Field Theory and Colonialism: Indirect Colonial Situation as a Social Field in Egypt (1882-1922)

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  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 1. Anticolonial, Postcolonial, and Decolonial Perspectives

Abstract

This paper employs Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory to investigate the variations of the struggles between the colonizers and the colonized in a colonial situation. The previous sociological scholarship of field theory, which studies empire, mainly focuses on direct colonialism (Go 2013; Habbas and Berda 2021; Steinmetz 2008). Instead, this paper discusses indirect colonialism. Drawing upon Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, this paper argues that the colonial situation in indirect colonialism was a field that relied on a diversity of capitals over which the local state and the colonial forces competed to consolidate their control of the territory. According to Pierre Bourdieu, a state’s control over a territory depends on diversity of capitals including physical capital (monopoly of means of violence), economic capital (financial resources), cultural capital (uniformed legal system and bureaucracy to manage national culture) and symbolic capital (public recognition and legitimacy) (Bourdieu 2014).
This paper has chosen colonial Egypt as an empirical case of indirect colonialism. The paper uses a historical method based on primary sources from the UK Foreign Office regarding colonial Egypt and secondary sources. The findings show that the local state of Egypt was in a subordinate position compared to the British colonial administration that dominated the modern courts and police. The modern courts represented symbolic capital of law, and the police was the source of physical capital. The local state of Egypt used the modern courts as a bulwark against foreign interventions, though. The Egypt state also extended its legal authorities and policing control to the agricultural production as the main source of economic capital including taxation.

Author

• Mehdi Hoseini, Boston College