Pierre Bourdieu: biography of this French sociologist
Pierre Bourdieu is one of the best-known intellectuals in France, in fact, he is considered one of the most cited, especially during the 1960s.
His way of seeing society, being critical of neoliberalism and the major media, has earned him the reputation of being a sociologist in favor of change, contrary to injustice and inspiring transformations in his country.
Below we will see the life of this particular French sociologist, in addition to highlighting his thoughts and work, through a biography of Pierre Bourdieu.
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Biography of Pierre Bourdieu: a summary
Pierre-Félix Bourdieu was born in Denguin, France, on August 1, 1930.. Not much is known about his childhood, but we do know that in his youth he would study philosophy in Paris, specifically at the École Normale Supérieure and at the Sorbonne. At the Parisian university he would read his thesis “Structures temporelles de la vie affective” (Temporal structures of affective life)
Since 1955 He served as a teacher in various corners of the French Empire at that time.. He was first a professor at the Moulins Institute and, later, in Algeria, between 1958 and 1960. Later he would practice this profession in Paris and Lille.
Algeria, and its impact on sociology
His stay in Algeria was the beginning of his research work, which would give him a great reputation which would earn him a fairly important place within the French sociology of the last century, since it would be in that country and specifically in 1958 when he would publish your book Sociology of Algeria.
Several years later, in 1964 he would publish, together with Jean-Claude Passeron, two of his first texts related to education: Les étudiants et leurs études and Les héritiers. Students and culture. A little later but in that same year he would publish “Les fonctions de la photographie” and in 1965 A moyen art. Essais sur les usages sociaux de la photography and Pedagogical rapport and communication.
Professional impact and recent years
The years after Algeria were characterized by prolific literary creation. In 1970 he published Fondements d’une theory de la violence symbolique. Cultural reproduction and social reproduction, also published together with Passeron. In 1976 he published The system of great schools and the reproduction of the dominant class.
Among his many other works are also The distinction. Social criticism of the game (1979), Ce que parler veut dire. The economy of linguistic changes (1982), Homo academicus (1984), La Noblesse d'état. Grandes écoles et esprit de corps (1989), The rules of art. Genèse et structure du champ littéraire (1992).
However, his greatest success is achieved with The misery of the world (1993). In this book denounces social suffering having a strong inspiration from Marxism and Michel Foucault. He shows in this book a combination of sociology and social anthropology, analyzing social exclusion, technological progress and globalization.
It should be noted that within his current of thought, Bourdieu's speech had always been critical of society. However, it happened May 68, a social phenomenon in France that would mark a before and after in French society after the Second World War, Bourdieu is even more critical of his time.
At that time he already argued critically against neoliberalism and was a supporter of civil society, in which the same rights are offered to all citizens without exception. He is interested in unions, NGOs, emigrants and civic associations contrary to neoliberal positions.. Bourdieu was one of the founders of “Liber-Raisons d’agir”, the publishing house that promoted the “Attac” movement.
After having gained considerable fame in the world of sociology, he would enjoy important academic positions. He was a professor at the École Normale Supérieure between 1964 and 1984 and, since 1981, director of L'École Pratique de Hauts Études and professor of Sociology at the College de France. He became the director of the journal “Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales” from 1975 until his death on Paris, January 23, 2002 from lung cancer.
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Political and economic thought
Bourdieu was one of the most relevant great sociologists of the second half of the 20th century. In fact, according to the Parisian newspaper “Le Monde”, he would become the most cited French intellectual in the world press 1969. His ideas have been of great importance both in social theory and in its more empirical application, especially in the sociology of culture, education and lifestyles.
His theory stands out for being an attempt to overcome the traditional sociological duality between, for one On the one hand, social structures and objectivism, the source of social action, and, on the other, the subjectivism. Bourdieu is equipped with two new concepts “habitus” and the “field” as well as reinventing one that was already well known, capital.
From Bourdieu's view, “habitus” is understood as the ways of thinking, feeling and acting that originated by a person's position within the social structure, that is, their status social. Bourdieu speaks of “field” referring to the social space that is created around the evaluation of facts such as science, art, politics or religion. These spaces are occupied by people from different “habitus” and with different capitals, who compete for both material and symbolic resources in the “field.”
He understands the term capital not only in its economic sense, but also referring to cultural capital, social capital and any other type of capital perceived as “natural” in that society, what he calls as symbolic capital People have a habitus specific to their social position and resources or capitals “play” in the different social fields. It is through this “game” that they contribute to either reproduce what society was like until now or transform its social structure.
This idea of the “habitus” and the “field” is extrapolated to the journalistic world. For Bourdieu, journalism acts as a place in which people with different social statuses, journalists, can promote changes in society through the transmission of certain information. This information can be objective or biased depending on the interests behind it.
Thus, based on the evil that Bourdieu thought the media were doing, he rather than talking about the “information society” prefers to talk about the “society of the spectacle.” The media, far from truthfully communicating what was happening, seemed to want to compete to see which one got the largest audience.
Based on this, in the late 1990s he made controversial statements about how the media was influencing politics in general and, to some extent, they censored critics, especially writers. In fact, he proposed and was the founder of the “writers' parliament,” an organization designed to give intellectuals greater autonomy over his work, and, thus, being able to freely criticize society and its drifts outside the media of cultural dissemination. official.
Regarding his empirical work, he especially highlights all his critical work towards culture, showing that cultural distinctions are nothing more than covert forms of domination. He called this ontological complicity between the field and the habitus. It is not that he is cynical about the manifestations of high culture, but that he believes that everyone should have the same right to access this culture.
Bibliographic references:
- Bourdieu, Pierre (2004) Esquisse pour une auto-analyse: 109. Raisons d'agir.
- Alonso, L. AND. (2002a) “Pierre Bourdieu in memoriam (1930-2002). Between Bourdieumania and the reconstruction of European sociology” in Spanish Journal of Sociological Research, nº 97, January-March, pp 9-28.
