Academic literature on the topic 'Bourdieu, Pierre, 1930-2002 – Criticism and interpretation'

In recent years there has been an intense profusion of qualitative research in education in Brazil, with a growing emphasis on the use of ethnography; however, there has also been an intense debate about the uses and possibilities of ethnography in education, including criticism of how It has been incorporated into educational research. In this article, in a broad dialogue between anthropology and education, I seek to elucidate some questions about the use of ethnography, but starting from a particular conception of ethnography, developed in what is called interpretative anthropology, based mainly on the work of the American anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1926 -2006).ResumoEm período recente tem havido uma intensa profusão de pesquisas qualitativas em educação no Brasil, ganhando um destaque crescente o uso da etnografia, entretanto, tem ocorrido também um intenso debate sobre os usos e possibilidades da etnografia em educação, incluindo críticas à forma como ela tem sido incorporada na pesquisa educacional. Neste artigo, num amplo diálogo entre antropologia e educação, busco elucidar algumas questões sobre o uso da etnografia, porém partindo de uma concepção particular de etnografia, desenvolvida no que se denomina de antropologia interpretativa, assentada principalmente na obra do antropólogo americano Clifford Geertz (1926-2006).ResumenEn un período reciente ha habido una intensa profusión de investigaciones cualitativas en educación en Brasil, ganando un destaque creciente el uso de la etnografía, sin embargo, ha ocurrido también un intenso debate sobre los usos y posibilidades de la etnografía en educación, incluyendo críticas a la forma como se ha incorporado en la investigación educativa. En este artículo, en un amplio diálogo entre antropología y educación, busco elucidar algunas cuestiones sobre el uso de la etnografía, pero partiendo de una concepción particular de etnografía, desarrollada en lo que se denomina antropología interpretativa, asentada principalmente en la obra del antropólogo americano Clifford Geertz (1926 -2006).Palavras-chave: Etnografia, Antropologia da educação, Pesquisa educacional.Keywords: Ethnography, Anthropology of education, Educational research.Palabras Claves: Etnografía, Antropología de la educación, Investigación educativa.ReferencesANDRÉ, Marli E.D.A. Etnografia da prática escolar. Campinas: Papirus, 1995.ALEXANDER, Jeffrey; SMITH, Philipe. Introduction: the rise and fall and rise of Clifford Geertz. In: ALEXANDER, Jeffrey; NORTON, Matthew (Orgs.). Interpreting Clifford Geertz: cultural investigation in the social sciences, New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2011, p. 1-8.BARTH, Fredrik. O guru, o iniciador e outras variações antropológicas. Rio de Janeiro: Contra Capa Livraria, 2000.BOURDIEU, Pierre; PASSERON, Jean-Claude. A Reprodução. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2008.BOURDIEU, Pierre; PASSERON, Jean-Claude. Os Herdeiros. Florianópolis: EDUFSC, 2014.DAUSTER, Tânia. An interdisciplinary experience in anthropology and education: memory, academic project and political background. Vibrant, v. 12, n. 2, p. 451-496, 2015.DIAS SILVA, Graziela M. Sociologia da Sociologia da Educação: caminhos e desafios de uma Policy Science no Brasil (1920-1979). Bragança Paulista: Edusf, 2002.FONSECA, Claudia. Quando cada caso NÃO é um caso: pesquisa etnográfica e educação. Revista Brasileira de Educação, Rio de Janeiro, ANPEd, n. 10, p. 58-78, jan./abr. 1999.FORQUIN, Jean-Claude. Escola e cultura. Porto Alegre, Artes Médicas, 1993.GEERTZ, Clifford. A interpretação das culturas. Rio de Janeiro: LTC 1989.GEERTZ, Clifford. Atrás dos Fatos: dois países, quatro décadas, um antropólogo. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2012.GEERTZ, Clifford. Nova luz sobre a antropologia. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 2001.GEERTZ, Clifford. O saber local: novos ensaios em antropologia interpretativa. Petrópolis, Vozes,1997.GEERTZ, Clifford. Obras e vidas: o antropólogo como autor. Rio de Janeiro, Editora da UFRJ, 2005.GODELIER, Maurice. O Enigma do Dom. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2001.GOMES, Ana M. R.; GOMES, Nilma L. Anthropology and Education in Brazil: Possible Pathways. In: ANDERSON-LEVITT (Ed.) Anthropologies of Education: A Global Guide to Ethnographic Studies of Learning and Schooling. New York: Berghahn Books, 2011, p. 111-130.GUSMÃO, Neusa. Entrelugares: antropologia e educação no Brasil. Educação, v. 34, n. 1, p. 29-46, 2009.MAGGIE, Yvonne; PRADO, Ana. O que muda e o que permanece o mesmo nas escolas cariocas: culturas de gestão e as representações dos estudantes. In: GUEDES, Simone Lahud; CIPINIUK, Tatiana (Orgs.) Abordagens etnográficas sobre educação: adentrando os muros das escolas. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Alternativa, 2014, p. 69-81.NAGLE, Jorge. Educação e sociedade na Primeira República. São Paulo: EDUSP, 1988.OLIVEIRA, Amurabi. O Lugar da Antropologia na Formação Docente: um olhar a partir das Escolas Normais, Pro-Posições, v. 24, n. 2, p. 27-40, 2013a.OLIVEIRA, Amurabi. Por que etnografia no sentido estrito e não estudos do tipo etnográfico em educação? Revista FAEEBA, v. 22, n. 40, p. 69-82, 2013b.OLIVEIRA, Amurabi; ALMIRANTE, Kleverton Arthur. Aprendendo com o Axé: processos educativos no terreiro e o que as crianças pensam sobre ele e a escola. Revista Ilha, v. 16, n. 1, p. 139-174, 2014.OLIVEIRA, Amurabi; BOIN, Felipe; BÚRIGO, Beatriz. A Antropologia, os Antropólogos e a Educação no Brasil. Revista Anthropológicas, v. 27, n. 1, p. 21-44, 2016.OLIVEIRA, Roberto Cardoso de. O trabalho do antropólogo. São Paulo, Editora UNESP, 2006.TOSTA, Sandra de F. P. Cruzando Fronteiras - entre a Antropologia e a Educação no Brasil e na Argentina. Pró-Posições, v. 24, n. 2, p. 95-107, 2013.WOORTMANN, Klaas. A etnologia (quase) esquecida de Bourdieu, ou o que fazer com heresias. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, v. 19, n. 5, p. 129-137, 2004.

IntroductionIf human beings have become a geophysical force, capable of impacting the very crust and atmosphere of the planet, and if geophysical forces become objects of study, presences able to be charted over millions of years—one of our many problems is a 'naming' problem. - Bethany NowviskieThe anthropocene "denotes the present time interval, in which many geologically significant conditions and processes are profoundly altered by human activities" (S.Q.S.). Although the narrative and terminology of the anthropocene has not been officially legitimized by the scientific community as a whole, it has been adopted worldwide by a plethora of social and cultural studies. The challenges of the anthropocene demand interdisciplinary efforts and actions. New contexts, situations and environments call for original naming propositions: new terminologies are always illegitimate at the moment of their first appearance in the world.Against the background of the naming challenges of the anthropocene, we will map the emergence and tell the story of a tiny world within the world of media studies: the world of the term 'nanomedia' and its hyphenated sister 'nano-media'. While we tell the story of the uses of this term, its various meanings and applications, we will provide yet another possible interpretation and application to the term, one that we believe might be helpful to interdisciplinary media studies in the context of the anthropocene. Contemporary media terminologies are usually born out of fortuitous exchanges between communication technologies and their various social appropriations: hypodermic media, interactive media, social media, and so on and so forth. These terminologies are either recognised as the offspring of legitimate scientific endeavours by the media theory community, or are widely discredited and therefore rendered illegitimate. Scientific legitimacy comes from the broad recognition and embrace of a certain term and its inclusion in the canon of an epistemology. Illegitimate processes of theoretical enquiry and the study of the kinds of deviations that might deem a theory unacceptable have been scarcely addressed (Delborne). Rejected terminologies and theories are marginalised and gain the status of bastard epistemologies of media, considered irrelevant and unworthy of mention and recognition. Within these margins, however, different streams of media theories which involve conceptual hybridizations can be found: creole encounters between high culture and low culture (James), McLuhan's hybrid that comes from the 'meeting of two media' (McLuhan 55), or even 'bastard spaces' of cultural production (Bourdieu). Once in a while a new media epistemology arises that is categorised as a bastard not because of plain rejection or criticism, but because of its alien origins, formations and shape. New theories are currently emerging out of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary thinking which are, in many ways, bearers of strange features and characteristics that might render its meaning elusive and obscure to a monodisciplinary perspective. Radical transdisciplinary thinking is often alien and alienated. It results from unconventional excursions into uncharted territories of enquiry: bastard epistemologies arise from such exchanges. Being itself a product of a mestizo process of thinking, this article takes a look into the term nanomedia (or nano-media): a marginal terminology within media theory. This term is not to be confounded with the term biomedia, coined by Eugene Thacker (2004). (The theory of biomedia has acquired a great level of scientific legitimacy, however it refers to the moist realities of the human body, and is more concerned with cyborg and post-human epistemologies. The term nanomedia, on the contrary, is currently being used according to multiple interpretations which are mostly marginal, and we argue, in this paper, that such uses might be considered illegitimate). ’Nanomedia’ was coined outside the communications area. It was first used by scientific researchers in the field of optics and physics (Rand et al), in relation to flows of media via nanoparticles and optical properties of nanomaterials. This term would only be used in media studies a couple of years later, with a completely different meaning, without any acknowledgment of its scientific origins and context. The structure of this narrative is thus illegitimate, and as such does not fit into traditional modalities of written expression: there are bits and pieces of information and epistemologies glued together as a collage of nano fragments which combine philology, scientific literature, digital ethnography and technology reviews. Transgressions Illegitimate theories might be understood in terms of hybrid epistemologies that intertwine disciplines and perspectives, rendering its outcomes inter or transdisciplinary, and therefore prone to being considered marginal by disciplinary communities. Such theories might also be considered illegitimate due to social and political power struggles which aim to maintain territory by reproducing specific epistemologies within a certain field. Scientific legitimacy is a social and political process, which has been widely addressed. Pierre Bourdieu, in particular, has dedicated most of his work to deciphering the intricacies of academic wars around the legitimacy or illegitimacy of theories and terminologies. Legitimacy also plays a role in determining the degree to which a certain theory will be regarded as relevant or irrelevant:Researchers’ tendency to concentrate on those problems regarded as the most important ones (e.g. because they have been constituted as such by producers endowed with a high degree of legitimacy) is explained by the fact that a contribution or discovery relating to those questions will tend to yield greater symbolic profit (Bourdieu 22).Exploring areas of enquiry which are outside the boundaries of mainstream scientific discourses is a dangerous affair. Mixing different epistemologies in the search for transversal grounds of knowledge might result in unrecognisable theories, which are born out of a combination of various processes of hybridisation: social, technological, cultural and material.Material mutations are happening that call for new epistemologies, due to the implications of current technological possibilities which might redefine our understanding of mediation, and expand it to include molecular forms of communication. A new terminology that takes into account the scientific and epistemological implications of nanotechnology applied to communication [and that also go beyond cyborg metaphors of a marriage between biology and cibernetics] is necessary. Nanomedia and nanomediations are the terminologies proposed in this article as conceptual tools to allow these further explorations. Nanomedia is here understood as the combination of different nanotechnological mediums of communication that are able to create and disseminate meaning via molecular exchange and/ or assembly. Nanomediation is here defined as the process of active transmission and reception of signs and meaning using nanotechnologies. These terminologies might help us in conducting interdisciplinary research and observations that go deeper into matter itself and take into account its molecular spaces of mediation - moving from metaphor into pragmatics. Nanomedia(s)Within the humanities, the term 'nano-media' was first proposed by Mojca Pajnik and John Downing, referring to small media interventions that communicate social meaning in independent ways. Their use of term 'nano-media' proposes to be a revised alternative to the plethora of terms that categorise such media actions, such as alternative media, community media, tactical media, participatory media, etc. The metaphor of smallness implied in the term nano-media is used to categorise the many fragments and complexities of political appropriations of independent media. Historical examples of the kind of 'nano' social interferences listed by Downing (2),include the flyers (Flugblätter) of the Protestant Reformation in Germany; the jokes, songs and ribaldry of François Rabelais’ marketplace ... the internet links of the global social justice (otromundialista) movement; the worldwide community radio movement; the political documentary movement in country after country.John Downing applies the meaning of the prefix nano (coming from the Greek word nanos - dwarf), to independent media interventions. His concept is rooted in an analysis of the social actions performed by local movements scattered around the world, politically engaged and tactically positioned. A similar, but still unique, proposition to the use of the term 'nano-media' appeared 2 years later in the work of Graham St John (442):If ‘mass media’ consists of regional and national print and television news, ‘niche media’ includes scene specific publications, and ‘micro media’ includes event flyers and album cover art (that which Eshun [1998] called ‘conceptechnics’), and ‘social media’ refers to virtual social networks, then the sampling of popular culture (e.g. cinema and documentary sources) using the medium of the programmed music itself might be considered nano-media.Nano-media, according to Graham St John, "involves the remediation of samples from popular sources (principally film) as part of the repertoire of electronic musicians in their efforts to create a distinct liminalized socio-aesthetic" (St John 445). While Downing proposes to use the term nano-media as a way to "shake people free of their obsession with the power of macro-media, once they consider the enormous impact of nano-technologies on our contemporary world" (Downing 1), Graham St John uses the term to categorise media practices specific to a subculture (psytrance). Since the use of the term 'nano-media' in relation to culture seems to be characterised by the study of marginalised social movements, portraying a hybrid remix of conceptual references that, if not completely illegitimate, would be located in the border of legitimacy within media theories, I am hereby proposing yet another bastard version of the concept of nanomedia (without a hyphen). Given that neither of the previous uses of the term 'nano-media' within the discipline of media studies take into account the technological use of the prefix nano, it is time to redefine the term in direct relation to nanotechnologies and communication devices. Let us start by taking a look at nanoradios. Nanoradios are carbon nanotubes connected in such a way that when electrodes flow through the nanotubes, various electrical signals recover the audio signals encoded by the radio wave being received (Service). Nanoradios are examples of the many ways in which nanotechnologies are converging with and transforming our present information and communication technologies. From molecular manufacturing (Drexler) to quantum computing (Deutsch), we now have a wide spectrum of emerging and converging technologies that can act as nanomedia - molecular structures built specifically to act as communication devices.NanomediationsBeyond literal attempts to replicate traditional media artifacts using nanotechnologies, we find deep processes of mediation which are being called nanocommunication (Hara et al.) - mediation that takes place through the exchange of signals between molecules: Nanocommunication networks (nanonetworks) can be used to coordinate tasks and realize them in a distributed manner, covering a greater area and reaching unprecedented locations. Molecular communication is a novel and promising way to achieve communication between nanodevices by encoding messages inside molecules. (Abadal & Akyildiz) Nature is nanotechnological. Living systems are precise mechanisms of physical engineering: our molecules obey our DNA and fall into place according to biological codes that are mysteriously written in our every cell. Bodies are perfectly mediated - biological systems of molecular communication and exchange. Humans have always tried to emulate or to replace natural processes by artificial ones. Nanotechnology is not an exception. Many nanotechnological applications try to replicate natural systems, for example: replicas of nanostructures found in lotus flowers are now being used in waterproof fabrics, nanocrystals, responsible for resistance of cobwebs, are being artificially replicated for use in resistant materials, and various proteins are being artificially replicated as well (NNI 05). In recent decades, the methods of manipulation and engineering of nano particles have been perfected by scientists, and hundreds of nanotechnological products are now being marketed. Such nano material levels are now accessible because our digital technologies were advanced enough to allow scientific visualization and manipulation at the atomic level. The Scanning Tunneling Microscopes (STMs), by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer (1986), might be considered as the first kind of nanomedia devices ever built. STMs use quantum-mechanical principles to capture information about the surface of atoms and molecules, allowed digital imaging and visualization of atomic surfaces. Digital visualization of atomic surfaces led to the discovery of buckyballs and nanotubes (buckytubes), structures that are celebrated today and received their names in honor of Buckminster Fuller. Nanotechnologies were developed as a direct consequence of the advancement of digital technologies in the fields of scientific visualisation and imaging. Nonetheless, a direct causal relationship between nano and digital technologies is not the only correlation between these two fields. Much in the same manner in which digital technologies allow infinite manipulation and replication of data, nanotechnologies would allow infinite manipulation and replication of molecules. Nanocommunication could be as revolutionary as digital communication in regards to its possible outcomes concerning new media. Full implementation of the new possibilities of nanomedia would be equivalent or even more revolutionary than digital networks are today. Nanotechnology operates at an intermediate scale at which the laws of classical physics are mixed to the laws of quantum physics (Holister). The relationship between digital technologies and nanotechnologies is not just instrumental, it is also conceptual. We might compare the possibilities of nanotechnology to hypertext: in the same way that a word processor allows the expression of any type of textual structure, so nanotechnology could allow, in principle, for a sort of "3-D printing" of any material structure.Nanotechnologies are essentially media technologies. Nanomedia is now a reality because digital technologies made possible the visualization and computational simulation of the behavior of atomic particles at the nano level. Nanomachines that can build any type of molecular structure by atomic manufacturing could also build perfect replicas of themselves. Obviously, such a powerful technology offers medical and ecological dangers inherent to atomic manipulation. Although this type of concern has been present in the global debate about the social implications of nanotechnology, its full implications are yet not entirely understood. A general scientific consensus seems to exist, however, around the idea that molecules could become a new type of material alphabet, which, theoretically, would make possible the reconfiguration of the physical structures of any type of matter using molecular manufacturing. Matter becomes digital through molecular communication.Although the uses given to the term nano-media in the context of cultural and social studies are merely metaphorical - the prefix nano is used by humanists as an allegorical reference of a combination between 'small' and 'contemporary' - once the technological and scientifical realities of nanomedia present themselves as a new realm of mediation, populated with its own kind of molecular devices, it will not be possible to ignore its full range of implications anymore. A complexifying media ecosystem calls for a more nuanced and interdisciplinary approach to media studies.ConclusionThis article narrates the different uses of the term nanomedia as an illustration of the way in which disciplinarity determines the level of legitimacy or illegitimacy of an emerging term. We then presented another possible use of the term in the field of media studies, one that is more closely aligned with its scientific origins. The importance and relevance of this narrative is connected to the present challenges we face in the anthropocene. The reality of the anthropocene makes painfully evident the full extent of the impact our technologies have had in the present condition of our planet's ecosystems. For as long as we refuse to engage directly with the technologies themselves, trying to speak the language of science and technology in order to fully understand its wider consequences and implications, our theories will be reduced to fancy metaphors and aesthetic explorations which circulate around the critical issues of our times without penetrating them. The level of interdisciplinarity required by the challenges of the anthropocene has to go beyond anthropocentrism. Traditional theories of media are anthropocentric: we seem to be willing to engage only with that which we are able to recognise and relate to. Going beyond anthropocentrism requires that we become familiar with interdisciplinary discussions and perspectives around common terminologies so we might reach a consensus about the use of a shared term. For scientists, nanomedia is an information and communication technology which is simultaneously a tool for material engineering. For media artists and theorists, nano-media is a cultural practice of active social interference and artistic exploration. However, none of the two approaches is able to fully grasp the magnitude of such an inter and transdisciplinary encounter: when communication becomes molecular engineering, what are the legitimate boundaries of media theory? If matter becomes not only a medium, but also a language, what would be the conceptual tools needed to rethink our very understanding of mediation? Would this new media epistemology be considered legitimate or illegitimate? Be it legitimate or illegitimate, a new media theory must arise that challenges and overcomes the walls which separate science and culture, physics and semiotics, on the grounds that it is a transdisciplinary change on the inner workings of media itself which now becomes our vector of epistemological and empirical transformation. A new media theory which not only speaks the language of molecular technologies but that might be translated into material programming, is the only media theory equipped to handle the challenges of the anthropocene. ReferencesAbadal, Sergi, and Ian F. Akyildiz. "Bio-Inspired Synchronization for Nanocommunication Networks." Global Telecommunications Conference (GLOBECOM), 2011.Borisenko, V. E., and S. Ossicini. What Is What in the Nanoworld: A Handbook on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. Weinheim: Wiley-VCH, 2005.Bourdieu, Pierre. "The Specificity of the Scientific Field and the Social Conditions of the Progress of Reason." Social Science Information 14 (Dec. 1975): 19-47.---. La Distinction: Critique Sociale du Jugement. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1979. Delborne, Jason A. "Transgenes and Transgressions: Scientific Dissent as Heterogeneous Practice". Social Studies of Science 38 (2008): 509.Deutsch, David. The Beginning of Infinity. London: Penguin, 2011.Downing, John. 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Ljubljana, Slovenia: Peace Institute, 2008. 7-16.Qarehbaghi, Reza, Hao Jiang, and Bozena Kaminska. "Nano-Media: Multi-Channel Full Color Image with Embedded Covert Information Display." In ACM SIGGRAPH 2014 Posters. New York: ACM, 2014. Rand, Stephen C., Costa Soukolis, and Diederik Wiersma. "Localization, Multiple Scattering, and Lasing in Random Nanomedia." JOSA B 21.1 (2004): 98-98.Service, Robert F. "TF10: Nanoradio." MIT Technology Review April 2008. Shanken, Edward A. "Artists in Industry and the Academy: Collaborative Research, Interdisciplinary Scholarship and the Creation and Interpretation of Hybrid Forms." Leonardo 38.5 (Oct. 2005): 415-418.St John, Graham. "Freak Media: Vibe Tribes, Sampledelic Outlaws and Israeli Psytrance." Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 26. 3 (2012): 437–447.Subcomission on Quartenary Stratigraphy (S.Q.S.). "What Is the Anthropocene?" Quaternary.stratigraphy.org.Thacker, Eugene. Biomedia. 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Should ethical standards be enforced on performers or their critics? Asking such a question may stimulate memories of personal or professional censorship and fearful imaginings of oppressive, fascist regimes. Indeed, many of us might immediately respond by arguing that personal expression should never be inhibited since a person's right to free expression is an essential tenet of a democratic society. Yet this question raises issues that are not easily dismissed and it may remind us that it is equally important to remember that a number of responsibilities and repercussions can accompany the public expression of personal experiences and opinions. A short time ago, I was told that this journal had to grapple with similar considerations when a performer decided to pursue legal action after reading a critical account of his/her performance in M/C Reviews. When I was first asked to comment on this situation, I initially found myself considering familiar arguments that defend the right to free speech. However, upon reflection, I think there is more to be said about the long term causes and effects of such an action and I wish to explore how this incident illustrates the friction that can be generated when traditional and emergent value systems are adopted indiscriminately. To me, the dispute between the performer and M/C illustrates what seems to be a growing confusion surrounding interpretations of what is right (what is legal or permissible?), what is true (whose opinion?), and what is good (the performance or an audience's response?). Although definitions of what is right, true, and good have always had to negotiate shifting boundaries, the increasingly blurry usages of these terms are reflecting a waxing disregard for how these distinctions impact upon our judgements. Jon McKenzie has offered some explanation of this new social attitude in his recently published text Perform or Else. Throughout this text, he argues that 'performance' is now widely recognised in commercial industries as a conceptual tool for assessing human and technological standards and that this concept is fast becoming the dominant social model of evaluation. According to McKenzie, traditional philosophical distinctions are becoming less influential, while performance 'effectiveness' and 'efficiency' are increasingly being viewed as the new measurements of what is right, true, and good (178-79). McKenzie's assessment of the social demand to perform echoes the comments of other twentieth-century theorists who have warned us of the growing objectification and alienation of human labour. However, his message is timely and provocative and it offers some explanation of the confusion surrounding critical appraisals of performances and performer's experiences. There is certainly evidence of a growing demand for efficient and effective appraisal of all human performance as individuals, companies, and governments produce reports, conduct market research, and continue to try and predict what results will be produced before any investment of personal or financial energy is committed. Yet as our society continues to develop a dependency on critical opinion, it unfortunately seems to be distancing audiences and performers, devaluing personal interpretations, and encouraging fewer exchanges between groups with varying values. Such distinctive separations can, in turn, isolate social groups and identities and invite exclusivity and intolerance for other evaluations. This kind of alienation seems to have governed the dispute between the performer and the critic from M/C. Although these trends may have made it socially 'permissible' to pursue legal action against critics, performers, or anyone else who expresses negative or unpalatable opinions, I think it is essential that we continue to ask whether is it right, or good to do so. Is it right or good to penalise someone for expressing a personal opinion? Is it right or good to object to an evaluation when someone offers a performance for appraisal? These are, of course, ethical questions that can only be hinted at here. However, I believe it is important to remember that live performing art forms can physically bring together varying social demographics and that they are therefore in a unique position to provide conceptual bridges between social groups with differing opinions. I wish to emphasise this fact and to ask readers to consider whether they wish opinions to become more and more polarised, or whether they wish to finds ways to enable us to appreciate and evaluate the diverse interpretations of performances more harmoniously. It is true that the 'objective' certainties associated with the basic principles of aesthetic appreciation are sagging under the weight of arguments from critical theory and postmodernism. It may also be true that the only certainty that will soon enjoy popular appeal may be one that suggests that pragmatic considerations should govern what we view as right, true, and good. All of these developments introduce challenges that need to be addressed. However, I do not believe they exclude the possibility that a shared theoretical perspective can be developed that can allow us to build bridges of understanding between varying opinions and social demands. Philosophers and social theorists such as Michael Stocker, Alessandro Ferrara, and Linda Zagzebski all agree that the development of such a perspective is possible. They have also suggested that finding this shared view may require us to embrace a more malleable and less certain way of knowing what is good about our opinions. Instead, they encourage individuals to reinvestigate ancient views of 'wisdom' and 'understanding' and to review personal emotional responses to what we believe is true and good. I believe such advice is valuable and that arguments like these offer theoretical tools for those involved in the criticism and practice of the performing arts still wanting to find bridges between disparate views. While 'critical' reviews can often alienate performers from those who are evaluating their performance, if we are to initiate understanding and tolerance, and celebrate and value difference, the beliefs and emotional responses that accompany and drive each of our opinions do require further reflection, articulation, and discussion. Some theatre critics already appear to recognise how important emotional responses are to the expression and reworking of personal and traditional beliefs. For example, some have suggested that a theatre performance can "make you stop breathing" (Christofis) or be "breathtaking" (McCallum) or "poignant and powerful" (Lambert). Other critics have suggested that performances contain "images of emotional power" (Kelly) with which an "audience can empathise, [and] sympathise" because the subject is close to their hearts" (Hinde). As these kinds of responses clearly embellish and entwine the experiences of performers and critics, perhaps we can eventually discover how powerful, passionate, and, sometimes, visceral experiences contribute benefits that can be objectively defined and defended. Alternatively, perhaps the inclusion of negative emotional responses in performances and critical reviews can provide some impetus for personal and professional development. Many might dismiss emotional responses as theoretical tools because individuals' emotional experiences reveal different qualities and/or intensities and seem to contain no shared causal indicator that can be objectively defined and graded. Yet if these kinds of experiences are really so subjective, so capricious and diverse, why do some theatre reviewers continue to describe and record them? If such reactions are peculiar to each individual and there is no guarantee that they can be replicated in other individuals, personal views of emotional and physical responses would only be viewed as useless, superfluous information. However, it seems that critics sharing their experiences are suggesting that something in the performance is powerful enough to evoke similar emotions in others. Furthermore, they seem to be indicating that these experiences are important and worth pursuing. So, instead of viewing powerful emotional responses as completely subjective, perhaps it is more accurate and fruitful to recognise how they signal the presence of beliefs and values that are formed inter-subjectively. A purely subjective appraisal of a performance would require a subject that is capable of receiving, processing and evaluating impressions in social isolation. A number of influential theorists like Bourdieu, Foucault, and Eagleton have argued that such a view is misleading since 'individuals' are developed from class and power relations and subjects cannot extricate themselves from social discourses of some kind. As a result of adopting perspectives like these, it is plausible to suggest that audiences may value or dismiss the ideas and experiences of the person recommending the performance as well as ideas about the performance itself. Furthermore, a person's experiences or ideas may seem to relate to our own, or be regarded as more valuable or significant than our own, and this may affect the way we assess any descriptions provided by others. Since emotional responses experienced by others can sometimes influence our own affective states, it seems theatres, critics, and performers that establish public social identities do need to become aware of how these experiences are stimulated. Some theatre scholars have suggested that analyses of the emotive element of audience reception must record and defend emotional responses according to an objective set of logical criteria that can be judged relevant by experts (Martin and Sauter 34; de Toro 120). However, the logical criteria that many performance scholars suggest should determine such evaluations are often purely empirical and I would suggest that the study of emotions and feelings must also incorporate the often forgotten epistemic values of personal understanding and wisdom. If these approaches are explored and integrated, I believe critics and performers may be reconciled through the recognition that personal opinions can change and that our responses should be discussed and defended rather than feared, attacked, or penalised. References Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Trans. Richard Nice. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986. Christofis, Lee. "Colour Amid Darkest Drama." Rev. of The Funniest Man in the World, by Daniel Keene. Keene/Taylor Theatre Project, Grant Street Theatre, Melbourne. The Australian. May 2000: F18 de Toro, Fernando. Theatre Semiotics: Text and Staging in Modern Theatre. Trans. John Lewis. Ed. Carole Hubbard. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1995. Eagleton, Terry. The Ideology of the Aesthetic. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. Ferrara, Alessandro. Reflective Authenticity: Rethinking the Project of Modernity. London: Routledge, 1998. Foucault, Michel. "What is an Author?" Aesthetics: The Big Questions. Ed. Carolyn Korsmeyer. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 270-87. Hinde, Suellen. "Play Oh So True." Rev. of Choking in the Comfort Zone, by Stephen Carleton. Darwin Theatre Company, Brown's Mart, Darwin. Northern Territory News 15 Sep. 2000: W26. Kelly, Veronica. "Pretty, But as Deep as a Shallow Puddle." Rev. of The Skin of Our Teeth, by Thornton Wilder. Queensland Theatre Company, Optus Playhouse, Brisbane. The Australian 21 Feb. 2000: F18. Lambert, Catherine. "Revival of a Classic." Rev. of Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, Melbourne Theatre Company, Fairfax Theatre, Melbourne. Sunday Herald Sun, 23 July 2000: LH87. Martin, Jacqueline, and Willmar Sauter. Understanding Theatre. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International, 1995. McCallum, John. "Don't Keep it Quiet." Rev. of Hollow Ground, by Nick Parsons. The NIDA Company, Belvoir Street Theatre, Sydney. The Australian 27 Mar. 2000: F15. McKenzie, Jon. Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance. London: Routledge, 2001. Stocker, Michael. Valuing Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. Zagzebski, Linda Trinkaus. Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and Ethical Foundations of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Kehoul, Gillian. "Performing Feeling Without Fear" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.1 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0203/perform.php>. Chicago Style Kehoul, Gillian, "Performing Feeling Without Fear" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 1 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0203/perform.php> ([your date of access]). APA Style Kehoul, Gillian. (2002) Performing Feeling Without Fear. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(1). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0203/perform.php> ([your date of access]).

IntroductionThe role, function, and future of the Western public intellectual have been highly contested over the last three decades. The dominant discourse, which predicts the decline of the public intellectual, asserts the institutionalisation of their labour has eroded their authority to speak publicly to power on behalf of others; and that the commodification of intellectual performance has transformed them from sages, philosophers, and men of letters into trivial media entertainers, pundits, and ideologues. Overwhelmingly the crisis debates link the demise of the public intellectual to shifts in public culture, which was initially conceptualised as a literary and artistic space designed to liberate the awareness of citizens through critique and to reflect upon “the chronic and persistent issues of life, meaning and representation” (McGuigan 430). This early imagining of public culture as an exclusively civilising space, however, did not last and Jurgen Habermas documented its decline in response to the commodification and politicisation of culture in the 20th century. Yet, as social activism continued to flourish in the public sphere, Habermas re-theorised public culture as a more pluralistic site which simultaneously accommodates “uncritical populism, radical subversion and critical intervention” (436) and operates as both a marketplace and a “site of communicative rationality, mutual respect and understanding (McGuigan 434). The rise of creative industries expanded popular engagement with public culture but destabilised the authority of the public intellectual. The accompanying shifts also affected the function of the curator, who, like the intellectual, had a role in legislating and arbitrating knowledge, and negotiating and authorising meaning through curated exhibitions of objects deemed sacred and significant. Jennifer Barrett noted the similarities in the two functions when she argued in Museums and the Public Sphere that, because museums have an intellectual role in society, curators have a public intellectual function as they define publics, determine modes of engagement, and shape knowledge formation (150). The resemblance between the idealised role of the intellectual and the curator in enabling the critique that emancipates the citizen means that both functions have been affected by the atomisation of contemporary society, which has exposed the power effects of the imposed coherency of authoritative and universal narratives. Indeed, just as Russell Jacoby, Allan Bloom, and Richard Posner predicted the death of the intellectual, who could no longer claim to speak in universal terms on behalf of others, so museums faced their own crisis of relevancy. Declining visitor numbers and reduced funding saw museums reinvent themselves, and in moving away from their traditional exclusive, authoritative, and nation building roles—which Pierre Bourdieu argued reproduced the “existing class-based culture, education and social systems” (Barrett 3)—museums transformed themselves into inclusive and diverse sites of co-creation with audiences and communities. In the context of this change the curator ceased to be the “primary producer of knowledge” (Barrett 13) and emerged to reproduce “contemporary culture preoccupations” and constitute the “social imagery” of communities (119). The modern museum remains concerned with explaining and interrogating the world, but the shift in curatorial work is away from the objects themselves to a focus upon audiences and how they value the artefacts, knowledge, and experiences of collective shared memory. The change in curatorial practices was driven by what Peter Vergo called a new “museology” (Barrett 2), and according to Macdonald this term assumes that “object meanings are contextual rather than inherent” or absolute and universal (2). Public intellectuals and curators, as the custodians of ideas and narratives in the contemporary cultural industries, privilege audience reception and recognise that consumers and/or citizens engage with public culture for a variety of reasons, including critique, understanding, and entertainment. Curators, like public intellectuals, also recognise that they can no longer assume the knowledge and experience of their audience, nor prescribe the nature of engagement with ideas and objects. Instead, curators and intellectuals emerge as negotiators and translators of cultural meaning as they traverse the divides in public culture, sequestering ideas and cultural artefacts and constructing narratives that engage audiences and communities in the process of re-imagining the past as a way of providing new insights into contemporary challenges.Methodology In exploring the idea that the public intellectual acts as a curator of ideas as he or she defines and privileges the discursive spaces of public culture, this paper begins by providing an overview of the cultural context of the contemporary public intellectual which enables comparisons between intellectual and curatorial functions. Second, this paper analyses a random sample of the content of books, newspaper and magazine articles, speeches, and transcripts of interviews drawn from The Australian, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sydney Institute, the ABC, The Monthly, and Quadrant published or broadcast between 1996 and 2007, in order to identify the key themes of the History Wars. It should be noted that the History War debates were extensive, persistent, and complex—and as they unfolded over a 13-year period they emerged as the “most powerful” and “most disputed form of public intellectual work” (Carter, Ideas 9). Many issues were aggregated under the trope of the History Wars, and these topics were subject to both popular commentary and academic investigation. Furthermore, the History Wars discourse was produced in a range of mediums including popular media sources, newspaper and magazine columns, broadcasts, blogs, lectures, and writers’ forums and publications. Given the extent of this discourse, the sample of articles which provides the basis for this analysis does not seek to comprehensively survey the literature on the History Wars. Rather this paper draws upon Foucault’s genealogical qualitative method, which exposes the subordinated discontinuities in texts, to 1) consider the political context of the History War trope; and 2) identify how intellectuals discursively exhibited versions of the nation’s identity and in the process made visible the power effects of the past. Public Intellectuals The underlying fear of the debates about the public intellectual crisis was that the public intellectual would no longer be able to act as the conscience of a nation, speak truth to power, or foster the independent and dissenting public debate that guides and informs individual human agency—a goal that has lain at the heart of the Western intellectual’s endeavours since Kant’s Sapere aude. The late 20th century crisis discourse, however, primarily mourned the decline of a particular form of public authority attached to the heroic universal intellectual formation made popular by Emile Zola at the end of the 19th century, and which claimed the power to hold the political elites of France accountable. Yet talk of an intellectual crisis also became progressively associated with a variety of general concerns about globalising society. Some of these concerns included fears that structural shifts in the public domain would lead to the impoverishment of the cultural domain, the end of Western civilisation, the decline of the progressive political left, and the end of universal values. It was also expected that the decline in intellectuals would also enable the rise of populism, political conservatism, and anti-intellectualism (Jacoby Bloom; Bauman; Rorty; Posner; Furedi; Marquand). As a result of these fears, the function of the intellectual who engages publicly was re-theorised. Zygmunt Bauman suggested the intellectual was no longer the legislator or arbiter of taste but the negotiator and translator of ideas; Michel Foucault argued that the intellectual could be institutionally situated and still speak truth to power; and Edward Said insisted the public intellectual had a role in opening up possibilities to resolve conflict by re-imagining the past. In contrast, the Australian public intellectual has never been declared in crisis or dead, and this is probably because the nation does not have the same legacy of the heroic public intellectual. Indeed, as a former British colony labelled the “working man’s paradise” (White 4), Australia’s intellectual work was produced in “institutionalised networks” (Head 5) like universities and knowledge disciplines, political parties, magazines, and unions. Within these networks there was a double division of labour, between the abstraction of knowledge and its compartmentalisation, and between the practical application of knowledge and its popularisation. As a result of this legacy, a more organic, specific, and institutionalised form of intellectualism emerged, which, according to Head, limited intellectual influence and visibility across other networks and domains of knowledge and historically impeded general intellectual engagement with the public. Fears about the health and authority of the public intellectual in Australia have therefore tended to be produced as a part of Antonio Gramsci’s ideological “wars of position” (Mouffe 5), which are an endless struggle between cultural and political elites for control of the institutions of social reproduction. These struggles began in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s over language and political correctness, and they reappeared in the 1990s as the History Wars. History Wars“The History Wars” was a term applied to an ideological battle between two visions of the Australian nation. The first vision was circulated by Australian Labor Party Prime Minister Paul Keating, who saw race relations as central to 21st century global Australia and began the process of dealing with the complex and divisive Indigenous issues at home. He established the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation in 1991; acknowledged in the 1992 Redfern speech that white settlers were responsible for the problems in Indigenous communities; and commissioned the Bringing Them Home report, which was completed in 1997 and concluded that the mandated removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities throughout the 20th century had violated their human rights and caused long-term and systemic damage to Indigenous communities.The second vision of Australia was circulated by Liberal Prime Minister John Howard, who, after he came to power in 1996, began his own culture war to reconstruct a more conservative vision of the nation. Howard believed that the stories of Indigenous dispossession undermined confidence in the nation, and he sought to produce a historical view of the past grounded in “Judeo-Christian ethics, the progressive spirit of the enlightenment and the institutions and values of British culture” (“Sense of Balance”). Howard called for a return to a narrative form that valorised Australia’s achievements, and he sought to instil a more homogenised view of the past and a coherent national identity by reviewing high school history programs, national museum appointments, and citizenship tests. These two political positions framed the subsequent intellectual struggles over the past. While a number of issues were implicated in the battle, generally, left commentators used the History Wars as a way to circulate certain ideas about morality and identity, including 1) Australians needed to make amends for past injustices to Indigenous Australians and 2) the nation’s global identity was linked to how they dealt with Australia’s first people. In contrast, the political right argued 1) the left had misrepresented and overstated the damage done to Indigenous communities and rewritten history; 2) stories about Indigenous abuse were fragmenting the nation’s identity at a time when the nation needed to build a coherent global presence; and 3) no apology was necessary, because contemporary Australians did not feel responsible for past injustices. AnalysisThe war between these two visions of Australia was fought in “extra-curricular sites,” according to Stuart Macintyre, and this included newspaper columns, writers’ festivals, broadcast interviews, intellectual magazines like The Monthly and Quadrant, books, and think tank lectures. Academics and intellectuals were the primary protagonists, and they disputed the extent of colonial genocide; the legitimacy of Indigenous land rights; the impact of the Stolen Generation on the lives of modern Indigenous citizens; and the necessity of a formal apology as a part of the reconciliation process. The conflicts also ignited debates about the nature of history, the quality of public debates in Australia, and exposed the tensions between academics, public intellectuals, newspaper commentators and political elites. Much of the controversy played out in the national forums can be linked to the Bringing Them Home: National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families report Stolen Generation inquiry and report, which was commissioned by Keating but released after Howard came to office. Australian public intellectual and professor of politics Robert Manne critiqued the right’s response to the report in his 2001 Quarterly Essay titled “In Denial: The Stolen Generation and The Right”. He argued that there was a right-wing campaign in Australia that sought to diminish and undermine justice for Aboriginal people by discounting the results of the inquiry, underestimating the numbers of those affected, and underfunding the report’s recommendations. He spoke of the nation’s shame and in doing so he challenged Australia’s image of itself. Manne’s position was applauded by many for providing what Kay Schaffer in her Australian Humanities Review paper called an “effective antidote to counter the bitter stream of vitriol that followed the release of the Bringing Them Home report”. Yet Manne also drew criticism. Historian Bain Attwood argued that Manne’s attack on conservatives was polemical, and he suggested that it would be more useful to consider in detail what drives the right-wing analysis of Indigenous issues. Attwood also suggested that Manne’s essay had misrepresented the origins of the narrative of the Stolen Generation, which had been widely known prior to the release of the Stolen Generation report.Conservative commentators focused upon challenging the accuracy of those stories submitted to the inquiry, which provided the basis for the report. This struggle over factual details was to characterise the approach of historian Keith Windschuttle, who rejected both the numbers of those stolen from their families and the degree of violence used in the settlement of Australia. In his 2002 book The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume One, Van Diemen’s Land 1803–1847 he accused left-wing academics of exaggerating the events of Aboriginal history in order to further their own political agenda. In particular, he argued that the extent of the “conflagration of oppression and conflict” which sought to “dispossess, degrade, and devastate the Aboriginal people” had been overstated and misrepresented and designed to “create an edifice of black victimhood and white guilt” (Windschuttle, Fabrication 1). Manne responded to Windschuttle’s allegations in Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle’s Fabrication of Aboriginal History, arguing that Windschuttle arguments were “unpersuasive and unsupported either by independent research or even familiarity with the relevant secondary historical literature” (7) and that the book added nothing to the debates. Other academics like Stephen Muecke, Marcia Langton and Heather Goodall expressed concerns about Windschuttle’s work, and in 2003 historians Stuart Macintyre and Anna Clark published The History Wars, which described the implications of the politicisation of history on the study of the past. At the same time, historian Bain Attwood in Telling the Truth About Aboriginal History argued that the contestation over history was eroding the “integrity of intellectual life in Australia” (2). Fractures also broke out between writers and historians about who was best placed to write history. The Australian book reviewer Stella Clarke wrote that the History Wars were no longer constructive discussions, and she suggested that historical novelists could colonise the territory traditionally dominated by professional historians. Inga Clendinnen wasn’t so sure. She wrote in a 2006 Quarterly Essay entitled “The History Question: Who Owns the Past?” that, while novelists could get inside events through a process of “applied empathy,” imagination could in fact obstruct the truth of reality (20). Discussion The History Wars saw academics engage publicly to exhibit a set of competing ideas about Australia’s identity in the nation’s media and associated cultural sites, and while the debates initially prompted interest they eventually came to be described as violent and unproductive public conversations about historical details and ideological positions. Indeed, just as the museum curator could no longer authoritatively prescribe the cultural meaning of artefacts, so the History Wars showed that public intellectuals could not adjudicate the identity of the nation nor prescribe the nature of its conduct. For left-wing public intellectuals and commentators, the History Wars came to signify the further marginalisation of progressive politics in the face of the dominant, conservative, and increasingly populist constituency. Fundamentally, the battles over the past reinforced fears that Australia’s public culture was becoming less diverse, less open, and less able to protect traditional civil rights, democratic freedoms, and social values. Importantly for intellectuals like Robert Manne, there was a sense that Australian society was less able or willing to reflect upon the moral legitimacy of its past actions as a part of the process of considering its contemporary identity. In contrast right-wing intellectuals and commentators argued that the History Wars showed how public debate under a conservative government had been liberated from political correctness and had become more vibrant. This was the position of Australian columnist Janet Albrechtsen who argued that rather than a decline in public debate there had been, in fact, “vigorous debate of issues that were once banished from the national conversation” (91). She went on to insist that left-wing commentators’ concerns about public debate were simply a mask for their discomfort at having their views and ideas challenged. There is no doubt that the History Wars, while media-orchestrated debates that circulated a set of ideological positions designed to primarily attract audiences and construct particular views of Australia, also raised public awareness of the complex issues associated with Australia’s Indigenous past. Indeed, the Wars ended what W.E.H Stanner had called the “great silence” on Indigenous issues and paved the way for Kevin Rudd’s apology to Indigenous people for their “profound grief, suffering and loss”. The Wars prompted conversations across the nation about what it means to be Australian and exposed the way history is deeply implicated in power surely a goal of both intellectual debate and curated exhibitions. ConclusionThis paper has argued that the public intellectual can operate like a curator in his or her efforts to preserve particular ideas, interpretations, and narratives of public culture. The analysis of the History Wars debates, however, showed that intellectuals—just like curators —are no longer authorities and adjudicators of the nation’s character, identity, and future but cultural intermediaries whose function is not just the performance or exhibition of selected ideas, objects, and narratives but also the engagement and translation of other voices across different contexts in the ongoing negotiation of what constitutes cultural significance. ReferencesAlbrechtsen, Janet. “The History Wars.” The Sydney Papers (Winter/Spring 2003): 84–92. Attwood, Bain. Telling the Truth about Aboriginal History. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2005.Bauman, Zygmunt. Legislators and Interpreters: On Modernity, Post Modernity and Intellectuals. Cambridge, CAMBS: Polity, 1987. Barrett, Jennifer. Museums and the Public Sphere. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Bloom, Allan. Closing of the American Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.Bourdieu. P. Distinctions: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Trans. R. Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1984. Bringing Them Home: National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. Commonwealth of Australia. 1997.Carter, David. Introduction. The Ideas Market: An Alternative Take on Australia’s Intellectual Life. Ed. David Carter. Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 2004. 1–11.Clendinnen, Inga. True Stories. Sydney: ABC Books, 1999.Clendinnen, Inga. “The History Question: Who Owns the Past?” Quarterly Essay 23 (2006): 1–82. Foucault, Michel, and Giles Deleuze. Intellectuals and Power Language, Counter Memory and Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Ed. and trans. David Bouchard. New York: Cornell UP, 1977. 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The Australian 4 Oct. 2006. 6 Aug. 2015 ‹http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/john-howard-standard-bearer-in-liberal-culture/story-e6frg6zo-1111112306534›.Jacoby, Russell. The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe. New York: The Noonday Press, 1987.Keating, Paul. “Keating’s History Wars.” Sydney Morning Herald 5 Sep. 2003. 6 Aug. 2015 ‹http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/05/1062549021882.html›.Macdonald, S. “Expanding Museum Studies: An Introduction.” Ed. S. Macdonald. A Companion to Museum Studies. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. 1–12. Macintyre, Stuart, and Anna Clarke. The History Wars. Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 2003. ———. “The History Wars.” The Sydney Papers (Winter/Spring 2003): 77–83.———. “Who Plays Stalin in Our History Wars? Sydney Morning Herald 17 Sep. 2003. 6 Aug. 2015 ‹http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/16/1063625030438.html›.Manne, Robert. “In Denial: The Stolen Generation and the Right.” Quarterly Essay 1 (2001).———. WhiteWash: On Keith Windshuttle’s Fabrication of Aboriginal History. Melbourne. Black Ink, 2003.Mark, David. “PM Calls for End to the History Wars.” ABC News 28 Aug. 2009.McGuigan, Jim. “The Cultural Public Sphere.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 8.4 (2005): 427–43.Mouffe, Chantal, ed. Gramsci and Marxist Theory. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979. Melleuish, Gregory. The Power of Ideas: Essays on Australian Politics and History. Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2009.Rudd, Kevin. “Full Transcript of PM’s Apology Speech.” The Australian 13 Feb. 2008. 6 Aug. 2015 ‹http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/full-transcript-of-pms-speech/story-e6frg6nf-1111115543192›.Said, Edward. “The Public Role of Writers and Intellectuals.” ABC Alfred Deakin Lectures, Melbourne Town Hall, 19 May 2001. Schaffer, Kay. “Manne’s Generation: White Nation Responses to the Stolen Generation Report.” Australian Humanities Review (June 2001). 5 June 2015 ‹http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-June-2001/schaffer.html›. Shanahan, Dennis. “Howard Rallies the Right in Cultural War Assault.” The Australian 4 Oct. 2006. 6 Aug. 2015 ‹http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/howard-rallies-right-in-culture-war-assault/story-e6frg6nf-1111112308221›.Wark, Mackenzie. “Lip Service.” The Ideas Market: An Alternative Take on Australia’s Intellectual Life. Ed. David Carter. Carlton, VIC: Melbourne UP, 2004. 259–69.White, Richard. Inventing Australia Images and Identity 1688–1980. Sydney: George Allen and Unwin, 1981. Windschuttle, Keith. The Fabrication of Australian History, Volume One: Van Diemen’s Land 1803–1847. Sydney: McCleay, 2002. ———. “Why There Was No Stolen Generation (Part One).” Quadrant Online (Jan–Feb 2010). 6 Aug. 2015 ‹https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2010/01-02/why-there-were-no-stolen-generations/›.

While the connection between major choice and career goals seems logically obvious, research exploring this process is limited, particularly concerning how socio-economic class, based on parents' educational levels, influences the choice process. An important initial step in understanding this larger process is to explore how SES-based differences affect the process of choosing a major, a career goal and the way in which students link their major to a possible career. This study utilizes a comparative interview design to explore the lived experiences regarding major and career aspirations of first generation and traditional college seniors who have transferred from a community college to Portland State University. This study considers a first generation student to be any student that does not have a parent that has graduated from a four-year university in the United States. A traditional student is any student that has one or more parents who have earned at least a four-year degree in the U.S. Using a conceptual framework based on Pierre Bourdieu's work on social reproduction, this qualitative interview study examines how social and cultural capital as well as habitus influences first generation and traditional community college transfer students' choice of career, major and the link these students make between the two. This research found that the majority of students, both first generation and traditional community college transfer students, gained domain specific information that helped them with their major and or career goals from mentors such as, professors and academic advisers. However, Traditional students received "life advice" and encouragement from family members and employers that helped them to stay on track and gain inside information regarding their career choices. Traditional students used their past and current work history to assist them in strengthening their chances at realizing their career goals. Many traditional students planned to use the degrees they earned at college to advance within fields they already were working in. In comparison, it was only after they started college and settled on specific majors that first generation students looked for work experiences to help explore possible occupational outcomes. Another major difference between the two groups of students was that traditional students linked their majors to multiple jobs in an occupational area while first generation students linked their major to specific occupational positions. While there has been a large amount of research in the United States using Bourdieu's theory to examine how micro processes of language and teacher's expectations are utilized to maintain social stratification in K-12 education, there has been little research done on the micro processes that occur in college that lead to the reproduction of social class. This thesis illustrates how family background-based advantages that lead to differences in students' K-12 success actually continue after they enter higher education. By drawing attention to the importance of how family-background impacts major and career choices for community college transfer students after they arrive at the university, this thesis contributes to Bourdieu's explanation of how education at all levels contributes to the reproduction of a socially stratified society.

Defence date: 9 December 2014
Examining Board: Professor Olivier Roy, European University Institute (Supervisor); Professor Donatella della Porta, European University Institute; Professor Johannes Hjellbrekke, University of Bergen; Doctor Reinoud Leenders, King's College London.
How should social science conceptualise the informal exchange of illicit favours in the context of the modern state? And what relation does such exchange have to the reproduction of the social structure? This thesis presents a new framework for the analysis of such phenomena based upon the theoretical methodology of Pierre Bourdieu. Using Bourdieu's conceptual tools of habitus, field and capital, the kinds of informal exchange typically analysed through the paradigms of clientelism, corruption, or "informal institution" are reconstructed as a new research object - the clandestine circulation of capital - and related to the broader "economy of practices" necessary to reproduce the social structure. In a considered development of Bourdieu's initial use of the term (which related to the clandestine circulation of cultural capital), the thesis demonstrates how the clandestine circulation of other forms and guises of capital can also subvert the normative intentions of merit and equality implicit in the formal institutions of the modern state. The thesis reconciles and expands upon various of Bourdieu's theoretical writings to develop a theory identifying both the objective resources of such circulation and the principles structuring it as a social practice. This new theory is then applied in detail to the field site of urban Beirut (the capital of Lebanon), and specifically in relation to the phenomenon of wasta (an Arabic word used to refer to all kinds of social influence). Through a detailed empirical study of the field site, the thesis attempts to demonstrate how clandestine circulation operates as a mechanism for the transformation and accumulation of capitals, and hence comes to play a determinant role in the reproduction of the social order, in a manner intimately connected to the specific nature of the Lebanese state.