PierreBourdieu

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site Effects
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will
not
I hesedays, referring to a "problem suburb" or "ghetto" almost automat-
tt ically brings to mind, not "realities"- largely unknown in any caseto the
i[ €, people who rush to talk about them but phantasms,which feed on
cor- emotional experiencesstimulated by more or lessuncontrolled words and images,
olit- such as those conveyedin the tabloids and by political propagandaor rumor. But
and to break with accepted ideas and ordinary discourse,it is not enough, as we
ItO
would sometimes like to think, to "go see" what it's all about. In effect, the
svt
empiricist illusion is doubtlessnever so strong as in caseslike this, where direct
confrontation with reality entails some difficulty, even risk, and for that reason
$ve
) deservessome credit. Yet there are compelling reasonsto believe that the essential
a principle of what is lived and seen on the ground - the most striking testimony
ith and the most dramatic experiences- is elsewhere.Nothing demonstratesthis
and better than the American ghettos, those abandoned sites that are fundamentally
Íthe
defined by an absence- basically, that of the state and of everything that comes
gs
ld with it, police, schools,health care institutions, associations,etc.
SS
More than ever,then, we have to practice a para-doxal mode of tbowght ldoxa:
0ur common sense,receivedidealsl that, being equally scepticalof good senseand
tt
fine sentiments,risks appearingto right-minded people on the two sideseither as
a position inspired by the desireto "shock the bourgeois" or elseas an intolerable
indifference to the suffering of the most disadvantagedpeople in our society. One
can break with misleadingappearancesand with the errors inscribed in substan-
tialist thought about place only through a rigorous analysis of the relations
betweenthe structuresof social spaceand those of physical space.

Physical space and social space

As bodies (and biological individuals), and in the same way that things are,
human beings are situated in a site (they are not endowed with the ubiquity
that would allow them to be in severalplacesat once), and they occupy a place.
The site (le liew) can be defined absolutely as the point in physical space where an
agent or a thing is situated, "takes place," exists: that is to say, either as a
localization or, from a relational viewpoint, as a position, a rank in an order.

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Site b,ffects

The place occupied may be defined as the exrent, surface and volume that an
ap
individual or a thing occupiesin physical space,irs dimensions,or beter still, its
p
" b u l k " (a s i s s o m e ti me ssai d of a vehi cl eor pi eceof íurníture).
Becausesociaf agentsare constituted in, and in relationship to, a social space
(or better yct, to fields),and things too insofar as they are appropriated by agenrs
and hcncc cttnstitutedas properties,they are situatedin a site of social spacethat
czrnbe defined by its position relative to other sites(above,below, between,etc.)
and by the distance separatingit from them. As physical spaceis defined by the
mutual exteriority of its parts, so social spaceis defined by the mutual exclusion
(or distinctir>n)of the positions that constitute it, thar is, as a juxtapositional
s tru c tu rco f s o c i a lp o s i ti ons.
In this way and in the most diversecontexts,the structureof social spaceshows
up as spatial oppositions,with the inhabited (or appropriated) spacefunctioning
as a sort of spontaneoussymbolization of social space.There is no space in a
hierarchized society that is not itself hierarchized and that does nor express
hierarchies and social distances,in a form that is more or less distorted and,
ab<rveall, disguiscd by the naturalization effect procluced by the long-term
inscription of social realities in the natural world.'I'hus historical differences
can seemto h:rvearisen from the nature of things (we need only think of ..natural
frontier"). This is the case,for example, with all the spatial projections of social
diff-erencebetween the sexes(at church, in school, in public, and even at home).
In fact, social spacetranslatesinto physical space,but the translation is always
more or less blurred: the power over spacethat comes from posscssingvarious
kinds of capitill takes the form in appropriated physicalspaceof a certain relation
betweenthe spatial structureofthe distribution ofagents and the spatial strucrure
<lf the distribution of goods and services,private or public. An agent,sposition in
social spaceis expressedin the site of physical spacewhere thar agent is situated
(which means,fclr example, that anyone said to be "withor.rt home or hearth" or
"homeless"is virtually without a s<lcialexistence),and by the relativeposition that
tfreir tenrporary localizations(for example, honorific places,seatingiegulated by
protocol)' and especiallythe permanentones (home addressand busineisaddress;
occupy in relation to the localizationsof other agents.Ir is also expresseclin the
place occupiecl(by right) in spaceby virtue of the properties (houses,aparrmenrs,
or offices,land to cultivate, to use or build on, etc.),which are more oiless bulky
or, ils one sorretinressays,"spaceconsuming" (greateror lesserostentationin the
c<>nsunrption of spacebeing one of the forms par excellencefor displayingpower).
Part <rfthe inert ia of the structures of social spaceresults from the fact thai ih"y nr.
irrscrilredirr physicalspaceand cannot be modified exceprby a work of transplan-
ttttitm, a moving of things and an uprooting or deporting of people, which itself
presupposesextremely difficult and costly sociaItransformarions.
In this way, reified social space (that is, physically realized or objectified)
appears as the distribution in physical space of different types of goods and
servicesar.rdalso of individual agentsand of physically situated groups (as units
linked to il permallentsite) that are endowed with greateror lesseipossibilitiesfor

124
 site r,ffects

appropriating thesegoods and services(as a function of both their capital and the
physical distance from these goods, which also depends on their capital). The
value of different regionsof reified social spaceis defined in this relation between
the distribution of agentsand the distribution of goods in social space.
The different fields, or, if you like, the different, physically obiectified social
spaces,tend to be at least roughly superimposed:the result is a concentration of
the rarest goods and their owners in certain sites of physical space (Madison
Avenue or Fifth Avenue in New York, the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in
Paris)which contrasts in every respectwith sitesthat, principally and sometimes
exclusively,collect the most disadvantagedgroups (poor suburbs,ghettos).These
sitesof high concentrationsof either positive or negative(stigmatizing)properties
set traps for the analyst who, in acceptingthem as such, is bound to overlook the
essentialpoint: like Madison Avenue, the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré brings
together high-end art galleriesand antique dealers,haute couture salons,elegant
bootmakers,painters,interior decorators,etc., that is, a whole array of businesses
which have in common the fact that they occupy elevated positions (positions
thus homologous to each other) in their respectivefields, and which can be
understood in all their individual specificity only if they are seen in relation to
businessessituated in the same field, in lesserpositions, but in other regions of
physical space. For instance, the interior decorators of the Rue du Faubourg
'.\
t\
Saint-Honoré in central Paris stand in marked contrast to what on the working-
cfassRue du Faubourg Saint-Antoineare called "cabinet makers" lébénistesl(the
difference is marked most obviously by their aristocratic names, but also by all \
their attributes, the nature, quality and price of the products offered, the social
statusof their clientele,etc.). The same logic contrastshair stylistswith ordinary \,
,I
barbers,bootmakerswith shoe repairers.Theseoppositionsare assertedin a truly \
syn-rbolicsystemof distinction: referenceto the uniquenessof the "creation" and
the "creator," invocation of a long tradition, the nobility of the founder and the
founder'sactions, always designatedby noble epithets,often borrowed from the
$
í
E nglis h.
In the same way, at least in the case of France, the capital city is - no pun
intended- the site of capital, that is, the site in physical spacewhere the positive
poles of all the fields are concentratedalong with most of the agentsoccupying
these dominant positions: which means that the capital cannot be adequately
analyzed except in relation to the provinces (and "provincialness"), which is
nothing other than being deprived (in entirely relative terms) of the capital and
c apit al.
The great social oppositions objectified in physical space (as with the capital
versus the provinces) tend to be reproduced in thought and in language as
oppositions constitutive of a principle of vision and division, as categoriesof
perception and evalr.rationor of mental structures (Parisian/provincial,chic/not
chic, etc.). Thr"rsthe opposition between the "Left Bank" and the "Right Bank"
that shows up on maps and in statisticalanalysesof theater audiencesor of the
attributesof gallery artists is presentin the minds of potential spectators,and als<r

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site L,ffects

in the minds of playwrights, painters and critics, as the opposition - which

operates like a category of perception and appreciation - between avant-garde
art (off-Broadway theater) and "bourgeois" art (Broadway shows).
More generally,the mute injunctions and silent calls to order from structures rn
appropriated physical spaceare one of the mediations by which social structures
are gradually converted into mental structures and into systems of preferences.
More precisely, the imperceptible incorporation of structures of the social order
undoubtedly happens, in large part, through a prolonged and indefinitely
repeated experience of the spatial distance that affirms social distance. More
concretely, this incorporation takes place through the displacements and body
tnouements organized by these social structures turned into spatial structuresand
thereby naturalized. They organize and designate as ascent or descent ("to go up
to Paris"), entry (inclusion, cooptation, adoption), or exit (exclusion,expulsion,
excommunication),what is in fact closenessto or distancefrom a central,valued
site. Here I am thinking of the respectfuldemeanor called for by grandeurand
height (of monuments, rostrums, or platforms) and the frontal placementof
sculptures and paintings or, more subtly, of all the deferential and reverential
conduct that is tacitly imposed by the simple social designationof space(thehead
of the table, the right side of the tracks, etc.) and all the practical hierarchizations
of regions in space (uptown/downtown, East SideAilíestSide, foreground/wings,
front of the store/backroom,right side/leftside, etc.).
Becausesocial spaceis inscribedat once in spatial structuresand in the mental
structures that are partly produced by the incorporation of these structures,space
is one of the sites where power is assertedand exercised,and, no doubt in its
subtlest form, as symbolic violence that goes unperceivedas violence.Architec-
tural spacesaddressmute injunctions directly to the body and, tust as surelyas
court etiquette, obtain from it the reverence and respect born of distance,or
better yet, from being far away, at a respectful distance. Their very invisibility (to
analyststhemselves,who, like historians since Schramm,' are often attachedto
the most visible signsof symbolic power, such as sceptersand crowns) undoubt-
edly makes thesethe most important componentsof the symbolic order of power
and the totally real effects of symbolic power.

Strugglesto appropriate space

Space,or more preciselythe sitesand placesof reified social space,along with the
profits they procure, are stakesin struggles(within different fields).Spatialprofits
may take the form of the profits of localizatioz, which can be divided into two
classes:income derived from proximity to rare and desirableagents and goods
(such as educational,cultural or health establishments);and the profits of posï

' The referenceis to the Cerman historiirn Percy Ernst Schramnr ( I tl94- I 970), author of, in particular,
A History of the F-.nglishCorrnation (trans., 1937) and a thrce-volumc ()plrs, Herrschaftszeichenund
Staat ssymbo I i k (195 4-1 97 8). lTr.l

126
 Site L,ffects

tion or of rank (for example, assured by a prestigious address),which are a

particular case of the symbolic profits of distinction tied to the monopolistic
possessionof a distinctive property. (Sincephysical distancecan be measuredin
spatial terms, or better yet, in temporal terms, to the extent that going from one
place to another takes more or lesstime according to the possibilitiesof accessto
public or private meansof transportation, the power over spacegiven by various
different forms of capital is also, and by that same token, a power over time.)
These profits may also take the form of profits of occupation (or alternativelS of
cor-rgestion), where possessionof a physical space (extensivegrounds, spacious
apartments, etc.) is a w^y of holding at a distance and excluding any kind of
undesirable intrusion (as with the "lovely views" of the English manor house
which, as Raymond Williams observed in Tbe Country and tbe Cily, transform
the countrysideand its peasantsinto landscapefor the owner's pleasure,or again,
the "unparalleled views" of real estateads today).
The ability to dominate space,notably by appropriating (materially or symbol-
ically) the rare goods (public or private) distributed there, dependson the capital
possessed. Capital makes it possibleto keep undesirablepersonsand things at a
distanceat the same time that it brings closer desirablepersonsand things (made
desirable,among other things, by their richnessin capital), thereby minimizing
the necessaryexpense (notably in time) in appropriating them. Proximity in
physical space allows the proximity in social space to deliver all its effects by
facilitating or fostering the accumulation of social capital and, more precisely,by
allowing uninterrupted benefits from the meetings at once fortuitous and foresee-
able that come from frequenting well-frequented sites. (Moreover, possessing
capital ensuresthe quasi-ubiquitythat makes it possibleto master both economic
as well as symbolic meansof transportation and communication - a ubiquity that
is often reinforced by delegation - the power of existing and acting from a
distanceby proxy.)
Conversely,those who are deprived of capital are either physically or symbol-
ically held at a distance from goods that are the rarest socially; they are forced to
stick with the most undesirableand the least rare personsor goods. The lack of
capital intensifies the experience of finitude: it chains one to a place.2

2
By assembling the available statistical data for each of the French departments both orr indices of
economic, cultural or even social capital, and on the goods and seruicèsoffèred at the level of this
administrative unit, one can demonstrate that the regional differer-rcesoften imputed to geographic
determinisms can in fact be ascribed to differencesin capital, which owe their historical permanenceto
the circular reinforcement that was continuously exercisedin the course of history (especiallyby virtue
of the fact that, especially for residenceand culture, aspirations depend in large part on the p<.rssibilities
oblectively available for them to be achieved). Only after having located and measurcd that portion of
observed phenomena that seems to be a function of physical spzrcebut in fact rcflccts economic and
social differences,can one hope to isolate the irreducible residue properly imputable to proximity and
distance in purely physical space. This is the case with the sueening effect that results from the
anthropological privilege conferred on the directly perceived present and, by the same token, on the
visible and sensatespace of copresent objects and agents (direct neighbors). This nreans, for instance,
that hostilities linked to proximity in physical space (as with conflicts between neighbors) may obscure
the solidarities associatedwith the position occupied in social, national, or international space,or that

I27
Site f,ffects

Struggles for the appropriation of space can take an indiuidual form: spatial
mobility within or between generations- as with relocations in both directions
between the capital and the provinces, or successiveaddresseswithin the hier-
archized spaceof the capital - is a good indicator of successor reversesin these
struggles,and more generally,of the whole social trajectory (provided we seethat
iust as agents differing in age and social trajecrory - young upper management
and older middle management,for example- can temporarily coexist in the same
jobs, so too, just as temporarilS they can end up in neighboring residentialsites).
Successin these strugglesdepends on the capital held (in its various types).
Indeed, for the occupantsof a given habitat the likely chancesof appropriating
the different material or cultural goods and servicesassociatedwith that habitat
come down to the specific capacities for appropriation each one has (both
materially - money, private means of transportation - and culturally). A habitat
can be occupied physically without really being inhabited in the full senseof the
term if the occupant does not disposeof the tacitly required means of habitation,
starting with a certain habitus.
If the habitat shapesthe habitus, the habitus also shapesthe habitat, through
the more or less adequate social usagesthat it tends to make of it. This certainly
throws doubt on the belief that bringing together in the same physical space
agents who are far apart in social spacemight, in itself, bring them closer socially:
in fact, socially distanced people find nothing more intolerable than physical
proximity (experiencedas promiscuity).
Among all the properties presupposedby the legitimate occupation of a site,
there are some - and they are not the least determining - which are acquired only
through prolonged occupation of this site and sustained association with its
legitimate occupants.This is the case,obviouslS with the social capital of rela-
tions, connections, or ties (and most particularly with the privileged ties of
childhood or adolescentfriendships)or with all the subtlest aspectsof cultural
and linguistic capital, such as body mannerismsand pronunciation (accents),etc.
- all the many attributesthat make the place of birth (and to a lesserdegree,place
of residence)so important.
At the risk of feeling themselvesout of place, individuals who move lnto a new
spacemust fulfill the conditions that that spacetacitly requiresof its occupants.
This may be the possessionof a certain cultural capital, the lack of which can
prevent the real appropriation of supposedlypublic goods or eventhe intention of
appropriating them. Museums come to mind, of course,but the same holds true
for servicesthat are usually considered more universally necessary,such as those
of medical or legal institutions. One has the Paris that goes with one's economic
capital, and also with one's cultural and social capital (visiting the Pompidou
Museum is not enough to appropriate the Museum of Modern Art). Certain
spaces,and in particular the most closed and most "select," require not only

th e r e p r e se n ta tio n sim p o s ed by the poi nt c l f v i ew as s oc i ated w i th the pos i ti or - r oc c upi ed i r r l <;c el ls oc i a l

sp a ce( su ch a s th e villa g e) rnay pr ev ent under s tandi ng the pos i ti on oc c upi ed i n nati onr r l s oc i i r l s pac e .

I28
 Site L.ffects

economic and cultural capital, but social capital as well. They procure social
capital, and symbolic capital, by the club effect that comes from the long-term
gathering together (in chic neighborhoodsor luxury homes)of people and things
which are different from the vast majority and have in common the fact that they
are not common, that is, the fact that they excludeeveryonewho doesnot present
all the desiredattributes or who presents(at least) one undesirableattribute. The
exclusion may be legal (through a type <>fnumerws clausus) or de facto (the
inevitable feeling of exclusion will deprive the intruder of certain profits asso-
ciated with belonging).
Like a club founded on the active exclusion of undesirablepeople,the fashion-
able neighborhood symbolically consecratesits inhabitants by allowing each one
to partake of the capital accumulatedby the inhabitants as a whole. Likewise, the
stigmatized area symbolically degradesits inhabitants, who, in return, symbol-
ically degradeit. Sincethey don't have all the cards necessaryto participate in the
various social games, the only thing they share is their common excommunica-
tion. Bringing together on a single site a population homogeneousin its dispos-
session strengthens that dispossession,notably with respect to culture and
cultural practices:the pressuresexertedat the level of classor school or in public
life by the most disadvantagedor those furthest from a "normal" existencepull
everything down in a general leveling. They leave no escapeother than flight
toward other sites (which lack of resourcesusually rendersimpossible).
Struggles over space may also assume more collective forms, whether at the é-
national level concerninghousing policies,or at the locaI level, with regard to the
construction and allocation of subsidized housing or the choices for public
services. The ultimate stake for the most decisive of these struggles is govern-
mental policy, which wields an immensepower over spacethrough its capacity to
give value to land, housing and also, to a large extent, to work and education.So
the confrontation and collusion between high state officials (divided among
themselves),members of the financial institutions directly involved in construc-
tion credit operations, and representativesof local municipalities and public
serviceshave brought about a housing policy which, through taxation policy
and particularly through construction subsidies,has effected a veritable political
construction of space. To the extent that it favors the constrwction of homogen-
eous groups on a spatial basis, this policy is in large part responsible for what can
be directly observedin run-down apartment complexes or the housing projects
that have been desertedby the State.

r29