What is A (social and technical) ‘field’

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Bourdieu developed the concept of the ‘field’ to denote the fact that agents act in social situations which are governed by objective social relations (Bourdieu, 1993) between people. McNay notes that modern society in increasingly differentiated into distinct fields (McNay, 1999). According to Sterne (2003), we might consider a field as being where technological production and consumption come together—as with a mutually constitutive technical and social system. Social formations are structured by a series of fields (such as the cultural, educational and political), with each being a structured space with its own rules or laws which require mastery (Bourdieu, 1993). In any given field, there is social struggle and competition, where agents vie for control of ‘capital’ (op. cit.). Learn more in: Applying Bourdieu to eBay's Success and Socio-Technical Design