Pierre Bourdieu
From Geography
Pierre Bourdieu (1 August 1930 – 23 januari 2002, France) was a sociologist, anthropologist and philosopher. Bourdieu was a well known member of the anti-globalisation movement. His works didn't receive much attention in geography. Although, he made important contributions to the study of education, culture and class (Macionis & Plummer, 2009). In this he observed underlying patterns of class domination in education, art and culture in general. Bourdieu's work is influenced by Durkheim, Marx and Weber (Lippuner & Werlen, 2009, p.45). He came came up with the theory of practice.
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Life
Bourdieu studied in Paris on the École normale superiéure. One of his classmates was the philosopher Jacques Derrida. In the fifties Bourdieu served in Algeria for the French army. He stayed there until 1960 and teached at the University of Algiers. We he returned to France he was a self-taught anthropologist. In 1975 Bourdieu launched the journal Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales. He worked, did research and taught at several universities, such as the Universities of Paris and Lille, the École pratique des Hautes Etudes, he was director of the Centre de Sociologie Européenne and in the eighties he got appointed the prestigious chair of sociology at the Collège de France. In 2002 Bourdieu died of cancer in Paris.
Work
Key terms in Bourdieu's sociological thought are social field (‘champ’), capital and habitus. His most important work is Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1984). He used large-scale questionnaires on consumer activities (Macionis & Plummer, 2008, p.649). Bourdieu tries to overcome the classic dichotomy within the social sciences between subjectivism and objectivism. The subjectivists think of society as the result of the actions (and thoughts) of individual agents. The objectivists think of invidual agents and theit actions and thoughts as a result of societal structurs. The concept that Bourdieu uses for this dichotomy is habitus. The habitus is the mental structure of individuals that arises during their life in their own social setting. This mental structure comprehends the way the individual sees the world, appreciates it and acts within the world. People that grow up in the same social setting with form a more or less similar habitus. The habitus is therefor a objective given by society, aswell as a individual subjective given by your own capacity and propensity.
Theory of Class Distinction
Pierre believes that class divisions get taught from parents to children and this affects their own perceptions and is how class distinctions are continued. He believes class divisions to be determined by a number of factors, these are social, economic and capital culture. In society having the best commercial goods is a sign of excellence. What people see as excellent is shaped by their class division. Pierre also points out the importance of capital of culture by saying 'the differences in capital culture mark the differences between the classes' (1984). Each class division generated a series of criteria on which you are judged. Important indicators are things like your tastes in food and culture as these relate to where you fit in society.
Theory of Power and Practice
This theory emphasizes how the importance Pierre puts on the body and practices in the social world. He stresses the importance of mechanisms of social domination and reproduction use to be focused on bodily know how and competent practices in the social world. He was opposed to the Rational Choice Theory and saw social agents as operating to a practical sense, this was the sociology side to his work. The anthropological work focused more on the mechanisms of reproduction of social hierarchies. The theoretical foundations of Bourdieu's theory of praxis are mainly the works of Drukheim, Marx, and Weber (Lippuner & Werlen, 2009). So argues Pierre Bourdieu that the empirical observable social world isn't the result of a causal mechanism but a thistorical product of practical contributions, by using the ideas of Marx. The theoretical foundations of the theory of Pierre Bourdieu can be summarized as follows(Lippuner & Werlen, 2009):
(1) Social reality, this is the researche topic of social sciences. According to Bourdieu social reality can't be reduced to either individual states of mind or to natural determinants.
(2) The social world is the historically contingent product of the symbolic production of differences and distinctions.
(3) Constructing and implementing principles of distinction is an attempt to determine the legitimate view of the social world.
(4) Social sciences include themselves as a part of their research object. So social scientist are a researche object for themself.
Social space, capital & field
In Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social praxis, three concepts are central: social space, capital and field. Lippuner and Werlen (2009, p. 39) describe praxis as the following:
the entirety of individual and collective human activities that maintain and transform social life, that is the manner in which all aspects of social reality are constituted. Praxis encompasses conduct and interaction in face-to-face situations, as well as complicated and extensive types of social collectivities and relations between people in remote places
- Social space
Among the three concepts that form the core of Bourdieu's theory, social space is the most vital term (Lippuner & Werlen, 2009). The term is used to designate the social world or society in general. In this context it is also important to underline what Bourdieu does not mean with this concept. Bourdieu does not use it to describe (a part of) geographical space. Social space is neither a territory nor the ‘habitat’ of individuals or groups. Social space cannot be found as a structure on Earth’s surface.( Lippuner & Werlen, 2009). Social space is a relational space, arranged of social positions that are determined by relations of proximity and distance. The multiple dimensions of social reality are displayed by means of different forms of capital. Besides economical capital Bourdieu also introduces social and cultural capital (Lippuner & Werlen, 2009).
- Capital
In Bourdieu's sense, capital designates structural principles that are brought to bear in interactions between social actors in different fields of social space. It is used to describe the actors' abilities deriving from the structural conditions of their situation, especially the means of power at their disposal; the power over products, persons and meanings (Lippuner & Werlen, 2009, p. 46). There are different forms of capital: Social Capital, which can be conceived as a form of controlling persons and their actions (think of the ability to bind people to yourself by using employment contracts). Then there is also Cultural Capital, which basically are knowledge and skills acquired through education: it includes the ability to participate in 'praxis' by learning a specific language in various contexts (management-language, foreign-languages or other).
Bourdieu also mentions other forms of capital such as, for example, scientific or Symbolic Capital.
According to Bourdieu, the different types of capitals are only partly interchangeable among one another. In addition, there is a struggle for the value of capital in social space and for the exchange rate of various sorts of capital. This struggle is closely bound to the division of social space into different fields.
- Fields
The last key concept of Pierre Bourdieu's theory is the concept of 'fields'. He states that social space is divided into different fields, which all compass their own social microcosm (a specific 'own world' in which specific rules exist) (Lippuner & Werlen, 2009). He looks at the role of education and cultural ideologies. He sees a field as a structured social space with its own rules and they are relativley autonomous from wider society. An example of a field might be The Arts or Politics.
Habitus
Habitus can be defined as a system of dispositions. The individual agent develops these dispositions in response to the objective conditions it encounters.
Critique
The main critique for Bourdieu's theory of practice aims at the concept of the Habitus. It is argued that the idea of the habitus is founded on an reductionistic view of social praxis. The close connection of structures of social space and schemes of action and thought (habitus) has raised the objection that Bourdieu has a deterministic understanding of praxis (Lippuner, R. & Werlen, B. 2009, Structuration theory, p. 48).
Publications
-Sociologie de l’Algérie (1958)
-La reproduction (1971)
-La distinction. Critique sociale du jugement (1979)
-Le sens pratique (1980)
-Homo academicus (1984)
-Les règles de l’art (1992)
-Réponses: pour une anthropologie réflexive (1992)
-La misère du monde (1993)
-Sur la télévision (1996)
References
- Flinterman, J. (n.d.) De sociologie van Pierre Bourdieu. Accessed on 21 October 2010, on
http://www.xs4all.nl/~flinterm/Pierre-Bourdieu-samengevat.html
- Kirjasto (2008). Pierre Bourdieu. Accessed on 21 October 2010, on http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/bourd.html
- Lippuner, R. & Werlen, B. (2009). Structuration theory. In: Internation encyclopedia for human geography. Elsevier.
- Macionis, J. & Plummer, K. (2008). Sociology. A global introduction. 4th edition. Pearson Education LTD
Contributors
- Edited by Laura Brunning
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