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The sociological and anthropological work of Pierre Bourdieu, from the 1960s through to his death in 2002, is among the most impressive examples of sustained, consistent social science that the field has produced during the century and a half or so that it has existed as an institutionalised academic endeavour. Despite the criticisms to which it is vulnerable, Bourdieu’s oeuvre is a distinguished and challenging combination of extreme theoretical ambition and systematic empirical investigation across a range of substantive topics, from the matrimonial
Anthropology – Relationism and habitus – Freedom and culture – Distinction – Reflexivity – High art – Sociologisms – Creativity and autonomy – The autonomisation of art – Creativity again – Half-against Bourdieu – Denunciation – Ethics – Science – Reflexivity again – Intellectual sociology – Auto-analysis – Intellectualism and ambivalence – Antinomies of universalism – Difficult autonomy – Educationality and cultural theory Pierre Bourdieu was a contrarian and sociologist, perhaps in that order. As with Adorno and Foucault, he can be claimed
Bourdieu as a sociologist views society as a whole and is interested in the outer limits of culture, the framework for what he calls ‘lifestyle’. Three factors are key in Bourdieu’s view of the cultural effects upon personality: (1) habitus, explained by way of The Invisible Woman and Magic in the Moonlight ; (2) field or human context, seen in Lincoln and Homeland ; (3) lifestyle, examined in Mr Turner and Peaky Blinders . Literary critics are drawn to the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, Professor at the École des Hautes
which dialectical engagements between neo-jihadist organisations’ anti-capitalist posturing and their quasi-capitalist practices are investigated. After a descriptive section on neoliberalism’s origins, I outline neo-Marxist principles on the geo-economics of neoliberalism, and the relevant aspects of Bourdieusian theory. Drawing on Bourdieu’s ideas, I then describe the research design as well as the discourse and documentary methods used in the analysis. Neoliberalism in history Proponents of neoliberal policies often trace their ideological roots to the
In two parts, the book examines, first, the attempts of three thinkers of the first half of the twentieth century to reconcile, in different socio-cultural contexts, the legacy of idealist philosophy with the claims of empirical social science, and, secondly, the trajectory of Bourdieu’s career in France from philosophy student to sociological researcher to political activist. It traces a progression from thought to action, but an emphasis on action informed by thought. It poses the question whether Bourdieu’s attempted integration of intellectualism and empiricism correlated with his particular socio-historical situation or whether it offers a global paradigm for advancing inter-cultural understanding. The book is of interest in confronting the question whether socio-political organization is best understood by social scientists or by participants in society, by experts or by the populace. It will stimulate general consideration of the relevance of a sociological perspective in everyday life and how much that perspective should be dependent on inherited concepts. Part I analyses the work of Alfred Schutz, Aron Gurwitsch and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Part II that of Pierre Bourdieu. The book is methodologically meticulous in situating these works socio-historically. It provides an introduction to some ideas in social philosophy and shows how these ideas became instrumental in generating a theory of practice. The book is aimed at post-graduate students and staff in all disciplines in the Humanities, and Human and Social sciences, but, more generally, it should interest all academics concerned about the contemporary social function of intellectuals.
The term ‘Gothic’ is used in critical writing to describe an ever-increasing variety of texts that are not popularly recognisable as such. This article suggests Gothic texts ought to be read in terms of their genre, and that genre can be understood as the practical logic of habitus, formulated by Bourdieu.
The article analyzes the relationship between social laws and the self in Gothic fiction, and argues that contemporary English Gothic fiction enacts the way subjects adhere to social practices and structures. In this scenario, characters are monsters of social conformity and docility. On this basis, Susan Hill‘s The Mist in the Mirror and The Woman in Black can be interpreted as critiques of the masculine quest for identity by means of adherence to the family as institution and habitus. The novels represent this process of ideological adherence by creating a dehistoricized plot and setting haunted by a ghost exerting what Bourdieu calls symbolic violence on the protagonists, and from which women have been absented.
. Bourdieu (1985) defined social capital as the aggregate resource linked to institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition. For Coleman (1988) , it is a resource for action following a particular structure of obligations and expectations, information channels and social norms, while Putnam (2000) weaves together social networks, norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness as the connections built by people’s social capital. In some instances, the
This book challenges the assumptions that reporters and their audiences alike have about the way the trade operates and how it sees the world. It unpacks the taken-for-granted aspects of the lives of war correspondents, exposing the principles of interaction and valorisation that usually go unacknowledged. Is journalistic authority really only about doing the job well? Do the ethics of war reporting derive simply from the ‘stuff’ of journalism? The book asks why it is that the authoritative reporter increasingly needs to appear authentic, and that success depends not only on getting things right but being the right sort of journalist. It combines the critical sociology of Pierre Bourdieu and interviews with war correspondents and others with an active stake in the field to construct a political phenomenology of war reporting—the power relations and unspoken ‘rules of the game’ underpinning the representation of conflict and suffering by the media.
Based on several years of ethnographic fieldwork, French London provides rare insights into the everyday lived experience of a diverse group of French citizens who have chosen to make London home. From sixth-form students to an octogenarian divorcee, hospitality to hospital staff, and second-generation onward migrants to returnees, the individual trajectories described are disparate but connected by a ‘common-unity’ of practice. Despite most not self-identifying with a ‘community’ identity, this heterogenous migrant group are shown to share many homemaking characteristics and to enact their belonging in common ways. Whether through the contents of their kitchens, their reasons for migrating to London or their evolving attitudes to education and healthcare, participants are seen to embody a distinct form of London-Frenchness. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of ‘symbolic violence’ and ‘habitus’, inventively deconstructed into its component parts of habitat, habituation and habits, the book reveals how structural forces in France and early encounters with ‘otherness’ underpin mobility, and how long-term settlement is performed as a pre-reflexive process. It deploys an original blended ethnographic lens to understand the intersection between the on-land and online in contemporary mobility, providing a rich description of migrants’ material and digital habitats. With ‘Brexit’ on the horizon and participants subsequently revisited in a post-referendum Epilogue, the monograph demonstrates the appeal of London prior to 2016 and the disruption to the migrants’ identity and belonging since. It offers an unprecedented window onto the intimate lifeworlds of an under-researched diaspora at a crucial point in Britain’s history.