What is a Global Field? Rethinking Field Theory Beyond the Nation-State

• In Event: 572 - Section on Global and Transnational Sociology Paper Session. Theorizing the Global and the Transnational

Abstract

While scholarship on global and transnational fields has been emerging in sociology, hitherto contributions have surprisingly rarely or not explicitly discussed how field theory has to be altered when its use expands from a national to a global scale. Arguing that a global field is not a national field writ large, this paper discusses strategies and elements of transposing and revising field theory beyond the traditional nation-state frame. Specifically, the paper first proposes analogical theorizing as a systematic approach for extending and modifying the conceptual tools of Bourdieu's field analysis at a transnational or global level. It argues that analogical theorizing offers a method for constructing the object in global context in a way that goes beyond rescaling and minimizes the risk of deductive reification. The paper secondly exemplifies the fruitfulness of the analogical method by discussing how to theorize the emergence and macro-structure of a global field. It thereby suggests three institutional mechanisms for the emergence of a global field and introduces two new macro concepts into globally extended field analysis: vertical autonomy and macro capital.

Author

• Larissa Buchholz, Harvard University