Looking elsewhere: Howard S. Becker as unwilling organisational theorist

Jason Hughes

doi:10.1177/1350508415587155

Abstract

This article explores the idea of Howard S. Becker as organisational theorist. It examines some of the principal conceptual imagery in Becker’s work and considers the significance of this imagery for how organisations are ‘seen’ (conceptualised) and ‘looked at’ (analysed). To this end, a critical comparison of Becker’s concept of world and Bourdieu’s concept of field is undertaken. By his own admission, Becker recognises that some of his key studies—of art worlds, jazz musicians, educational environments and so forth—might be recast as centrally ‘about organisations’. However, it is argued that Becker is something of an ‘unwilling’ organisational theorist; not in the sense that he avoids or is ignorant of the conceptual debates invoked by that term, but in as much as formal theory without object is profoundly at odds with key aspects of his sociological practice. Accordingly, this article centrally considers how Becker has consistently ‘looked elsewhere’ in much of his work. ‘Looking elsewhere’, it is proposed, involves reframing key conceptual and methodological problems such that they are amenable to research. It also involves an often radical rejection of the framing of certain kinds of problem, points towards alternative modes of analysis and investigation and entails the development of conceptual imagery expressly intended to avoid the restrictions and confinement of now dominant forms of analytical convention.

Highlights

The original working title for this paper was ‘Howard S
When I pitched the idea of this paper, along with its working title, to Becker himself, he immediately rejected the notion that he was an ‘unwitting’ organisational theorist
As Robert Clulely (2012) has suggested, Becker’s (2008 [1982]) work on Art Worlds might be said to depict, in the Giddensian sense, a form of ‘structuration’ (Giddens 1984; Cluley 2012). This is apparent in Becker’s consistent focus upon the co-constitution of cultural texts and social structure through viewing as two aspects of the same process ‘how culture works as a guide in organizing collective action and how it comes into being’, and how in art worlds, ‘people pay attention to what other people are doing and, in an attempt to mesh what they do with others, refer to what they know in common’ (Becker 1986: 19 cited in Cluley 2012: 204)

Summary

Introduction

The original working title for this paper was ‘Howard S. This is apparent in Becker’s consistent focus upon the co-constitution of cultural texts and social structure through viewing as two aspects of the same process ‘how culture works as a guide in organizing collective action and how it comes into being’, and how in art worlds, ‘people pay attention to what other people are doing and, in an attempt to mesh what they do with others, refer to what they know (or think they know) in common’ (Becker 1986: 19 cited in Cluley 2012: 204).

Results

Conclusion