By Nigel Paine

I want to explore two words in this blog and the next. Two words that become increasingly important as the world becomes more complex and unsettled, and two words that are not new but are being invigorated as we move through this 21st century.

The first word is ‘fieldwork’.  The second is ‘practice’.  Fieldwork incorporates the idea of exploration and testing in the most obvious and accepted definition of the term: “the collection of data outside the laboratory”. But there is another definition that was used by the French philosopher and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. He explores the “semiotic spheres of power that tacitly habituate and dominate everyday life.” (Catt, I. 71) It is a more complex use of the term and gets at the exploration of what lies beyond the obvious. The exchange criteria in the semiotic sphere is the acquisition and display of social capital. Just as access to monetary capital determines postures and behaviours which in turn allow the possessor access to certain spheres which are closed to others.  Social capital like monetary capital can equally bestow a sense of belonging, open doors and, create an illusion of status and a position in the hierarchy associated with a given milieu.

Bourdieu’s understanding of culture is that it is something manifested in forms of behaviour, and ‘modes of habits’ and is therefore linked closely to the acquisition and display of social capital. These habits on display are much more deeply embedded in social institutions rather than a simple psychological account of habit which is a repetition and imitation of behaviours that lead to a set of  behaviours acquired by an individual.  Bourdieu’s ideas are more complex. His explanation is connected and social rather than separate and based on individual behaviours. He uses the term habitus to speak about this.  In sociological terms habitus is defined as “embodied dispositions or tendencies that organize how people perceive and respond to the world around them.”  It is a phenomenological concept about our perception of the world, not the world itself. In other words, being part of a habitus implies that you accept a range of generated semiotic systems which are deeply embedded into shared codes of behaviour amongst its members. A habitus can comprise any number of fields but the relationship between field and habitus is more complex than the idea that one is simply a sub-division of the other. 

Rather like the semiological concept of the sign which is divided into the signifier and the signified: message and meaning, habitus is similarly related to field. The French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, asserted that the signifier and the signified are not fixed. There is an “endless deferral of meaning” and no “transcendent signified”.  Their relationship is dialectical, like the relationship of culture to the individual, and one can throw light on the other. Semiotics is an important way of understanding culture and cultural artefacts and analysing the way they construct meaning. The term semiotics goes back to the ancient greeks but its modern meaning can be traced back to the Scottish enlightenment philosopher John Locke :

“… the business [of logic] is to consider the nature of signs the mind makes use of for the understanding of things, or conveying its knowledge to others.”
(Lock 1823: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding IV, 21)

Therefore fieldwork is important in both senses of the word.  It is important to gather evidence outside the lab.  In any organization, the real insights are gathered by going outside the tried and tested, and beyond received opinion to see for yourself and listen to the accounts of those embedded in any given situation. This process can generate a deeper understanding of what is going on. Fieldwork allows you to explore double loop learning:  the underlying cause not the obvious effect. It allows action based on authentic experiences and insights generated by observation and enquiry rather than action based on received opinion and accepting everything that you have been told. It allows a deep dive in to fundamental causes rather than adopting received opinion about what is generally thought to be the case leading to action as an end in itself without deep understanding.

Fieldwork is therefore at the heart building and developing practice. It is the only way to explore the underlying causes of any circumstance, and the best way of getting involved at the heart of change and transformation.   This is the kind of corporate learning that is profoundly needed. It is the only way to be relevant in a time of turbulence and uncertainty. It is deeply contextual and therefore this kind of fieldwork can also reveal the necessary conditions for learning to flourish, and hints at the broader development of the organization necessary for it to remain relevant.  Fieldwork allows the observer to point at the organizational change needed to remain relevant and a tangible difference.