Fields, Settings, Atmospheres

Chapter Three rearticulates the methodological and ontological concept of field as having distinctive affective atmospheres and structures of feeling, making an argument for thinking differently about broad social fields and specific social settings. This chapter opens up Bourdieu’s fields towards thinking across multiple fields and incorporating broader affective economies into specific fields, and also to consider how some of Bourdieu’s concepts might still work in spaces that cannot be considered a field. It uses the examples of literature and ‘gastrophysics’ to discuss the implications of thinking within and across fields and settings.