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The second paragraph under "Bourdieu as a Public Intellectual" which refers almost exclusively to Michael Burawoy appears to be a shameless self-promotion for the latter. The events described took place after Bourdieu's death, and Bourdieu himself is only referred to in passing. I suggest that an article about a famous academic should not be littered with name-checks to people who would like to be associated with him. This is not personal, but that paragraph seemed glaringly inappropriate.
If Michael Burawoy wishes to be included in the article, then I suggest it might be better to have an "Influences" section in which those who have been influenced by the ideas of Bourdieu might be listed in a bullet-point format, although I'm not advocating this and I'm not willing to do it myself. 2.100.219.136 ( talk) 09:04, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
"He coined the terms habitus, field, and extended the marxian term of capital..." -- "field" links to an article on algebra theory, the first sentence of which is, "A field, in abstract algebra, is an algebraic system of elements in which the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division (except division by zero) may be performed and the associative, commutative, and distributive rules hold, which are familiar from the arithmetic of ordinary numbers." -- Possibly not relevant to Pierre Bourdieu and/or sociology? REMINDER: when you use a common word as a link, check to see if the article it goes to is relevant.
Can someone review Cybe's contribution. The style is inconsistent and much of it sounds like quotes -- but there are no quotation marks so I suspect it is plagiarized. Slrubenstein 19:10, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, Slrubenstein
As I know Bourdieu was a Foucault student, didn't he? And also he was influenced by Foucault, I think it is evident. -- Myszliak 18:09, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Is there a cite for his principal influences being Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty? From my understanding of his work, he is sharply critical of phenomenology, and the thinkers that he has claimed solidarity with (that I can think of) are Gramsci, Dewey, Wittgenstein and, chiefly, Pascal. I plan on editing this page soon, as some matters on which he has actually spoken somewhat extensively (particularly in Invitation to a Reflexive Sociology). Also, he takes great pains to establish that he is neither Marxist, Durkheimeian or Weberian, and goes to length to avoid weighing in on the relative correctness of their approaches. The problem with drawing his theory chiefly from Distinction (and Homo Academicus) is that it follows only one strand of his thought, which is complicated by his ethnographies of the Bearn and Kaybles, his theoretical meditations, and his political tracts.
Jimmyq2305
09:44, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Jimmyq2305 19:28, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Bourdieu does praise Wittgenstein as "the philosopher who has helped me most at moments of difficulty. He's a kind of saviour for times of great intellectual distress - as when you have to question such evident things as 'obeying a rule'" (In Other Words, Polity, 1990) On this point, see Calhoun et al, Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives, ch. 3 by C.Taylor 'To Follow a Rule', Polity 1993. I agree that Austin is very important and Merleau-Ponty definitely is. However, I think there should be some discussion of the influence of Bachelard, Canguilhem, Koyre and Durkheim - the specifically French traditions in epistemology, philosophy & sociology from which Bourdieu's thinking arose. I would recommend Bourdieu et al, The Craft of Sociology: Epistemological Preliminaries, Walter de Gruyter, 1991. There is also a great Bourdieu article called Thinking About Limits but I regret I cannot source it. Ianb3019 15:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Here's the source for that article: Theory, Culture & Society Vol 9 No. 1 (Feb 1992) SAGE Publications. -- 82.148.44.137 19:13, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I find the comparison to Hitchens even worse than the one to Chomsky. At least Chomsky has ventured into the area of theory, whereas Hitchens is a glorified pundit, in my opinion. Maybe no comparison is the best solution? Simply state that he is an academic and an activist. - Josh
" Perhaps the nearest equivalent in the English-speaking world would be Noam Chomsky." What does it meam?
What makes you think that? Bourdieu is sociologist, Chomsky is a linguist, then he wrote some books on "conspiracy theories" without having conducted empirical research like Bourdieu did in his sociological research.
You must not compare these two academic personalities, they maybe did some critics about the mass media (P.Bourdieu "Sur la television, 2000, Critic about the french TV... ) but their approach was/is completely different.
Anissa, a french student in mass media sociology at Paris III, La Sorbonne.
I think the former means that Pierre Bourdieu was influential in the academia as well as in the political field in a way comparable to Noam Chomsky, who was influential in computer science as well as an independent political thinker of the left. -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 14:41, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Then, what do have bourdieu and chomsky in common regarding academic and empirical research? i think you may not compare the french leftist political movement of the late sixties (May '68 in france) with the american leftist thinkers on historical and sociological level. in my eyes chomsky is still a linguist who wrote/writes books that point at the failures of the american system whereas bourdieu is an academic sociologist who did SCIENTIFIC research on french society.
according to gaston bachelard ("la formation de l'esprit scientifique", paris 1970) ..."opinion is always wrong compared to science. when you don't have competence to perceive something in the world, you tend to use opinion". science pushes to dig deeper and go beyond received ideas (idees recues in french). chomsky, according to my knowledge, stated his opinion on various political subjects but rarely did academic/scientific research to support his opinion. (anyway, we all know that chomsky has fabulous rethoric skills..)
Just to clarify this point if anyone is still curious (which admittedly seems unlikely) I stumbled across an interview with Bourdieu called A Science That Makes Trouble in Sociology In Question (Sage, 1993, p. 9). When asked "Why is it crucial that there should be a frontier between sociology and critical journalism?" Bourdieu replies with the blunt remark, "Because there is an objective difference." So to my mind it is clear that Bourdieu believed his work and that of other sociologists to be qualitatively different from the work of Hitchens (who, after all, never claimed to be writing sociology, yet might very fairly be described as a 'critical journalist'). Ianb3019 ( talk) 15:47, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
An even more powerful citation turned up when rereading Free Exchange [1]: "It is above all through journalism that commercial logic, against which all autonomous universes (artistic, literary, scientific) are constructed, imposes itself on those universes. This is fundamentally harmful, since it favours the products and producers who are most directly submissive to commercial demands, such as the "journalist philosophers" of whom Wittgenstein speaks." Anyone comparing Bourdieu's work to that of a journalist like Hitchens should read that quote. Bourdieu would clearly not have agreed. Ianb3019 ( talk) 16:28, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
References
I think it may be useful for someone to explain Bourdieu's relationship to 'structuralism' (e.g. I believe Althusser was his professor at one point) and explain why he is sometimes lumped in the post-structuralist camp. (and I'm realy not sure why he's categorized as post-structuralist)
MichaelH mhandelm
I found this section of the article begged a few questions: 'Meaning and truth are not, for Bourdieu, universal or ahistorical, but are historically produced and, as such, can be universal only when the conditions of production have been universalized.' Did Bourdieu believe that the conditions of production of universal truth had ever been universalised? If so, could somebody offer examples of propositions which satisfy Bourdieu's strictures regarding the production of universal truths? I know this is asking a lot... Nevertheless, it seems to me inappropriate to attribute to Bourdieu an argument for the universality of (some) truths without providing examples of truths he stated in print to be universal. From my own reading of Bourdieu I would say that he did indeed argue as described, but I find no examples of universal truths, leading me to think that he saw universal truths as a possibility for the future but not a current reality. Please clarify my thinking!
Also, much of this discussion could be done under a 'science/objectivity' heading - certainly that part of the article needs expanding. Ianb3019 15:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Some of the commentary on Bourdieu is unashamedly unneutral, using stereotypes of scholars - 'cloistered don', there are no criticisms of this supposedly wonderful freedom fighter. My use of freedom fighter is since the article seems to present him as one almost, who just happens to have had a university education and wrote books concerning it. The Margrittean self-reference to Wikipedia is quite good, but other comparisons are rather anecdotal and opinionated.
Fallacy of success - whoever has wrote this section regarding 'modern success' in critical conflict theory, what exactly do they mean by this term success? Success in reproduction of class, capital, or beliefs? If so this is not elucidated. Success is a shambolic word usually applied (nowadays) to the acquisition of wealth and is deliberately vacuous and vapid as a result.-- Knucmo2 10:45, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
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Although he has a formidable reputation amongst sociologists in the English-speaking world, he is much less well-known among the general Anglophone intelligentsia than Foucault or Jacques Derrida, both of whom Bourdieu castigated in Homo Academicus as Parisian mandarins, distant from the real world, secure in their privileges.
Bourdieu does not mention Foucault or Derrida in by name in Homo Academicus, except in the final chart in the book. The passage quoted above gives the impression that Homo Academicus is a polemic against the better known post-Sartrean French thinkers. It is not; it is a general examination of the class background and intellectual/ideological outlook of France's academics, especially at the elite Grands Ecoles.
Bourdieu notes in his introduction to the English edition of Homo Academicus that many Anglophone visitors to France were suprised by the marginal status of those thinkers better known in America and England compared to, for example, Raymond Aron. But this was an observation about Anglophone ignorance of the structure of French academia and the those who hold the real power and prestige within that system rather than a jibe at Derrida, Foucault, etc.
By Etalia mortacredit 3 July 2005 16:25 (UTC)
I agree with your comment on the phrases: "both of whom Bourdieu castigated in Homo Academicus as Parisian mandarins, distant from the real world, secure in their privileges". This is clearly wrong according to my reading of the book (when it came in English). Foucault, Derrida, etc. may even be considered unnamed 'heros' in the book due to the fact that they uphold the claim of intellectual independence in the academic field. An additional remark: In the last correspondance analysis chart Bourdieu himself is part of the analysis. He could himself be castigated as "Parisian mandarins, distant from the real world, secure in their privileges". I hereby suggest to take out the problematic senctence. RoarH 13:11, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
A short critique of Distinction from a working class point of view can be found on [1]
I do not have the time, as I am up to my eyeballs in graduate studies, but this article is in need of extensive revision and expansion. Pierre Bordieu is, by almost any standard, one of the most important figures in sociology in the latter half of the twentieth century. This article, however, does not do convey the range of his scholarship (beginning as an anthropologist and continuing on to pioneering works in sociology, pedagogy, and communication studies). Nor does the article provide anything like a comprehensive outline of his theory and influences. Help! RH
"This typically intellectualist theory of artistic perception directly contradicts the experinece of art-lovers closest to the legitimate definition; aquisition of legitimate culture by insensible familiarization within the family circle tends to favour an enchanted experience of culture which implies forgetting the acquisition."
simply amazing.
Source? Might have been me, in which case I would now replace "insensible" with "imperceptible", but otherwise it happens to be what Bourdieu wrote. A lot of commentators who don't read PB in French conveniently have a friend who does and who assures them that PB is "a pleasure to read in original form". Perhaps they'd like to cite a few passages? Richard.nice ( talk) 14:11, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
It is not. Bourdieu was a great sociologist, but his long sentences made his prose a nightmare for those not used to this type of writing. Of course translation makes it even worse, but it is sufficiently complicated in french. I could argue that his style meets the needs of his intellectual work. It is a complex thought. I find it very pleasurable to read, also. I found the text cited above ("this typically...) very pleasurable and very clear, for example. But I'm aware that his writing is hostile for the beginner. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.21.130.1 ( talk) 17:42, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
Hello I'm French so I will give you my point of view. Bourdieu's style is known for being pretty hard to understand (in french) and he used to defend the idea that you must carefully choose every word to break with the social philosophy contained by them, that's why his sentences were so long. But he is still a wonderfull writer, if you look closely at his work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.50.159.2 ( talk) 09:00, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I noticed there is very little detail on cultural capital in this article- According to Bourdieu's "Forms of Capital" essay, there are actually three times of cultural capital: embodied, objectified and instiutionalized. There is a lot more depth there than what the articles suggests. I must admit I am slowly trying to figure out Bourdieu myself, so any attempt at adding to the main article would prove silly I think. But here is what I have in my notes on the topic if others would like to read/comment,
Embodied state of cultural capital:
It is both the inherited and acquired proprieties one’s self. It is not transmittable instantaneously like a gift. Inherited not in the genetic sense, but more in the sense of time, cultural, and traditions bestow elements of the embodied state to another. Bourdieu calls it a symbolic capital, because its transmission is not obvious it is not actively recognized as a form of exchanged capital. Because capital is not evenly distributed in the “structure of the field”, one can use cultural capital to achieve economic profit or vice versa (you can always buy friends).
Objectified state:
Cultural goods can be transmitted physically (sold) as an exercise of economic capital, and “symbolically” as cultural capital. One can sell a painting, but one can only understand its cultural meaning, or can consumer the painting, if they have the cultural capital which may or may not be transmitted during the selling of the painting.
Institutionalized state:
The Institutionalized state of cultural capital is objectified cultural capital that transcends the biological limits of the bearer. It is guaranteed or supported by a larger institution. See academic scores or credentials. (Institutional recognition of the cultural capital held by an individual.) This allows easier conversion of cultural capital to economic capital by guaranteeing a certain monetary value for a certain institutional level of achievement.
There is a page on
cultural capital that I have just updated which describes these three types. I will try and include these paras there. Are they from the work Forms of Capital? If not do you have a reference for them?
JenLouise
02:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually I don't really understand the definition you ahve of institutionalised cultural capital. Perhaps we can discuss it on the cultural capital talk page? JenLouise 02:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
In Pierre Bourdieu and Cultural Theory, Bridget Fowler, Sage Publications, 1997, p.31 [1], Bridget Fowler offers a very brief outline of Bourdieu's species of capital which I have found useful whenever I have sought quickly to clarify them for a lay audience: 'In his studies of universities, Bourdieu deploys the concepts of the four types of capital which are by now almost synonymous with his approach, that is, social capital (power gained by the sheer number of family members, retainers or network of supporters), symbolic capital (reputation or honour - including intellectual honesty), cultural capital (distinction within the autonomous fields of art and sciece; intellectual or educational qualifications) and economic capital (ownership of stocks and shares, or, more generally, of monetary rewards).' Judging by the frequency with which it is cited, Bourdieu's article 'The Forms of Capital' is a jumping off point for many on this subject, including the author of the above entry. I must say, I did not find it very helpful since it divides capital into 3 species rather than 4, offering a quite insufficient account of what is meant by the frequently deployed 4th term 'symbolic capital'. However, the fact that 'The Forms of Capital' treats symbolic capital as NOT a fourth species of capital inclines me to believe that the 3 principal species of capital may each be viewed materially or symbolically; in other words, when Bourdieu speaks of symbolic capital, this could be economic, cultural or social. Ianb3019 ( talk) 14:13, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Loic Wacquant writes on the relationship between cultural/economic/social capital on the one hand and symbolic capital on the other in a chapter he wrote summarising Bourdieu's approach for 'Key Contemporary Thinkers' (London and New York: Macmillan, new edition, 2006). The key passage reads "Capital comes in 3 principal species: economic, cultural and social. A fourth species, symbolic capital, designates the effects of any form of capital when people do not percieve them as such." I would conclude from this that the quotation I added here from B. Fowler is somewhat misleading and that in fact symbolic capital is perhaps best thought of not as a fourth species at all, but as the side of any of the 3 principal species which is specifically symbolic. Imagine 3 identical pillows in different coloured pillow-cases - let's take them to be analogous to the 3 main species of capital. It is sensible to talk of the red, yellow and blue pillows just as it's sensible to talk of economic, cultural and social capital. But it is also sensible to use a fourth term, e.g 'inner pillow', to refer to the identical pillows inside each pillow-case, just as it is sensible to talk of symbolic capital as a form that any of the 3 might take. Find Wacquant's comments on p.7 of the text at this URL:
http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/3210/resources/PIERREBOURDIEU-KEYTHINK-REV2006.pdf
Ianb3019 ( talk) 11:57, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
I have slightly rewritten the entry for symbolic capital/violence, removing a citation from Marx which seemed to me confusing ("Capital is not a simple relation, but a process, in whose various moments it is always capital." from Grundrisse) Apologies to anyone who might have thought otherwise - I'd be glad to see it back in if it was introduced with a reasonably simple explanation of its relevance to Bourdieu's usage of the term 'capital.' I am trying to structure the article with a view to what must surely be its principal use, namely as a clear overview for curious 'lay' readers. I hope this edit is in line with that. Ianb3019 ( talk) 22:17, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
References
This is all taken, almost word for word, from reference.com. This article really needs to be expanded upon and made to meet acceptible wikipedia standards. Unfortunately, I am not well acquanted enough with Bourdieu's work. Drifter 04:25, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
The article contains a link to power, which is a disambiguation page. Some of the articles on that page are obviously inappropriate, such as Electric power. I suggest that first you consider whether the understanding of the word power that a typical reader of this article will already have is sufficient to understand the article. If so, de-link it. On the other hand, if one or two of the articles pointed to by the Power dab will enhance the reader's understanding of this article, link to the most appropriate article. Good luck. Gerry Ashton 13:53, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
The following sentence was added, deleted and then added again. I have deleted it a second time but started this section to discuss it.
Bourdieu himself applies his theory by introducing often commonplace concepts with a pedantic and obscure language aimed at giving an impression of intellectual superiority shared by his readers.
The sentence does not relate to Bourdieu's theory of language - unless he did it on purpose to demonstrate the fact which he did not. The content of the sentence therefore does not fit where it was put - if there was a criticism section it might belong there. However it is also POV and unreferenced which means it does not belong in the article at all. JenLouise 23:54, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Neutrality is not gained by balancing praise with insult. It is gained by getting rid of the praise. If you want a criticism section, that is okay. But you don't balance an article out by putting an obviously POV sentence that has no citation and seems not to fit at all (there is no justification in the article to support what you mean, or to draw out its meaning). Here is a passage on Bourdieu's writing style from Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu (it is sympathetic toward his writing, but it is much more thorough than this little sentence that you provide):
So you are right in a sense. Bourdieu's writing does exemplify his ideas. But the notion that the pedantic obscurity is meant to make him look more intelligent seems odd to me. I see it more as the same thing Heidegger and others were trying to do: escape the common-sense divisions of the world by utilizing an entirely different language. Of course, this is POV on my part, but it seems just as reasonable as what you're saying, if not more so. I personally do not find his writing obscure, I quite enjoy it. But that is because I have grown used to it and understand it. The above phrase also neglects that much of Bourdieu's recent work is aimed at more intelligibility: An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology; In Other Words; Practical Reason; and more. Drifter 16:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
I noticed there are a couple pics of Bourdieu at Marxists.org. The site seems to be under Creative Commons license, so are the pics kosher for use here? Anyone with a better knowledge of image copyrights have any clues? -- Beaker342 05:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Bourdieu was an avid political activist and a staunch opponent of modern forms of globalization. He saw sociology as a weapon against social oppression and injustice. He commented that "sociology is a martial art insofar as it is used to defend against the domination of symbolic systems and the imposition of distorting categories of thought".
I think this is a bad idea to put this in the introduction of the article. There is something true in those words, but it should be put in an other place of the article, and the way it's written is too strong, specially the first sentence (Bourdieu was an avid political activist and a staunch opponent of modern forms of globalization), it doesn't describe well the man, I mean an avid political activist is good for José Bové, not for Bourdieu. I don't know how to writte it in a better way, my english is too poor for that, I'm sure somebody will try something... Bye! Ajor 19:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
It is an important point and does certainly contain the vital fact that he came to believe that he needed to be more politically active. I thought it was simply too strongly expressed and ignored the growth of this conviction over time. My concern was really that students might read it and think it an accurate description of the author of , eg, Distinction. It is more accurate to see it as a description of the author of the Social Structures of the Economy. In his earlier days Bourdieu was notable by his absence from political discourse. Anyway, this is all rather idle now as the article has been thoroughly revised and seems much improved.
I'm grateful for the clarification. The position as described does beg certain questions - if the scientific field should be free of political interference, should this not also work vice versa? Bourdieu does not seem to think so - I suppose this is because politics is related to the 'field of fields', ie the field of power. As such the fruits of other fields may legitimately be brought to politics, but it would be an abuse of autonomy for political interests to be brought to them. As you say, somewhat confusing, but good to have these questions aired.
There needs to be MUCH MORE about Bourdieu's work on social activism, of all the published work he did from 1996-2005 explicitly on neoliberalism has been ignored or failed to be uploaded. This represents a serious bias that needs to be addressed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Apmab1 ( talk • contribs) 05:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't see anything on his theories on religion here. Maybe someone could really help the page by summarizing his essay "Genesis and Structure of the Religious Field", in C. Calhoun, Comparative Social Research, 1991.
You could try exploring Practical Reason (Polity 1994 [Fr] 1998 [Eng]) - it contains the - admittedly v. brief - 'Remarks on the Economy of the Church' as well as a few scattered comments. Ianb3019
I've been doing a bit of cleaning up of some sociology articles recently and noticed that most of the articles on Bourdieu's concepts are stubs that contain less information than is actually included in this article on Bourdieu. Just a request to anyone editing this article - if you are adding to or improving to any of the sections regarding concepts that have their own page (eg. field, habitus, cultural or symbolic capital, social/ cultural reproduction, etc can you please make the same additions/improvements to the articles themselves. Thanks, JenLouise 05:30, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 14:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I was about to hyperlink something I was writing to the Wikipedia article on Bordieu, particularly his understanding of habitus, when I encountered the following description:
Habitus can be defined as a system of dispositions (lasting, acquired schemes of perception, thought and action). The individual agent develops these dispositions in response to the objective conditions they encounter. In this way Bourdieu theorizes the inculcation of objective social structures into the subjective, mental experience of agents. For the objective social field places requirements on its participants for membership, so to speak, within the field. Having thereby absorbed objective social structure into a personal set of cognitive and somatic dispositions, and the subjective structures of action of the agent then being commensurate with the objective structures and extant exigencies of the social field, a doxic relationship emerges
I am a 'native' Australian English speaker with some anthropological training .. and I had difficulties following and understanding this. Needless to say .. I could see little value linking others to this .. it is not concise, it is not clear, and it is very heavy, difficult reading for Wikipedia's general audience.
Having encountered the above .. I see the article is replete with such difficult, heavy, jargonistic descriptions and wording .. and thus tagged it as requiring clean-up .. should any editors out there be able and willing? Bruceanthro ( talk) 05:02, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
"It's ironic if words such as 'doxic' are not made (more) transparent since it proves Bourdieu's point that the conditioned individual and society are complicit to prevent understanding." Right there is the whole problem with this article: disciple-itus. It "proves" nothing of the sort. All it proves is that most people aren't prepared to absorb the lost opportunity costs involved in spending hours and years of their life trying to get their heads around the esoteric jargon of self-aggrandizing intellectuals. Believe it or not, most of them have better things to do. Which comes back to our Australian friend's original point. A general encyclopedia article is not supposed to appease the aficionados, it is supposed to provide a usable explanation to the uninitiated. Zzoliche ( talk) 00:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure how much this article has been cleaned up in the last year but I'm a critical theory MA student, new-ish to Bourdieu, and I thought this was a great article. It's got a good balance - provides an overview without dumbing down. You can't simplify the concepts in the name of plain English. I was really impressed with this. 87.84.248.99 ( talk) 13:39, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
I have written a disambiguation of this contested passage (ie "Habitus can be defined...a doxic relationship emerges.") and would gladly post it here. However, it runs to 1780 words and seems rather large for inclusion here... I could post it on the page for 'habitus' or straight into the Bourdieu page but am a little anxious about dumping such a large block of text. Also, I have no idea how to set up a link from this discussion here to my disambiguation. Can anyone help by letting me know at which location I should post it? Ianb3019 ( talk) 20:45, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
As a stopgap solution I have finally got round to creating a user page and have posted the disambiguation there. Anyone interested in reading, using or editing it, feel free to do so. I would be grateful if you would let me know if you have done so in order that I can avoid unnecessary duplication of work. Ianb3019 ( talk) 21:49, 23 October 2008 (UTC) 87.84.248.99 ( talk) 13:39, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
There's room for a section on this, especially around determinism and structure, but I guess the first thing is to get what's here into shape unless anyone wants to get going on it. Julia Rossi ( talk) 05:30, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
I believe most people would argue that Bourdieu was a sociologist. If you go to pages with concepts elaborated by Bourdieu, these refer to him as a sociologist. Was this changed recently? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.49.222.72 ( talk) 16:20, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi, bourdieu was definitely an anthropologist. i will leave sociologist on as well, but it is innacurate, his fundamental methods of data collection and analysis are anthropological, in that, it is essentialy social philosophy based on rigorous empirical data (ethnography). as erikksen notes, anthropology is philosophy with the people in. it even says it on the back of his book 'outline of a theory of practice' if you look. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.215.149.98 ( talk) 08:00, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Bourdieu was a sociologist, and that is because he claimed to be one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.50.159.2 ( talk) 09:04, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Bourdieu did start out as an Anthropologist, in training as well as his ethnographic research in Algeria (as noted by 129.215.149.98 above). Refer to his book "The Algerians" (English title). He did, however, also transition into Sociology in both his university appointments as well as publications, as he turned the theories he developed through his research to also reflect on his own (French) society. See his later books in particular. However, he often referred back to his ethnographic research to support his arguments. I would say it is warranted to classify Bourdieu as both Anthropologist and Sociologist considering both his background and the scope of his writing and theories. Therandom ( talk) 01:48, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
I'd say Bourdieu began his studies in philosophy, then began his career as an anthropologist/ethnographer (the latter being the French term up until Levi-Strauss - see Sketch for a Self-Analysis p. 40, Polity, 2007) and later became a sociologist. He talks of his "transition from philosophy to sociology" (ibid, p. 58). The Logic of Practice, published in France in 1980, seems to me the last of his books to retain strong ties to anthropology - and even that book often seems to be an attempt to rework Outline of a Theory of Practice (unambiguously a work of anthropology) so as to make it more sociological. For the great majority of his career, Bourdieu identified himself as a sociologist, had tenure as a sociologist and published works formally categorised as sociology. On the 'looks like/smells like it/feels like it' rule, I think we can safely say he was a sociologist. Ianb3019 ( talk) 11:39, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
There seems to be some disagreement about what to call Rational Choice or Rational Action Theory. In my understanding, contentinental usage is mainly "Rational Action Theory" and Bourdieu uses this term in his writing. Most contemporary scholars in the U.S. prefer Rational Choice Theory. I suggest we follow Bourdieu's terminology. Either way, both terms link to the same article. Thoughts? - Mike Restivo ( talk) 14:29, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
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Bibliography Link is not found. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.2.177.190 ( talk) 21:18, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
This article needs at least a sentence on Weight of the World. BobFromBrockley ( talk) 18:31, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
I have added a very short reference to the Weight of the World in the section on Bourdieu as a public intellectual. It's a start. Please, BobfromBrockley, add your own extensions if what I've put seems to fall short of what you had in mind. Ianb3019 ( talk) 17:52, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
The term "embodiment" is used several times in this article without definition for this context. I wouldn't know if it's in common currency in sociology but the " Embodiment" disambiguation page has no entry specifically applicable to a sociological context. The closest would seem to be " embodied cognition" but that's just a guess and it's not obvious how it would transfer to sociology. I ask that an editor familiar with this concept in Bordieu define it and cite examples of the concept in use, or perhaps link to an article where this is done. — Blanchette ( talk) 17:24, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
For the purposes of this Wikipedia page, which describes Bourdieu, I think it is inappropriate to attempt to define embodiment. To begin the more modest task of defining what the term means in Bourdieu's sociology, however, would be desirable. I'd tentatively suggest that this strand of Bourdieu's thought derives from his acquaintance with Merleau-Ponty & Husserl (as mentioned in the section of the article headed 'Influences'). Unfortunately, I am not qualified to summarise the arguments of these philosophers. Nevertheless, if you'd like me to make some observations about embodiment as I believe Bourdieu used the term, here on the 'talk' page, then I'll do so. But I doubt if I could comment on this with enough confidence to alter the article itself. Ianb3019 ( talk) 22:32, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
I don't understand the second sentence in the section titled "Bourdieu as public intellectual". Sartre's "attempts" at what exactly? Attempts at being a race-car driver?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.193.136.164 ( talk) 01:39, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
I didn't write that part but I agree it was unclear. I have altered it only slightly but I hope it is now less ambiguous. Ianb3019 ( talk) 10:28, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
The second paragraph under "Bourdieu as a Public Intellectual" which refers almost exclusively to Michael Burawoy appears to be a shameless self-promotion for the latter. The events described took place after Bourdieu's death, and Bourdieu himself is only referred to in passing. I suggest that an article about a famous academic should not be littered with name-checks to people who would like to be associated with him. This is not personal, but that paragraph seemed glaringly inappropriate.
If Michael Burawoy wishes to be included in the article, then I suggest it might be better to have an "Influences" section in which those who have been influenced by the ideas of Bourdieu might be listed in a bullet-point format, although I'm not advocating this and I'm not willing to do it myself. 2.100.219.136 ( talk) 09:04, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
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The second paragraph under "Bourdieu as a Public Intellectual" which refers almost exclusively to Michael Burawoy appears to be a shameless self-promotion for the latter. The events described took place after Bourdieu's death, and Bourdieu himself is only referred to in passing. I suggest that an article about a famous academic should not be littered with name-checks to people who would like to be associated with him. This is not personal, but that paragraph seemed glaringly inappropriate.
If Michael Burawoy wishes to be included in the article, then I suggest it might be better to have an "Influences" section in which those who have been influenced by the ideas of Bourdieu might be listed in a bullet-point format, although I'm not advocating this and I'm not willing to do it myself. 2.100.219.136 ( talk) 09:04, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
"He coined the terms habitus, field, and extended the marxian term of capital..." -- "field" links to an article on algebra theory, the first sentence of which is, "A field, in abstract algebra, is an algebraic system of elements in which the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division (except division by zero) may be performed and the associative, commutative, and distributive rules hold, which are familiar from the arithmetic of ordinary numbers." -- Possibly not relevant to Pierre Bourdieu and/or sociology? REMINDER: when you use a common word as a link, check to see if the article it goes to is relevant.
Can someone review Cybe's contribution. The style is inconsistent and much of it sounds like quotes -- but there are no quotation marks so I suspect it is plagiarized. Slrubenstein 19:10, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, Slrubenstein
As I know Bourdieu was a Foucault student, didn't he? And also he was influenced by Foucault, I think it is evident. -- Myszliak 18:09, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Is there a cite for his principal influences being Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty? From my understanding of his work, he is sharply critical of phenomenology, and the thinkers that he has claimed solidarity with (that I can think of) are Gramsci, Dewey, Wittgenstein and, chiefly, Pascal. I plan on editing this page soon, as some matters on which he has actually spoken somewhat extensively (particularly in Invitation to a Reflexive Sociology). Also, he takes great pains to establish that he is neither Marxist, Durkheimeian or Weberian, and goes to length to avoid weighing in on the relative correctness of their approaches. The problem with drawing his theory chiefly from Distinction (and Homo Academicus) is that it follows only one strand of his thought, which is complicated by his ethnographies of the Bearn and Kaybles, his theoretical meditations, and his political tracts.
Jimmyq2305
09:44, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Jimmyq2305 19:28, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Bourdieu does praise Wittgenstein as "the philosopher who has helped me most at moments of difficulty. He's a kind of saviour for times of great intellectual distress - as when you have to question such evident things as 'obeying a rule'" (In Other Words, Polity, 1990) On this point, see Calhoun et al, Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives, ch. 3 by C.Taylor 'To Follow a Rule', Polity 1993. I agree that Austin is very important and Merleau-Ponty definitely is. However, I think there should be some discussion of the influence of Bachelard, Canguilhem, Koyre and Durkheim - the specifically French traditions in epistemology, philosophy & sociology from which Bourdieu's thinking arose. I would recommend Bourdieu et al, The Craft of Sociology: Epistemological Preliminaries, Walter de Gruyter, 1991. There is also a great Bourdieu article called Thinking About Limits but I regret I cannot source it. Ianb3019 15:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Here's the source for that article: Theory, Culture & Society Vol 9 No. 1 (Feb 1992) SAGE Publications. -- 82.148.44.137 19:13, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I find the comparison to Hitchens even worse than the one to Chomsky. At least Chomsky has ventured into the area of theory, whereas Hitchens is a glorified pundit, in my opinion. Maybe no comparison is the best solution? Simply state that he is an academic and an activist. - Josh
" Perhaps the nearest equivalent in the English-speaking world would be Noam Chomsky." What does it meam?
What makes you think that? Bourdieu is sociologist, Chomsky is a linguist, then he wrote some books on "conspiracy theories" without having conducted empirical research like Bourdieu did in his sociological research.
You must not compare these two academic personalities, they maybe did some critics about the mass media (P.Bourdieu "Sur la television, 2000, Critic about the french TV... ) but their approach was/is completely different.
Anissa, a french student in mass media sociology at Paris III, La Sorbonne.
I think the former means that Pierre Bourdieu was influential in the academia as well as in the political field in a way comparable to Noam Chomsky, who was influential in computer science as well as an independent political thinker of the left. -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 14:41, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Then, what do have bourdieu and chomsky in common regarding academic and empirical research? i think you may not compare the french leftist political movement of the late sixties (May '68 in france) with the american leftist thinkers on historical and sociological level. in my eyes chomsky is still a linguist who wrote/writes books that point at the failures of the american system whereas bourdieu is an academic sociologist who did SCIENTIFIC research on french society.
according to gaston bachelard ("la formation de l'esprit scientifique", paris 1970) ..."opinion is always wrong compared to science. when you don't have competence to perceive something in the world, you tend to use opinion". science pushes to dig deeper and go beyond received ideas (idees recues in french). chomsky, according to my knowledge, stated his opinion on various political subjects but rarely did academic/scientific research to support his opinion. (anyway, we all know that chomsky has fabulous rethoric skills..)
Just to clarify this point if anyone is still curious (which admittedly seems unlikely) I stumbled across an interview with Bourdieu called A Science That Makes Trouble in Sociology In Question (Sage, 1993, p. 9). When asked "Why is it crucial that there should be a frontier between sociology and critical journalism?" Bourdieu replies with the blunt remark, "Because there is an objective difference." So to my mind it is clear that Bourdieu believed his work and that of other sociologists to be qualitatively different from the work of Hitchens (who, after all, never claimed to be writing sociology, yet might very fairly be described as a 'critical journalist'). Ianb3019 ( talk) 15:47, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
An even more powerful citation turned up when rereading Free Exchange [1]: "It is above all through journalism that commercial logic, against which all autonomous universes (artistic, literary, scientific) are constructed, imposes itself on those universes. This is fundamentally harmful, since it favours the products and producers who are most directly submissive to commercial demands, such as the "journalist philosophers" of whom Wittgenstein speaks." Anyone comparing Bourdieu's work to that of a journalist like Hitchens should read that quote. Bourdieu would clearly not have agreed. Ianb3019 ( talk) 16:28, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
References
I think it may be useful for someone to explain Bourdieu's relationship to 'structuralism' (e.g. I believe Althusser was his professor at one point) and explain why he is sometimes lumped in the post-structuralist camp. (and I'm realy not sure why he's categorized as post-structuralist)
MichaelH mhandelm
I found this section of the article begged a few questions: 'Meaning and truth are not, for Bourdieu, universal or ahistorical, but are historically produced and, as such, can be universal only when the conditions of production have been universalized.' Did Bourdieu believe that the conditions of production of universal truth had ever been universalised? If so, could somebody offer examples of propositions which satisfy Bourdieu's strictures regarding the production of universal truths? I know this is asking a lot... Nevertheless, it seems to me inappropriate to attribute to Bourdieu an argument for the universality of (some) truths without providing examples of truths he stated in print to be universal. From my own reading of Bourdieu I would say that he did indeed argue as described, but I find no examples of universal truths, leading me to think that he saw universal truths as a possibility for the future but not a current reality. Please clarify my thinking!
Also, much of this discussion could be done under a 'science/objectivity' heading - certainly that part of the article needs expanding. Ianb3019 15:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Some of the commentary on Bourdieu is unashamedly unneutral, using stereotypes of scholars - 'cloistered don', there are no criticisms of this supposedly wonderful freedom fighter. My use of freedom fighter is since the article seems to present him as one almost, who just happens to have had a university education and wrote books concerning it. The Margrittean self-reference to Wikipedia is quite good, but other comparisons are rather anecdotal and opinionated.
Fallacy of success - whoever has wrote this section regarding 'modern success' in critical conflict theory, what exactly do they mean by this term success? Success in reproduction of class, capital, or beliefs? If so this is not elucidated. Success is a shambolic word usually applied (nowadays) to the acquisition of wealth and is deliberately vacuous and vapid as a result.-- Knucmo2 10:45, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
---
Although he has a formidable reputation amongst sociologists in the English-speaking world, he is much less well-known among the general Anglophone intelligentsia than Foucault or Jacques Derrida, both of whom Bourdieu castigated in Homo Academicus as Parisian mandarins, distant from the real world, secure in their privileges.
Bourdieu does not mention Foucault or Derrida in by name in Homo Academicus, except in the final chart in the book. The passage quoted above gives the impression that Homo Academicus is a polemic against the better known post-Sartrean French thinkers. It is not; it is a general examination of the class background and intellectual/ideological outlook of France's academics, especially at the elite Grands Ecoles.
Bourdieu notes in his introduction to the English edition of Homo Academicus that many Anglophone visitors to France were suprised by the marginal status of those thinkers better known in America and England compared to, for example, Raymond Aron. But this was an observation about Anglophone ignorance of the structure of French academia and the those who hold the real power and prestige within that system rather than a jibe at Derrida, Foucault, etc.
By Etalia mortacredit 3 July 2005 16:25 (UTC)
I agree with your comment on the phrases: "both of whom Bourdieu castigated in Homo Academicus as Parisian mandarins, distant from the real world, secure in their privileges". This is clearly wrong according to my reading of the book (when it came in English). Foucault, Derrida, etc. may even be considered unnamed 'heros' in the book due to the fact that they uphold the claim of intellectual independence in the academic field. An additional remark: In the last correspondance analysis chart Bourdieu himself is part of the analysis. He could himself be castigated as "Parisian mandarins, distant from the real world, secure in their privileges". I hereby suggest to take out the problematic senctence. RoarH 13:11, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
A short critique of Distinction from a working class point of view can be found on [1]
I do not have the time, as I am up to my eyeballs in graduate studies, but this article is in need of extensive revision and expansion. Pierre Bordieu is, by almost any standard, one of the most important figures in sociology in the latter half of the twentieth century. This article, however, does not do convey the range of his scholarship (beginning as an anthropologist and continuing on to pioneering works in sociology, pedagogy, and communication studies). Nor does the article provide anything like a comprehensive outline of his theory and influences. Help! RH
"This typically intellectualist theory of artistic perception directly contradicts the experinece of art-lovers closest to the legitimate definition; aquisition of legitimate culture by insensible familiarization within the family circle tends to favour an enchanted experience of culture which implies forgetting the acquisition."
simply amazing.
Source? Might have been me, in which case I would now replace "insensible" with "imperceptible", but otherwise it happens to be what Bourdieu wrote. A lot of commentators who don't read PB in French conveniently have a friend who does and who assures them that PB is "a pleasure to read in original form". Perhaps they'd like to cite a few passages? Richard.nice ( talk) 14:11, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
It is not. Bourdieu was a great sociologist, but his long sentences made his prose a nightmare for those not used to this type of writing. Of course translation makes it even worse, but it is sufficiently complicated in french. I could argue that his style meets the needs of his intellectual work. It is a complex thought. I find it very pleasurable to read, also. I found the text cited above ("this typically...) very pleasurable and very clear, for example. But I'm aware that his writing is hostile for the beginner. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.21.130.1 ( talk) 17:42, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
Hello I'm French so I will give you my point of view. Bourdieu's style is known for being pretty hard to understand (in french) and he used to defend the idea that you must carefully choose every word to break with the social philosophy contained by them, that's why his sentences were so long. But he is still a wonderfull writer, if you look closely at his work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.50.159.2 ( talk) 09:00, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I noticed there is very little detail on cultural capital in this article- According to Bourdieu's "Forms of Capital" essay, there are actually three times of cultural capital: embodied, objectified and instiutionalized. There is a lot more depth there than what the articles suggests. I must admit I am slowly trying to figure out Bourdieu myself, so any attempt at adding to the main article would prove silly I think. But here is what I have in my notes on the topic if others would like to read/comment,
Embodied state of cultural capital:
It is both the inherited and acquired proprieties one’s self. It is not transmittable instantaneously like a gift. Inherited not in the genetic sense, but more in the sense of time, cultural, and traditions bestow elements of the embodied state to another. Bourdieu calls it a symbolic capital, because its transmission is not obvious it is not actively recognized as a form of exchanged capital. Because capital is not evenly distributed in the “structure of the field”, one can use cultural capital to achieve economic profit or vice versa (you can always buy friends).
Objectified state:
Cultural goods can be transmitted physically (sold) as an exercise of economic capital, and “symbolically” as cultural capital. One can sell a painting, but one can only understand its cultural meaning, or can consumer the painting, if they have the cultural capital which may or may not be transmitted during the selling of the painting.
Institutionalized state:
The Institutionalized state of cultural capital is objectified cultural capital that transcends the biological limits of the bearer. It is guaranteed or supported by a larger institution. See academic scores or credentials. (Institutional recognition of the cultural capital held by an individual.) This allows easier conversion of cultural capital to economic capital by guaranteeing a certain monetary value for a certain institutional level of achievement.
There is a page on
cultural capital that I have just updated which describes these three types. I will try and include these paras there. Are they from the work Forms of Capital? If not do you have a reference for them?
JenLouise
02:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually I don't really understand the definition you ahve of institutionalised cultural capital. Perhaps we can discuss it on the cultural capital talk page? JenLouise 02:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
In Pierre Bourdieu and Cultural Theory, Bridget Fowler, Sage Publications, 1997, p.31 [1], Bridget Fowler offers a very brief outline of Bourdieu's species of capital which I have found useful whenever I have sought quickly to clarify them for a lay audience: 'In his studies of universities, Bourdieu deploys the concepts of the four types of capital which are by now almost synonymous with his approach, that is, social capital (power gained by the sheer number of family members, retainers or network of supporters), symbolic capital (reputation or honour - including intellectual honesty), cultural capital (distinction within the autonomous fields of art and sciece; intellectual or educational qualifications) and economic capital (ownership of stocks and shares, or, more generally, of monetary rewards).' Judging by the frequency with which it is cited, Bourdieu's article 'The Forms of Capital' is a jumping off point for many on this subject, including the author of the above entry. I must say, I did not find it very helpful since it divides capital into 3 species rather than 4, offering a quite insufficient account of what is meant by the frequently deployed 4th term 'symbolic capital'. However, the fact that 'The Forms of Capital' treats symbolic capital as NOT a fourth species of capital inclines me to believe that the 3 principal species of capital may each be viewed materially or symbolically; in other words, when Bourdieu speaks of symbolic capital, this could be economic, cultural or social. Ianb3019 ( talk) 14:13, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Loic Wacquant writes on the relationship between cultural/economic/social capital on the one hand and symbolic capital on the other in a chapter he wrote summarising Bourdieu's approach for 'Key Contemporary Thinkers' (London and New York: Macmillan, new edition, 2006). The key passage reads "Capital comes in 3 principal species: economic, cultural and social. A fourth species, symbolic capital, designates the effects of any form of capital when people do not percieve them as such." I would conclude from this that the quotation I added here from B. Fowler is somewhat misleading and that in fact symbolic capital is perhaps best thought of not as a fourth species at all, but as the side of any of the 3 principal species which is specifically symbolic. Imagine 3 identical pillows in different coloured pillow-cases - let's take them to be analogous to the 3 main species of capital. It is sensible to talk of the red, yellow and blue pillows just as it's sensible to talk of economic, cultural and social capital. But it is also sensible to use a fourth term, e.g 'inner pillow', to refer to the identical pillows inside each pillow-case, just as it is sensible to talk of symbolic capital as a form that any of the 3 might take. Find Wacquant's comments on p.7 of the text at this URL:
http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/3210/resources/PIERREBOURDIEU-KEYTHINK-REV2006.pdf
Ianb3019 ( talk) 11:57, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
I have slightly rewritten the entry for symbolic capital/violence, removing a citation from Marx which seemed to me confusing ("Capital is not a simple relation, but a process, in whose various moments it is always capital." from Grundrisse) Apologies to anyone who might have thought otherwise - I'd be glad to see it back in if it was introduced with a reasonably simple explanation of its relevance to Bourdieu's usage of the term 'capital.' I am trying to structure the article with a view to what must surely be its principal use, namely as a clear overview for curious 'lay' readers. I hope this edit is in line with that. Ianb3019 ( talk) 22:17, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
References
This is all taken, almost word for word, from reference.com. This article really needs to be expanded upon and made to meet acceptible wikipedia standards. Unfortunately, I am not well acquanted enough with Bourdieu's work. Drifter 04:25, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
The article contains a link to power, which is a disambiguation page. Some of the articles on that page are obviously inappropriate, such as Electric power. I suggest that first you consider whether the understanding of the word power that a typical reader of this article will already have is sufficient to understand the article. If so, de-link it. On the other hand, if one or two of the articles pointed to by the Power dab will enhance the reader's understanding of this article, link to the most appropriate article. Good luck. Gerry Ashton 13:53, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
The following sentence was added, deleted and then added again. I have deleted it a second time but started this section to discuss it.
Bourdieu himself applies his theory by introducing often commonplace concepts with a pedantic and obscure language aimed at giving an impression of intellectual superiority shared by his readers.
The sentence does not relate to Bourdieu's theory of language - unless he did it on purpose to demonstrate the fact which he did not. The content of the sentence therefore does not fit where it was put - if there was a criticism section it might belong there. However it is also POV and unreferenced which means it does not belong in the article at all. JenLouise 23:54, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Neutrality is not gained by balancing praise with insult. It is gained by getting rid of the praise. If you want a criticism section, that is okay. But you don't balance an article out by putting an obviously POV sentence that has no citation and seems not to fit at all (there is no justification in the article to support what you mean, or to draw out its meaning). Here is a passage on Bourdieu's writing style from Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu (it is sympathetic toward his writing, but it is much more thorough than this little sentence that you provide):
So you are right in a sense. Bourdieu's writing does exemplify his ideas. But the notion that the pedantic obscurity is meant to make him look more intelligent seems odd to me. I see it more as the same thing Heidegger and others were trying to do: escape the common-sense divisions of the world by utilizing an entirely different language. Of course, this is POV on my part, but it seems just as reasonable as what you're saying, if not more so. I personally do not find his writing obscure, I quite enjoy it. But that is because I have grown used to it and understand it. The above phrase also neglects that much of Bourdieu's recent work is aimed at more intelligibility: An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology; In Other Words; Practical Reason; and more. Drifter 16:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
I noticed there are a couple pics of Bourdieu at Marxists.org. The site seems to be under Creative Commons license, so are the pics kosher for use here? Anyone with a better knowledge of image copyrights have any clues? -- Beaker342 05:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Bourdieu was an avid political activist and a staunch opponent of modern forms of globalization. He saw sociology as a weapon against social oppression and injustice. He commented that "sociology is a martial art insofar as it is used to defend against the domination of symbolic systems and the imposition of distorting categories of thought".
I think this is a bad idea to put this in the introduction of the article. There is something true in those words, but it should be put in an other place of the article, and the way it's written is too strong, specially the first sentence (Bourdieu was an avid political activist and a staunch opponent of modern forms of globalization), it doesn't describe well the man, I mean an avid political activist is good for José Bové, not for Bourdieu. I don't know how to writte it in a better way, my english is too poor for that, I'm sure somebody will try something... Bye! Ajor 19:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
It is an important point and does certainly contain the vital fact that he came to believe that he needed to be more politically active. I thought it was simply too strongly expressed and ignored the growth of this conviction over time. My concern was really that students might read it and think it an accurate description of the author of , eg, Distinction. It is more accurate to see it as a description of the author of the Social Structures of the Economy. In his earlier days Bourdieu was notable by his absence from political discourse. Anyway, this is all rather idle now as the article has been thoroughly revised and seems much improved.
I'm grateful for the clarification. The position as described does beg certain questions - if the scientific field should be free of political interference, should this not also work vice versa? Bourdieu does not seem to think so - I suppose this is because politics is related to the 'field of fields', ie the field of power. As such the fruits of other fields may legitimately be brought to politics, but it would be an abuse of autonomy for political interests to be brought to them. As you say, somewhat confusing, but good to have these questions aired.
There needs to be MUCH MORE about Bourdieu's work on social activism, of all the published work he did from 1996-2005 explicitly on neoliberalism has been ignored or failed to be uploaded. This represents a serious bias that needs to be addressed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Apmab1 ( talk • contribs) 05:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't see anything on his theories on religion here. Maybe someone could really help the page by summarizing his essay "Genesis and Structure of the Religious Field", in C. Calhoun, Comparative Social Research, 1991.
You could try exploring Practical Reason (Polity 1994 [Fr] 1998 [Eng]) - it contains the - admittedly v. brief - 'Remarks on the Economy of the Church' as well as a few scattered comments. Ianb3019
I've been doing a bit of cleaning up of some sociology articles recently and noticed that most of the articles on Bourdieu's concepts are stubs that contain less information than is actually included in this article on Bourdieu. Just a request to anyone editing this article - if you are adding to or improving to any of the sections regarding concepts that have their own page (eg. field, habitus, cultural or symbolic capital, social/ cultural reproduction, etc can you please make the same additions/improvements to the articles themselves. Thanks, JenLouise 05:30, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 14:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I was about to hyperlink something I was writing to the Wikipedia article on Bordieu, particularly his understanding of habitus, when I encountered the following description:
Habitus can be defined as a system of dispositions (lasting, acquired schemes of perception, thought and action). The individual agent develops these dispositions in response to the objective conditions they encounter. In this way Bourdieu theorizes the inculcation of objective social structures into the subjective, mental experience of agents. For the objective social field places requirements on its participants for membership, so to speak, within the field. Having thereby absorbed objective social structure into a personal set of cognitive and somatic dispositions, and the subjective structures of action of the agent then being commensurate with the objective structures and extant exigencies of the social field, a doxic relationship emerges
I am a 'native' Australian English speaker with some anthropological training .. and I had difficulties following and understanding this. Needless to say .. I could see little value linking others to this .. it is not concise, it is not clear, and it is very heavy, difficult reading for Wikipedia's general audience.
Having encountered the above .. I see the article is replete with such difficult, heavy, jargonistic descriptions and wording .. and thus tagged it as requiring clean-up .. should any editors out there be able and willing? Bruceanthro ( talk) 05:02, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
"It's ironic if words such as 'doxic' are not made (more) transparent since it proves Bourdieu's point that the conditioned individual and society are complicit to prevent understanding." Right there is the whole problem with this article: disciple-itus. It "proves" nothing of the sort. All it proves is that most people aren't prepared to absorb the lost opportunity costs involved in spending hours and years of their life trying to get their heads around the esoteric jargon of self-aggrandizing intellectuals. Believe it or not, most of them have better things to do. Which comes back to our Australian friend's original point. A general encyclopedia article is not supposed to appease the aficionados, it is supposed to provide a usable explanation to the uninitiated. Zzoliche ( talk) 00:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure how much this article has been cleaned up in the last year but I'm a critical theory MA student, new-ish to Bourdieu, and I thought this was a great article. It's got a good balance - provides an overview without dumbing down. You can't simplify the concepts in the name of plain English. I was really impressed with this. 87.84.248.99 ( talk) 13:39, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
I have written a disambiguation of this contested passage (ie "Habitus can be defined...a doxic relationship emerges.") and would gladly post it here. However, it runs to 1780 words and seems rather large for inclusion here... I could post it on the page for 'habitus' or straight into the Bourdieu page but am a little anxious about dumping such a large block of text. Also, I have no idea how to set up a link from this discussion here to my disambiguation. Can anyone help by letting me know at which location I should post it? Ianb3019 ( talk) 20:45, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
As a stopgap solution I have finally got round to creating a user page and have posted the disambiguation there. Anyone interested in reading, using or editing it, feel free to do so. I would be grateful if you would let me know if you have done so in order that I can avoid unnecessary duplication of work. Ianb3019 ( talk) 21:49, 23 October 2008 (UTC) 87.84.248.99 ( talk) 13:39, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
There's room for a section on this, especially around determinism and structure, but I guess the first thing is to get what's here into shape unless anyone wants to get going on it. Julia Rossi ( talk) 05:30, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
I believe most people would argue that Bourdieu was a sociologist. If you go to pages with concepts elaborated by Bourdieu, these refer to him as a sociologist. Was this changed recently? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.49.222.72 ( talk) 16:20, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi, bourdieu was definitely an anthropologist. i will leave sociologist on as well, but it is innacurate, his fundamental methods of data collection and analysis are anthropological, in that, it is essentialy social philosophy based on rigorous empirical data (ethnography). as erikksen notes, anthropology is philosophy with the people in. it even says it on the back of his book 'outline of a theory of practice' if you look. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.215.149.98 ( talk) 08:00, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Bourdieu was a sociologist, and that is because he claimed to be one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.50.159.2 ( talk) 09:04, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Bourdieu did start out as an Anthropologist, in training as well as his ethnographic research in Algeria (as noted by 129.215.149.98 above). Refer to his book "The Algerians" (English title). He did, however, also transition into Sociology in both his university appointments as well as publications, as he turned the theories he developed through his research to also reflect on his own (French) society. See his later books in particular. However, he often referred back to his ethnographic research to support his arguments. I would say it is warranted to classify Bourdieu as both Anthropologist and Sociologist considering both his background and the scope of his writing and theories. Therandom ( talk) 01:48, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
I'd say Bourdieu began his studies in philosophy, then began his career as an anthropologist/ethnographer (the latter being the French term up until Levi-Strauss - see Sketch for a Self-Analysis p. 40, Polity, 2007) and later became a sociologist. He talks of his "transition from philosophy to sociology" (ibid, p. 58). The Logic of Practice, published in France in 1980, seems to me the last of his books to retain strong ties to anthropology - and even that book often seems to be an attempt to rework Outline of a Theory of Practice (unambiguously a work of anthropology) so as to make it more sociological. For the great majority of his career, Bourdieu identified himself as a sociologist, had tenure as a sociologist and published works formally categorised as sociology. On the 'looks like/smells like it/feels like it' rule, I think we can safely say he was a sociologist. Ianb3019 ( talk) 11:39, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
There seems to be some disagreement about what to call Rational Choice or Rational Action Theory. In my understanding, contentinental usage is mainly "Rational Action Theory" and Bourdieu uses this term in his writing. Most contemporary scholars in the U.S. prefer Rational Choice Theory. I suggest we follow Bourdieu's terminology. Either way, both terms link to the same article. Thoughts? - Mike Restivo ( talk) 14:29, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
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Bibliography Link is not found. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.2.177.190 ( talk) 21:18, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
This article needs at least a sentence on Weight of the World. BobFromBrockley ( talk) 18:31, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
I have added a very short reference to the Weight of the World in the section on Bourdieu as a public intellectual. It's a start. Please, BobfromBrockley, add your own extensions if what I've put seems to fall short of what you had in mind. Ianb3019 ( talk) 17:52, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
The term "embodiment" is used several times in this article without definition for this context. I wouldn't know if it's in common currency in sociology but the " Embodiment" disambiguation page has no entry specifically applicable to a sociological context. The closest would seem to be " embodied cognition" but that's just a guess and it's not obvious how it would transfer to sociology. I ask that an editor familiar with this concept in Bordieu define it and cite examples of the concept in use, or perhaps link to an article where this is done. — Blanchette ( talk) 17:24, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
For the purposes of this Wikipedia page, which describes Bourdieu, I think it is inappropriate to attempt to define embodiment. To begin the more modest task of defining what the term means in Bourdieu's sociology, however, would be desirable. I'd tentatively suggest that this strand of Bourdieu's thought derives from his acquaintance with Merleau-Ponty & Husserl (as mentioned in the section of the article headed 'Influences'). Unfortunately, I am not qualified to summarise the arguments of these philosophers. Nevertheless, if you'd like me to make some observations about embodiment as I believe Bourdieu used the term, here on the 'talk' page, then I'll do so. But I doubt if I could comment on this with enough confidence to alter the article itself. Ianb3019 ( talk) 22:32, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
I don't understand the second sentence in the section titled "Bourdieu as public intellectual". Sartre's "attempts" at what exactly? Attempts at being a race-car driver?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.193.136.164 ( talk) 01:39, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
I didn't write that part but I agree it was unclear. I have altered it only slightly but I hope it is now less ambiguous. Ianb3019 ( talk) 10:28, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
The second paragraph under "Bourdieu as a Public Intellectual" which refers almost exclusively to Michael Burawoy appears to be a shameless self-promotion for the latter. The events described took place after Bourdieu's death, and Bourdieu himself is only referred to in passing. I suggest that an article about a famous academic should not be littered with name-checks to people who would like to be associated with him. This is not personal, but that paragraph seemed glaringly inappropriate.
If Michael Burawoy wishes to be included in the article, then I suggest it might be better to have an "Influences" section in which those who have been influenced by the ideas of Bourdieu might be listed in a bullet-point format, although I'm not advocating this and I'm not willing to do it myself. 2.100.219.136 ( talk) 09:04, 20 October 2014 (UTC)