Sustaining Waste – Sociological Perspectives on Recycling a Hybrid Object - Implementing Environmental and Resource Management - page 293

solve all problems or only structural change will help. Rather, we will develop an
understanding of how humans influence others both directly and indirectly. His
account is similar to that of Giddens (1986).
Bourdieu uses an open set of concepts to theorise members of society and their
agency. He views us as existing in social space, a field which comprises all social
relations. We are positioned in this field. We cannot know any absolute position
but must imagine our positions relative to each other 26 . What we can enquire about
is the relation between our positions. The forms of relations are manifestations of
our access to the capital which is relevant in the field. Through this also power re-
lations are expressed. At my position in the field I encounter the world from this
very standpoint. Nobody can have a Godeye's view. Standing at my social posi-
tion I repeatedly experience similar situations: as a researcher I repeatedly come
across situations in which I discuss with so-called experts. These repeating experi-
ences, which are based on situations which vary but have some common charac-
teristics, form my habitus . The concept habitus refers to a system of preferences,
perceptions and practices which shape and channel how we go through the world.
How can we apply this approach to the day with Julian? The student union in
which Julian worked was a social field in which a kind of capital was decisive.
The position of Julian within the field, his access to capital and his relative power,
influenced, rather than determined, his practices. His position let him repeatedly
experience similar situations, which formed his habitus. This, along with his rela-
tive position, shaped the way Julian used capital, acted and perceived the world.
Let me explain the relation of field to habitus and its implications for agents and
for questioning Ecological Modernisation practices in depth.
Fundamental to an understanding of Bourdieu (1989, p. 15) is his “intention
[...] to overcome” the opposition between objective and subjective structures
which “stand in dialectical relationship” (1988, p. 782). The objective can influ-
ence people independent of their consciousness and will. An example of objective
structures would be the upward mobility of peasant women through marriage in
Béarn, Bourdieu's childhood village in southwestern France, in the 1960s (2004,
p. 589). Subjective structures are those through which we perceive the world and
make sense of it, e.g. the dualisms black/white, female/male. He puts forward that
to understand actors we need to grasp them in terms of both kinds of structure.
Thus, the social fields which we move in comprise both objective reality as well
as agents' perception of it.
Such a social field can be imagined like a game. The players know the rules;
they take them and what is at stake for-granted. Only those with the characteristics
(i.e. access, knowledge of rules, etc.) can participate in the game, be an agent of
the field, try to win what is at stake. Rather than talking about interest, Bourdieu
uses the concept illusio to refer to such an attitude of an agent to the game in
which the agent is trapped and lost. This happens when the stake is important to
the agent and is not questioned. Bourdieu uses the concept of capital to refer to
what is at stake. The capital of a field allows the player to exercise significant in-
26 I recognise, of course, that social positions are always contested and changing: position-
ing is an ongoing process.