Chaotic Field Exploration : Exploring systemic field dynamics in bilateral negotiations

• Main Author: Kildén Smith, Martin
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Linköpings universitet, Pedagogik och sociologi 2014
• Subjects: Bourdieu; the social field; bilateral negotiations; theoretical exploration; converting the field; deliberate human agency; systemic approach; macro; abstract sociological theory; critical realism
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-114770

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of the social field as described by Pierre Bourdieu as well as to explore the possibility of creating a more focused and tailored set of conditions in the form of a model to repurpose the field theory to more clearly be applicable to bilateral negotiations. The methodological approach is conceptual analysis based on the epistemology of critical realism. The supporting theories for the approach are a combination of systemic, chaos and complexity theory while the fundaments for the implementation of the methodological approach are the four main concepts in Bourdieu’s theory of the social field:  the field, habitus, illusio and symbolic capital. One of the main points of repurposing this specific dynamic is to explicitly allow for deliberate human agency within the field. Analytical data consists purely of the secondary type. This essay is not empirically based but rather theoretical and abstract. The paper is founded on the basic principles of macrosociology and presumes social agency where appropriate. This paper focuses on creating a tentative framework model based on repurposed concepts derived from Bourdieu. The results are arguably interesting but are mostly limited to affecting further development of this tentative model and prefacing application of it through attempting to implement it in an analytical manner on empirical data.