EDITORIAL

摘要

Within both the modernist tradition of power analysis, exemplified by Lukes (1974), and the post-modernist paradigm, stemming from Foucault, the relationship between habitus, or tacit interpretative framework, and power is considered central. However, putting empirical flesh, showing the actual empirical workings, of the relationship between habitus and power constitutes one of rewarding challenges for anyone wishing to analyse the reproduction of relations of domination and empowerment. In order to accomplish this with sophistication the researcher must be careful not to over-intentionalize the construction of habitus so that ideologies, or systems of thought, are perceived of as foisted upon unsuspecting subaltern actors. Conversely, the researcher must also avoid de-subjectifying the process to such an extent that hegemonic discourses are perceived to sweep all before them in an essentially agentless world. The secret of steering a course between conspiracy and agentlessness is to practise a rich ethnography of the micropractices of everyday life which brings to the fore the process by which social actors manipulate ideas, create capital for themselves using cultural materials, analysing how, out of complex micropractices, systems of thought evolve which reinforce relations of domination.