner, that the habitus which operationalised into an accounting career was within the capacity of women long before the War, 1 Although Ikin at al was 2012, earlier versions ( 2010) had been available 2 It is the same book, The Logic of Practice, which Ikin, Johns and Hayes (2012) have used [14]

15 or the individual habitus which allows society to prefer the male is but a temporary state. Another problem in that of highlighting all the forms of capital except the economic one. They treat accounting expertise and its social recognition as symbolic capital rather than economic. They appear to overlook that Bourdieu s theory is largely developed from Marx s economic class and Weber s social status theories (Biggart 2002; Jacobs, 2003). Bourdieu s theory may be better contextualised if accounting expertise and its societal recognition were treated as economic capital. Such human capital would be identified by the employers as production forces and also by the accountants themselves as an important means with which to monopolize the market (Schutz, 1961; Weber, 1987 [1922]). Such forms of capital are more real than symbolic, although remain dualistic. As compared to Ikin et al. (2012), Spence and Brivot (2011) use Bourdieu s theory in a more robust approach. Although they use Bourdieu s socio-linguistic theory, rather than his theory of practice, they retain the habitus focus nonetheless. Language is a category of habitus which is inculcated in one s early life. It is a product of culture and symbolizes the speaker s social and economic background. In the professional arena, language becomes a commodity to trade (Bourdieu, 1991). Because they speak different languages, Anglophones and Francophones are distinguished from each other. Francophones appear to find it hard to be accepted by the Anglophones, who dominate the accounting profession. This process is less obvious, and may not even be experienced by the French themselves, but it is a continuing phenomenon. The effect of Spence and Brivot (2011) mobilizing the habitus concept is that the reader can clearly observe another dimension in closure mechanisms, in addition to those that are most widespread, such as class, gender, and race. Providing another important dimension was what Spence and Brivot (2011, p.168) intended to achieve, and they have achieved it very well. The key to their success is their treatment of language as habitus. It is habitus, therefore hard to change. If it was not for the fear that Francophones were to erect a separate profession to compete with them, Anglophones might still not have changed their linguistic rules for entry to the profession. The above discussion has reviewed four articles in the accounting professionalisation literature that have applied Bourdieu s theory. Although the style of their use of Bourdieu s theory may be different, they have all produced important insights and findings. Those who take habitus as the primary focus appear more likely to produce the strongest and robust research outcomes. Apart from Spence and Brivot (2011) (who use Bourdieu s socio-linguistic theory), the other three have used the Bourdieu practical theory; however, none has used it completely as a holistic framework. None have offered discussion to extend to allowing practice sufficient attention; even though it is the construct that best reflects the triadic interrelationship. Furthermore, none have used Bourdieu s practical theory at an epistemological level, a level that uses Bourdieu s theory in his epistemology, not a level that uses just one or two concepts of the theory. In this sense, their applications of Bourdieu s practical theory may be less than wholly satisfactory, and the key findings of the critique by Malsch, Gendron and Grazzini (2011) remain evident 7. Conclusion The theory of practice views the world as a big field, under which are sub-fields. Fields are both autonomous and homological: autonomy means a new field always deserves a study; whereas the homology makes the field discoverable because it can transpose the logic of a known field to a field as yet unknown, albeit through analogy. Bourdieu theory of practice is such a theory, and it is used not only by Bourdieu but also by others as meta-theory to apply to a variety of fields. [15]

16 The theory treats all fields as fields of struggles, and the struggles are in fact the battles between different forms of capital and habitus. Social actors are in different positions in the struggles because they have different capital and habitus, the status and potency of which are under the control of doxa, the very ideologies that dominate the field. Capital, habitus, and the doxa are interrelated with each other and their interrelationship is manifested in the social actors practice. In operationalizing his practical theory in social research, Bourdieu suggests three approaches: reveal a field as a field of capital and habitus, map out the field in the relationship between positions and dispositions, and, lastly, to investigate the doxa. His second approach which employs statistical methods may be seen as less significant and less persuasive. Instead, his first and third approaches, which use the ethnographical method, are seen (with the benefit of hindsight) as most successful. Having said this, it must be added that his ethnography equates with the phenomenology posited by Husserl, but such phenomenological analysis must be under his practical themes: capital, habitus, doxa and field Bourdieu aims for social research to find the habitus and doxa, which are key mechanisms for social exclusion and reproduction of dominance in social fields. For finding the doxa, however, he encounters a dilemma. The doxa is a collective sense of habitus which, or at least part of which, is unconscious or tacit to the social actors. To resolve this dilemma, Bourdieu did not provide clear instruction for a new researcher using this theory. However from inferences taken from his writings, we can see there are four approaches: i. a focus on the social actors practice, ii. a study of the field s historical and social conditions with a focus on the ideologies in Marxist tradition, iii. social actors retrospective reflection on their life trajectories, and possibly most importantly, iv. a study of the views of those disadvantaged, who are deprived of the required capital. To validate what is discovered for the capital, habitus and the doxa, the social actors practice must be interrogated. This is because capital, habitus and doxa manifest themselves in the practice. The habitus and doxa can be unconscious or tacit in nature, but they will be made explicit if the research focus remains on social actors logic of practice. The capital, habitus, and doxa must make sense with, and for each other, in the actors practice. Furthermore, this review refers to rigor. The rigor, in Bourdieu s view, is not so much so about a positivists scientific city (Bourdieu et al., 1991, p.74), but discovery. It is about how to break the findings from what the researched subjects have said, and use the theory to reconstruct the findings to obtain new understandings. The objective of this paper was to present a discussion about Bourdieu s practical theory with a focus on his epistemology in order to inform accounting researchers understanding or utilisation of his theoretical approach in their own research. It was observed that some of the uses of Pierre Bourdieu s practical epistemology in accounting-related research are noteworthy and commendable; others appear to be weaker or selective in focus. This has cast further light on what many think of as a difficult theoretical framework, in the hope that the value of his theory of practice may be appreciated even more widely than it is at present. There is much to be gained from keeping Bourdieu s contributions in the spotlight of critical research. [16]

17 References: Anderson-Gough, F., Grey, C., and Robson, K., (1998). Work hard, Play Hard : An Analysis of Organizational Cliché in Two Accountancy Practices, Organization, 5: Biggart, N. W. (ed.) Readings in Economic Sociology, Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Bourdieu, P. 1972, Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge University Press , The Logic of Practice. Stanford University Press , Distinction. Harvard University Press , In Other Words: Towards a Reflexive Sociology. Stanford University Press , Language and Symbolic Power. Polity Press , Sociology in Question. Sage Publications , The State Nobility. Polity Press , Practical Reason. Stanford University Press , Masculine Domination. Polity Press , The Forms of Capital. In N.W. Biggart, (ed.) Readings in Economic Sociology, pp Oxford, UK: Blackwell , The Social Structures of the Economy. Polity Press. Bourdieu, P., Chamboredon, J. & Passeron, J The Craft of Sociology: Epistemological Preliminaries. Berlin/New York: Walter De Gruyter & Co. Chia, R, & Holt, R Strategy as practical coping: A Heideggerian perspective. Organization Studies, 27: Chia, R., & Mackey, B Post-processual challenges for the emerging strategy-as-practice perspective: Discovering strategy in the logic of practice. Human Relations. Sage Publications, 60: Everett, J Organizational research and the praxeology of Pierre Bourdieu. Organizational Research Methods, 5: Field, J. 2008, Social capital, 2 nd ed. London/New York: Routledge. Fowler, B. 1997, Pierre Bourdieu and cultural theory: critical investigation. London/New Delhi: Sage Publications. Grey, C., On being a professional in a Big Six firm, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 23, 5/6, pp Griller, R The return of the subject? The methodology of Pierre Bourdieu. Critical Sociology, 22: Hall, W. A., and Callery, P Enhancing the rigor of grounded theory: incorporating reflexivity and relationality. Qualitative Health Research, 11(2), Haynes, K. 2008, (Re)figuring accounting and maternal bodies: the gendered embodiment of accounting professionals", Accounting, Organizations and Society, 33 No.4/5 pp Husserl, E The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Ikin, C., Johns, L., and Hayes, C., 2012, Field, capital and habitus: An oral history of women in accounting in Australia during World War II, Accounting History 17.2: Inglis, D., and J. Hughson, 2003, Confronting culture: sociological vistas - in the French style: the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Polity Press. Jacobs, K. 2003, Class Reproduction in Professional Recruitment: Examining the Accounting Profession, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Vol. 14, No. 5, pp [17]

18 Jenkins, R. 2002, Pierre Bourdieu, revised edition. London, New York: Routledge. Malsch, B., Gendron, Y., & Grazzini, F Investigating interdisciplinary translations: The influence of Pierre Bourdieu on accounting literature. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability, 24(2): Ruiz, J Sociological discourse analysis: Methods and logic. Qualitative Social Research, 10(2), Art 26. Schultz, W., T Investment in human capital. The American Economic Review, 51(1):1-17. Spence, C and Brivot, M. 2011, No French, no more : Language-based exclusion in North America s first professional accounting order, , Accounting, Business and Financial History 22 (2011): Swartz, 1997, Culture & Power: the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. University of Chicago Press. Swartz, L., D The sociology of habit: the perspective of Pierre Bourdieu. The Occupational Therapy Journal of Research, 22, Throop, C. J., & Murphy, M. K Bourdieu and phenomenology: A critical assessment. Anthropological Theory, 2: Wacquant, L Pierre Bourdieu. In: Stones R (ed.) Key Contemporary Thinkers, 2nd ed. London/New York: Macmillan. Weber, M, (first published 1922) Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. University of California Press. [18]