Each field presupposes, and generates by its very functioning, the belief in the value of the stakes it offers

As a space of potential and active forces, the field is also a field of struggles aimed at preserving or transforming the configuration of these forces. Concretely, the field as a structure of objective relations of force between positions undergirds and guides the strategies whereby the occupants of these positions seek, individually or collectively to safeguard or improve their position, and to impose the principle of hierarchization most favorable to their own products. The strategies of agents depend on their position in the field, that is, in the distribution of the specific capital

Secondly, one must map out the objective structure of the relations between the positions occupied by the agents or institutions who compete for the legitimate form of specific authority of which this field in the site. And, thirdly, one must analyze the hab

the external determinations that bear on agents situated in a given field (intellectuals, artists, politicians, or construction com- panies), never apply on them directly, but only through the specific mediation of the specific forms and forces of the field, after having undergone a re-structuring that is all the more important the more auto- nomous the field, that is, the more it is capable of imposing its specific logic, the cumulative product of its specific history.

Second, within the field in question one must construct a ‘social topology’ or map of the ‘objective structure’ of the positions which make up the field, and the relationships between them in the competition for the field’s specific form of capital

politics and structure of the field shape and channel the manner in which ‘external determinations’ affect what goes on within the field, making them appear a part of the ongoing history and operation of the field itself. The more important and autonomous the field in the context of the array of fields which together constitute a ‘society’, the more this metamorphosis effect operates.

defines the situation

Positions stand in relationships of domination, subordination or equivalence (homology) to each other by virtue of the access they afford to the goods or resources (capital) which are at stake in the field.

field, in Bourdieu’s sense, is a social arena within which struggles or manoeuvres take place over specific resources or stakes and access to them. Fields are defined by the stakes which are at stake—cultural goods (life-style), housing, intellectual distinction (education), employment, land, power (politics), social class, prestige or whatever

Situationally perceptible qual- ifications regarding age, sobriety, language ability, and solvency will have to be satisfied before individuals are allowed to hold them- selves as qualified for servic

Etiquette books are full of conceptualizations concerning the courtesies that men owe women in polite society

Perhaps behind a willingness to accept the way things are ordered is the brutal fact of one's place in the social structure and the real or imagined cost of allowing oneself to be singled out as a malcontent

Yet it appears to me that as an order of activity, the interaction one, more than any other perhaps, is in fact orderly, and that this orderliness is predicated on a large base of shared cognitive presuppositions, if not normative ones, and self-sustained restraint

a domain of activity-a particular kind of activity

our experience of the world has a confrontational characte

Whatever is distinctive to face-to-face in- teraction is likely to be relatively cir- cumscribed in space and most certainly in time. Furthermore (as distinguished from so- cial roles in the traditional sense), very little by way of a dormant or latent phase is to be found; postponement of an interactional activity that has begun has a relatively massive effect on it, and cannot be much extended without deeply altering what had been happening interaction- ally. For always in the interaction order, the engrossment and involvement of the participants-if only their attention-is crit- ical, and these cognitive states cannot be sus- tained for extended periods of time or much survive forced lapses and interruption. Emo- tion, mood, cognition, bodily orientation, and muscular effort are intrinsically involved, in- troducing an inevitable psychobiological ele- ment. Ease and uneasiness, unselfconscious- ness and wariness are central. Observe, too, that the interaction order catches humans in just that angle of their existence that displays considerable overlap with the social life of other species. It is as unwise to discount the similarity between animal and human greetings as it is to look for the causes of war in genetic predisposition

main as an analytically viable one-a domain which might be titled, for want of any happy name, the interaction order-a domain whose pre- ferred method of study is microanalysi

tions, that is, environments in which two or more individuals are physically in one an- other's response presence

Drawing on the works of Ervin g Goffman an d Nikla s Luhmann, it is argued thatface-to-face interactions establish realitiessui generis. The y have a life on thei r own, and make demandson thei r own behalf. The y ar e abl e to constitute thei r own boundaries by mean s of an intricate interplayof processes of re ectiv e perception and communication.

o understand this struggle, we must con sider the context and audience for these inter actions. Even though Kox's commanding style fits accountability, it does not fit the order that the teachers had negotiated with the prior administrations. A