Presentation

Over its four decades of development, the sociology of emotions has managed to consolidate its field and root the relevance of studying affective life, considering its production conditions, the functions it fulfills and the social effects it generates ^{(Bericat, 2000: 150)} . ¹⁴ For its part, supported on the linguistic and cultural turns, the affective turn has contributed not only to remark the presence of this dimension in social life, but to place it as an interpretative resource to analyze diverse social processes in affective key. ¹⁵

The present work starts from the conviction that this sort of analytical exercise is susceptible to extend to the study of classic and contemporary productions in social theory. In this sense, as pointed out by ^{Abramowski and Canevaro (2017: 11)} , the enthusiasm for rereading fundamental sociologic works in an affective key would seem to disprove the intended minor nature given to the enquiry on emotional life. The appropriation of the main contributions from classic and contemporary authors and the deepening of some of their working suppositions are part of the foundations upon which the present-day sociology of emotions and affections stands ^{(Ariza, 2016: 14)} .

In this context of interests, in the present work an exercise in approaching the analysis of the relationships between the concepts of power, symbolical domination and illusio in the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002), placing the affective dimension as a central variable. Specifically, it is sought to identify the role and weight of emotions and affections acquire in Bourdieu’s explanation of symbolical domination processes and the affective production of social order, when the symbolical notion of illusio is introduced as an axis category analysis.

Strictly speaking, Bourdieu did not produce works devoted to study emotions. Nevertheless, as we expect to demonstrate, understanding the affective dimension is included in his analyses of contemporary societies. In the face of the dominant interpretation of a merely residual presence of emotions in Bourdieu’s work, authors such as ^{Aarseth (2016)} , ^{Crossley (2001 a and 2001b)}, ^{Räsänen and Kauppinen (2020)} , ^{Reay (2000} and 2015), ^{Skeggs (2004a and 2004b)}, and ^{Threadgold (2020)} have stressed the crucial role of them in their general explanatory framework.

On the basis of this supposition, we state that the affective dimension, in spite of not being directly worked by Bourdieu, is an integral part of his thinking and is an access way to his reflections on power. ¹⁶ Within this context, we consider that an analysis of the concepts of power, symbolic domination and illusio, enhanced by the incorporation of the emotional dimension, may contribute to a more complete understanding of the forms of domination entailed by consented obedience. In a mere specific sense, we put forward that illusio, defined in the first place as a constitutive element of the values of a field, and social desired socially configured at once, linked to values, capitals, plays and stakes of such field, may contribute to the analysis of these particular forms of obedience from considering its unfolding into three principles that are developed and discussed in the present work:

Supported on these premises, our analysis follows a double route. On one side, the concepts of power are progressively reviewed, symbolic domination and illusio. On the other, the implicit presence, but not least important, of the emotional dimension in the configuration of such notions. Inscribed in the logic, the work is divided into three sections. In the first, the concepts of power and symbolic domination are exposed. In the second, these concepts are revisited, establishing connections with the emotional dimension by incorporating the habitus. Finally, in the third section we revise the notion of illusio. On one side, as a connecting concept between the notions of habitus and field; on the other, after the review of the effects of illusio as mechanism of symbolic domination, understood from the three aforementioned principles. On the basis of this development, the implications derived from the conceptualization of illusio are discussed at last, assumed as a form of “domination by emotions”, which obtains its symbolic efficacy incorporating the interests, desires and aspirations of the agents in the context of asymmetric logics in the fields in which they participate.

Approximations to Bourdieu’s concepts of power and symbolic domination

Due to its centrality in the field of social sciences, power has been the object of multiple definitions and approaches. A brief overview of the history of these developments shows its multidimensional and polysemic character ^{(Clegg and Haugaard, 2009: 1)} .

Power has been characterized as a resource, a property, or a sign of capacity to influence the others. ¹⁷ It has been assumed as a byproduct of human agency, or effect of structural conditions ^{(Lukes, 2005)} . It has been conceived from its relational, historic, and situated character. It has been understood as a transversal condition to all social processes, locating its presence beyond the political arena to move it to the more comprehensive domain of “the political”, including the world of daily interactions, personal dimension, bodies and sensibilities ^{(Dreher and Göttlich, 2019)} . In parallel, it has changed from being considered exclusively as a domination mechanism (power on) to assume its productive and summative power (power for), not reduced to the generation of control and conditioning processes ^{(Göhler, 2009: 28-29)} .

Without loosing sight of the relevance of these perspectives, the approximation we assay here is assumed as an approach focused on two topics present in Bourdieu’s work we believe central to understand his vision on power: the consideration of its symbolic dimensions and the assumption of its presence as a structural-order mechanism, linked to the operation logic of social fields (seen as spaces for games and battlefields).

Both topics are approached, besides, bearing in mind their expression of the emotional kind. The consideration of this dimension is not casual in the context of the present work. We start from the presupposition that emotions do not only represent another object to be sociologically explained, a residual category of sociologic analysis ^{(Alexander, 2003: 109)} , or a second-order variable, but they can become an explanatory principle useful to understand fundamental problems of social life. As pointed out by ^{Bericat (2000: 151)} , if the explanatory resource provided by emotions is discarded, crucial phenomena such as nationalism, racism, or identity would be barely understandable. Would it be the same regarding the comprehension of phenomena of power and domination? The stake on a positive answer to such questions makes room for these lines, directed at analyzing Bourdieu’s perspective on power and symbolic domination, from the incorporation of emotional-order components present in such notions.

Emotional expression of symbolic power: domination through habitus

The set of dispositions and schemas of sensation, perception and understanding from which agents interiorize the social world constitute what Bourdieu calls habitus ^{(Bourdieu, 2007: 86, 88-89)} . This concept is key to tie the various categories of the theoretical system and overcome the typical dichotomy established between notions of structure and agency. Bourdieu tries to overcome it, stating that the simultaneous production of both dimensions and the primacy of relationships, over the tendency to conceive them independent (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1995: 23). Society is generated and reproduced by means of producing internalized structures in the agents, which function as structuring-structures of the collective ways of thinking, feeling and acting that configure society. In this sense, habitus is a generating principle of long-lasting practices, transferrable to various fields, and is composed of structures incorporated into the form of a schema of sensation, appreciation, and action ^{(Bourdieu and Passeron, 1998: 73-74, 99)}.

Habitus comprises the set of socially produced dispositions that are shared by individuals of a same social group, class, or gender ^{(Bourdieu, 2007: 97-98)} . This set unifies the individual with their class and groups of belonging, at once it differentiates them from individuals of other groups ^{(Bourdieu, 2007: 173)}. For its part, habitus expresses the interiorization of conditions of social life, this process internalizes hierarchies, distinctions and operation logics present in various social fields ^{(Bourdieu, 1999: 131)}. ¹⁹ Differences in the position of the agents in the fields are noticed in the differenced access conditions to material and symbolic resources available in the various fields (capitals). To the extent this set of capitals, beyond its specific power in each field, configures forms of power, recognition and status for those who hold them, it becomes symbolic capital ^{(Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1995: 65)}. Rigorously, symbolic capital is not a specific sort of capital, but the returns the capitals possessed give their holders, in terms of recognition, status and power ^{(Bourdieu, 1997: 151)}. Following, the affective-order repercussions of this fact will be analyzed.

Illusio, field and symbolic domination: an approximation from emotions

Despite its evident relevance, the concept of illusio has a late origin in Bourdieu’s works, being the object of successive re-elaborations over time by the author. ²² As ^{Durand (2014: 2)} points out, the concept is already suggested in the 1977 text, “the production of belief” ^{(Bourdieu, 1977: 3)}, where a critique is made to the sacralization of high culture and the belief in the transcendent value of art to place that illusio as a component of the cultural field and a product of the same system of relationships that make cultural productions possible. The notion will reappear two years later, in the argumentative framework of Distinction (1979/1998 to remark such criticism, adding now that the belief in the value of culture and its transcending nature is the original investment which gives meaning to the logic of cultural field and their main stakes and games. Illusio is already named and presented here as a synonym to belief, participation and commitment with the constitutive games of every social field ^{(Bourdieu, 1998: 28 and 247)}. Finally, the concept will reach its full development in the 1990’s decade in books such as Pascalian Meditations and Practical Reason ^{(Bourdieu, 1997: 141; Bourdieu, 1999: 129)}. As Bourdieu himself pointed out in these works, its more constant and systematic use during this stage responds to the purpose of placing the term (now used with that of social libido) in a contraposition relationship with the notions of profit and benefit, proper to economic-utilitarian doctrines ^{(Grenfell, 2014: 151)} , with a view to giving an account of the deep motivations that guide the participation of agents in various social fields ^{(Bourdieu, 1997: 142)}. In this regard Bourdieu (1997) himself states:

After defending my use of the notion of interest, I will now try to show that it may be substituted by more rigorous notions such as illusio, investment, or even libido. In his famous book, Homo Ludens, Huizinga states that by means of a false etymology, it may be as if illusio, a Latin word that comes from ludus (game), would mean to be in the game, be in it, take the game seriously. Illusio is the fact of being in the game, believing the game is worth playing. In point of fact, the world interest, in a first meaning, meant what I have encompassed in this notion of illusio, that is to say, the facto of considering that a social game is important […] Being interested means “be part”, participate, thereby, recognizing that the game is worth playing ^{(Bourdieu, 1997: 141)} .

On the basis of this approach, we are able to carry out a broader characterization of the notion of illusio from the outlining of some general lines and supported on the afore cited passage.

a) It is worth underscoring in the first place, the close convergence pointed out in the quotation between the notions of interest (in a broad sense), illusio, investment, and social libido. The three last notions expressly remark its distancing from references of pragmatic utilitarian nature, rational calculation or linked to considerations on motivations in terms of individual sociology. In this sense, illusio refers to interests, desires, and aspirations, historically and socially configured, located in the logic of various social fields. ²³

b) The second term, the concept of illusion denotes, in a parallel and articulated manner, operative conditions and principles, present in the fields and in the practices of the agents. On one side, illusio remits to a specific sort of interest, participation and commitment established by the agents with the values, games and stakes that provide a field with meaning, assumed as a social space of struggle. These specific modes of participation and commitment are dually constituted: the acquired dispositions (i.e., habitus) and the operation logics established by the fields. In this sense, as pointed out by ^{Crossley (2001 b: 87)} , the concepts of field and habitus are associated in a circular relationship that takes the notion of illusio as a center ^{(Costey, 2005: 7)} .

c) In this context, illusio appears as a principle incorporated by the habitus, which fixes a mode of relation and pertinence with the field: it remits, on one side, to the “belief in their main games and stakes”, while on the other, to the specific mode of active incorporation in them, deeply rooted and unaware, which motivates in the agent the development of specific strategies and investments ^{(Colley, 2014: 669)} .

Being a player is “being one with the field”; seeing, thinking and acting according to its structure and form; that is, in other words, sharing an illusio with the participants with the native participants, established in “full right” and considering vañid interlocutors in such field ^{(Crossley, 2001 b: 88)} .

d) In parallel to the above, each field establishes an illusio, as principle or referent of purposes, values, expectations, goods and desirable individual or collective accomplishments. Hence, illusio remits to the referents of value that provide the field with meaning. “Each field produces and gives life to a specific form of interest, a specific illusio, as a tacit recognition for the value of the stakes of the game and as a practical domain of its rules” ^{(Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1995: 80)} . For the characterization of the field is important both what is being played and the nature and logic of the very games; this is, the sort of strategies and investments, stakes made ^{(Costey, 2005: 16)} .

e) illusio is a referent that shades and dissimulates the struggle present in various fields, providing the games, stakes and results with legitimacy before the players. This legitimation process generates from the production of narratives that underscore values, ideal and interests apparently transcending and general (never put forward as individual or egotistic) that discursively shape the field. The validity of illusio, for its part, ensures the belief in the legality and validity of the field and its continuity. Habitus links with the field by means of illusio ^{(Atkinson, 2021: 4)} , as from it incorporates the values of the field and finds in illusio the reasons to partake of the games and main stakes in the field ^{(Costey, 2005: 15} ; ^{Calås, 2019: 4)} .

Once these considerations are established, we are able to summarize the fundamental characteristics of the notion of illusio in three general principles, following in this regard the argumentative line developed by ^{Bourdieu and Wacquant (1995: 61, 68, 87, 120)} and its retrieval in works such as those by ^{Calås (2019: 2)} , ^{Costey (2005 : 16-17)} , and ^{Lupu and Empson (2015: 9)} .

Illusio operates, on one side, as a perception principle from which the objects and values of the field become valuable, as well as their main games and stakes. This operative principle is the result of interiorization, by means of habitus, of classificatory systems that operate in the field. From this, distinguishable is what is proper and alien to the field, the scale of values, hierarchies and distinctive criteria that organize the objects, practices and the resources considered capitals in the field, as well as the aspirations and values consecrated as valuable inside the field. From such principle, an emotional orientation is defined for the components of the field and attribution criteria uncontested in their constitutive arbitrariness; orientation patterns and positive or negative affective valences for objects, practices, individuals in the logic of the field are defined (desirable values, disposable objects, discredited agents or placed in discredit, etc.). Under these conditions, illusio, conceived as a perception principle that produces effects of reality in its effects, turns into a principle of belief.

In a second sense, illusio works as an investment principle, not only material and economic, but symbolic and emotional. In this way, not only does illusio represent a mere desire, but a desire capable of unleashing strategies and investments of various kinds. The axis of these actions is interest, assumed as a motivation socially configured around the field referents ^{(Grenfell, 2014: 154)} . In this sense, illusio is a sort of desire socially configured (social libido) that takes the form of objects, practices and strategies defined as valid inside the field, and in this way, it fits to its emotional regimes. This form of socially configured desire, which is set as a goal and end, works as a trigger of action, as an energy principle of it. Such statement concurs with the relevant thesis put forward by Eva ^{Illouz (2007: 15)} , as regards the that emotions are the energy component of action and allow supporting, in a broad sense, the relevance of incorporating, together with the traditional model of economic and moral agency, an agency of the emotional kind that integrates the affective valences from which to build the social world. ²⁴

illusio remits, in a third meaning, to a principle of adhesion and abidance by the normativity of the field. As such, it becomes a criterion by whereby the tacit acceptance of the logic of the field, its games, stakes and even results is produced. It represents, in this way, a sort of practical and adherence faith to the value of the game and its legitimacy. At this point, the principle of belief in the value of the game leads to moral and emotional control mechanisms by means of which the subjects regulate their behaviors, defining the change from “I want”, an indicator of socially configured desire, to the “I must” adjusted to the field normativity, with the corresponding mechanisms of wait, constriction and sacrifice that compose the specific emotional regimes of each field. By means of such principle adhesion and abidance, desires and expectations are adjusted as are the strategies to follow, with a view to being considered as legitimate and valid. Likewise, the acceptance of dissimilar results in the games developed in the fields, of the differenced and uneven conditions of participation are a fundamental element and a result of illusio, reinforcing its role as structurer of affective commitments the social agents establish with the games in the field and in a general sense with the social order. In this context, the disposition of habitus operate as adjustment mechanisms that define the horizons of possibility of the agents, fixing in their minds “what is” and “what is not for us”, while it is considered that it can be reached or deserved ^{(Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1995: 90)} . ²⁵

Final considerations

From Bourdieu’s standpoint, power is a dimension transversal to all social fields. A social field is a space for game and a space for struggle, at once, a field of interaction and a set of positions organized by emotional regimes that configure the emotional practices and affective investments the agents make. In the search for attaining the values instituted by illusio, we are summoned to partake of the games established by the fields, making use or facing the multiple forms of power. By means of the strategies we develop, we experience the possibilities and limits of our power of agency. In the context of material and symbolical struggles that codify the competences and games imposed by the field, there appear forms of intervention power and influence power upon others (individually and collectively). In the distribution, defense and attainment of positions, as well as in the strategic use of resources, values and relationships, forms of subordination and domination may be established.

In the very agency and adjustment of habitus to the horizons of possibilities (what is and what is not for us), that is to say, the interiorization processes of principles of vision and division of the world, mechanisms of symbolic domination incorporate. Finally, in a broader sense, linked to the logic of field operation as a set, forms of structural domination are established. In all these expressions of power. In of these expressions of power, emotions are present in different forms and very diverse degrees.

The concepts of symbolic power and illusio fulfill a capital function in Bourdieu’s theoretical perspective. In both cases, these concepts allude to principles of perception, investment, adherence, and belief in the legitimacy of social order, at once to a principle of emotional order whereby agents effectively commit to such order, as they assume the values that organize collective life.

By means of illusio, agents “hook” their aspirations to the principles that substantiate the asymmetric logics of relation they suffer. Far from circumscribing this mode of “domination by affects” to the space of interpersonal interactions. Bourdieu makes it part of social life as he inscribes it to the asymmetric logic and agonistic of the fields. Illusio represents, in this way, a category that traps the emotional mode by means of which the arbitrariness of the fields is incorporated as a proper end and valid by the agents, making them carry out emotional investments that “hook” them to forms of domination of which they are unaware of, as long as they are linked to their own goals and desires. From this standpoint, power and domination are not restricted to economic-relation logics or the imposition of devices of moral order, which leads to the incorporation, together with traditional models of economic and moral agency, emotional agency that integrates the affective valences from which the social world is also build, and in a significant manner.