Beyond Bourdieu by Atkinson Will;

Author:Atkinson, Will;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Polity Press
Published: 2016-10-06T16:00:00+00:00

The struggle begins

Between six and 18 months old, however, the struggle for recognition on the infant's behalf finally begins. This is because this is the period in which they go through the mirror stage, famously described by Lacan (1977/2001) and taken up by Merleau-Ponty (2014). The infant has already begun to be aware of the reflection of the caregiver – fringed with affective horizons and the indirect object of desire insofar as the infant desires that they tend to her needs – in a mirror. Now, however, she begins to realize, through the caregiver's encouragement and approval of their response to the specular image,4 two things: first, that she is a separate, distinct being, an object in the world perceived by others, and second, that those others are experiencing, desiring subjects like her. This is the birth of intersubjectivity proper, insofar as subjectivity like one's own is now appresented with perception of the other's body, but also, with this, the birth of a sense of ‘self’ or ‘ego’ which can be taken as the theme of consciousness, both adding up to the state of human being as being-perceived (Bourdieu, 2000b: 166).5 The infant is able to see the world through the eyes of others, that the indirect objects of desire – caregivers – are desiring beings with a point of view, that the infant can herself be an object of desire and that caregivers tend to their needs on this basis. Consequently – and in tandem with the linguistic injunctions mentioned in the previous chapter – the original libido, initially directed towards any object bringing satisfaction (breast/bottle/fingers), is now channelled directly towards caregivers. More specifically, the infant begins to desire that they be their object of desire's object of desire – or more simply, as Kojève (1969) put it, they desire the other's desire – and this involves acting, talking and thinking in ways which will win their esteem, care and love, and thus deliver certain powers (‘getting what one wants’). There is, therefore, the emergence of a first illusio, a first capital and the first strategies aimed at accruing or maintaining it – in other words, the child becomes immersed in their first field. The greater or lesser ambivalence fringing perception of others, meanwhile, is imbued with a fresh significance as it comes to be paired in perception with a desiring subjectivity both granting and withholding recognition.

The pertinent relational web here is not, it must be stressed, the classic mother–baby dyad of the various branches of psychoanalysis – whether object-relations theory, Lacanian structuralism or attachment theory – nor even the Oedipal triad, since that is to remain stuck at the level of substantial, interpersonal, interactive relations. Even those psychoanalysts factoring in the effect of siblings on struggles for affective recognition (as competitors but also colluders) do not go far enough (e.g. Mitchell, 2003). Sure enough, the domestic sub-space takes on particular pertinence given the generalized doxa and spatial (household) organization of familial relations in contemporary Western societies, but the

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