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The Production of Belief : Contribution to An Economy of Symbolic Goods The article attempts to set forth the general properties both of the fields of production of cultural goods and of the symbolic struggles waged within them. It is based on a systematic comparison of the laws governing activity in a number of different fields (painting, the theater, literature, journalism). This approach enables the author to ascertain and formulate properties which, if they had been established through the investigation of one particular field, might have revealed themselves only incompletely. Failure to recognize and define the specific type of capital at stake in a given struggle entails the risk of falling into the one-sided materialism of economism. Commerce in art conforms to a logic similar to that found in pre-capitalist economics, where properly economic profit is secondary to accumulation of symbolic capital; and for the latter, economic disinterestedness is a necessary if not sufficient condition. These distinctions make possible an understanding of the variation in the life cycle of cultural goods. (The cultural goods involved in short-term cycles are those which embody a limited quantity of symbolic capital, whereas the cultural goods involved in long-term cycles are those whose creation and « launching » require a high degree of authority in the field in question, something which is acquired only slowly.) Fields of production, as Systems of actors and institutions competing for the production and distribution of this capital, may be considered to constitute the System of production responsible for generating the value of cultural works. On this view, one can dispel the illusion of the creative subject, which is maintained and even strengthened by what appears to be the most reductive vocabulary of all (production, producer). There exist relations of homology which link the institutions engaged in the production and distribution of cultural goods with one another (as can be seen especially in the study of the theater and of literary publishing). And the same kind of relationships link these various fields to the field of the groups within the ruling class (as can be seen especially in the study of the variation of drama reviews from one periodical to another). Partial critiques tend to consider actions in the cultural field as motivated by an adherence to arbitrarily adopted positions. (Thus, rightest critics reproach the left for the terrorism excercized by intellectual fashion, while leftist critics reproach the right with the seduction excercized by the material means of corruption.) These homologous relationships however allow us to realize that such actions are the result of a convergence of number of objective factors. They also allow us to ascribe internal struggles, even those occuring in fields which appear to be the most autonomous, to external struggles, particularly to political struggles between dominant groups within the ruling class and between classes as whole. The temporality proper to fields of production results from struggles between actors within the fields and its nature varies from one type of productive unit to another. The sources of production and distribution in given field can be situated along continuum whose two end points are at one extreme the production of short-lived symbolic goods that are managed like ordinary economic goods and at the other the slow gestation not without risk of symbolic goods that are meant to endure. In struggling to define new positions in the field and to introduce major differences in their products the newcomers produce the avant-garde and push the previous avant-garde back toward the past.

Social Status and Spatial Position. The Social Geography of the Parisian Literary Field at the End of the Nineteenth Century. At the end of the nineteenth century, space in Paris bore strongly demarcated characteristics which varied from one neighborhood to another. This circumstance influenced where people in different fields of endeavor decided to live and the way they functioned in them. For example, an examination of the Parisian literary field at this period shows that writers, in choosing a residence, selected locations within the city's social space which corresponded to their positions in the field, these latter varying from proximity to the dominant pole, through the intermediate sector, to the dominated pole. The dominant pole was situated in the western part of the city, the intermediate sector in the ninth « arrondissement », near the « Boulevards », and the avant-garde in the outlying districts and in the Latin Quarter. This correspondence, which played a role in orienting literary strategies and in making writers conscious of their positions in the field and with respect to the different groups of the ruling class, can be explained by the localization of the institutions which selected the writers in accord with these positions. The writers close to the dominant pole were recruited through the « salons », a means of legitimation sponsored by the dominant group of the ruling class, this institution provided access to academic posts and prominent positions (e.g on the major literary reviews). Members of the intermediate sector gathered near the newspapers and the "boulevard" theaters, which were an important source of income for them. Finally the avant-garde was limited to the intellectual pole where the producers of the minor reviews were the same as the consumers. The spatial trajectories of the members of the main literary schools psycho ogical naturalist symbolist show how ,by means of this network of relations, link was established between literary strategies and social trajectories.

Publishers of Children's Books and the Social Definitions of Early Childhood An analysis of the production of picture books designed for young French children reveals the variation to be found in the social definitions of early childhood. The study of the field of production of this type of cultural good allows us to relate the conceptions of childhood current among publishers to the ensemble of economic and social factors operating in the book market. The different definitions of early childhood arise through the interaction of the various forms of mediation existing in the field of production and become objectified in the various types of products offered on the market. The variation among these definitions is homologous to the variation among the forms of socialization prevalent in the different classes or subgroups within classes. Nevertheless, the specific organization of the field assures a relative autonomy to the modes of socialization implicit in the picture books and generates an increasing complexity in the pedagogical materials made available to families for use in the socialization process. The first part of the article, which is presented in this issue, examines the specifie rules followed in producing the picture books (commercial strategies for winning markets and for adapting products to changed markets, principles of establishing a public, longevity of products and factors determining their obsolescence, the creation of legitimacy) as well as the relationship between the organization of publishing firms, on the one hand, and the actions of those who run then and what they say about their work, on the other. The second part, (to appear in issue number 14) will study the transformation of the content of the books in relation to forms of socialization and will analyze the variation in social definitions of childhood.

The Rhetoric of Scientific Writing Articles in the exact sciences are generally written in such a way as to induce the reader to accept possible or arguable propositions as true propositions thanks to the characteristic expedient of a change of modality, that is to say, by the rephrasing of statements of the form « X maintains that A is B » in the simple form «A is B». A sociological and semiological analysis of an article in neuroendocrinology reveals the institutional traits and rhetorical devices which make this acceptance possible. Far from being cold and impersonal, the style of such an article is polemical, the goal being to dislodge other authors from their dominant position by changing the modality of their affirmations and reducing them to unfounded claims. The frontier of a science may be defined as the zone where propositions are constantly related to the experimental conditions which produced them, with the goal of disqualifying one's rivals. This operation is feasible only if the author of the article has accumulated sufficient authority to convince his peers. The purpose of analyzing scientific rhetoric is to bring to light the forms of linguistic competence deployed in professional articles. In this way we can contribute to the study of science the perspective offered by a general economy of credit capable of taking into account the various forms in which the latter exists, whether as authority, economic capital, or theoretical capital.