Contemporary articles citing Bourdieu P (1980) Sens Pratique

concept, bourdieu's, discussion, habitus, tool, scientific, presented, relational, contrast, particular

Collet, Francois. 2009. "Does Habitus Matter?: a Comparative Review of Bourdieu's Habitus and Simon's Bounded Rationality With Some Implications for Economic Sociology." Sociological Theory. 27:4 419-434.

In this article, I revisit Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus and contrast it with Herbert Simon's notion of bounded rationality. Through a discussion of the literature of economic sociology on status and Fligstein's political-cultural approach, I argue that this concept can be a source of fresh insights into empirical problems. I find that the greater the change in the social environment, the more salient the benefits of using habitus as a tool to analyze agents' behavior.

Fuhse, Jan. 2009. "The Meaning Structure of Social Networks." Sociological Theory. 27:1 51-73. Link

This essay proposes to view networks as sociocultural structures. Following authors from Leopold von Wiese and Norbert Elias to Gary Alan Fine and Harrison White, networks are configurations of social relationships interwoven with meaning. Social relationships as the basic building blocks of networks are conceived of as dynamic structures of reciprocal (but not necessarily symmetric) expectations between alter and ego. Through their transactions, alter and ego construct an idiosyncratic ``relationship culture'' comprising symbols, narratives, and relational identities. The coupling of social relationships to networks, too, is heavily laden with meaning. The symbolic construction of persons is one instance of this coupling. Another instance is the application of social categories (like race or gender), which both map and structure social networks. The conclusion offers an agenda for research on this ``meaning structure of social networks.''.

Vandenberghe, F. 1999. "``the Real Is Relational'': an Epistemological Analysis of Pierre Bourdieu's Generative Structuralism." Sociological Theory. 17:1 32-67. Link

An internal reconstruction and an immanent critique of Bourdieu's generative structuralism is presented. Rather than starting with the concept of ``habitus,'' as is usually done, the article tries to systematically reconstruct Bourdieu's theory by an analysis of the relational logic that permeates his whole work. Tracing the debt Bourdieu's approach owes to Bachelard's rationalism and Cassirer's relationalism, the article examines Bourdieu's epistemological writings of the 1960s and 70s. It tries to make the case that Bourdieu's sociological metascience represents a rationalist version of Bhaskar's critical realism, and enjoins Bourdieu to give heed to the realist turn in the philosophy of the natural and the social sciences. The article shows how Bourdieu's epistemological assumptions are reflected in his primary theoretical constructs of ``habitus `` and ``field.'' To concretize their discussion, it analyzes Bourdieu's reinterpretation of Weber in his theory of the field of religion and of the young Mannheim in his theory of the scientific field.

Lebaron, F. 2003. "Pierre Bourdieu: Economic Models Against Economism." Theory and Society. 32:5-6 551-565. Link

The use of economic analogies by Bourdieu has often been the object of much criticism. For some scholars, it reveals an ``economistic'' vision of the social world too much inspired by neoclassical economics. For others, it is a kind of mechanical metaphor transposed to cultural phenomena in a determinist way, as in the holistic (Marxist) tradition. To understand this usage and to refute these contradictory criticisms, we return to and focus on the very first occurrences in the 1958-1966 period - the focus of our article - of what Bourdieu would call a ``general economy of practices'' in his book Esquisse d'une theorie de la pratique. Two central aspects, often forgotten by critics, are presented here: first, the close but very particular link between his work and economics as a growing scientific discipline during these years; second, the criticisms Bourdieu makes of the economic model as a general scientific tool for the social sciences. If one insists only on one of the two sides of the coin, one risks misunderstanding Bourdieu's original scientific habitus and intellectual project. By contrast, this ``double'' position opens the possibility of an ``integrated'' vision of social and economic factors of practices, thanks to the introduction of the ``cultural'' and above all the ``symbolic'' dimensions of social life.

Browne, Paul. 2010. "The Dialectics of Health and Social Care: Toward a Conceptual Framework." Theory and Society. 39:5 575-591. Link

The difficulty in conceptualizing health and social care resides in its complex and dialectical character: its constitutive social relations are not reducible to a single logic or type of actor; it is both a descriptive and a normative idea, a tool of classification and evaluation, a means of analysis and a weapon of critique. It is both theoretical and practical, a scientific construct and an ethical stance, rooted both in academic disciplines and the manifold practices of health and social care. This article draws out the radical core of the concept of care as a dialogical form of labor that transcends mere instrumental or strategic action; it then explores the contradictions of this praxis in the context of the social division of care in late capitalism.

Kim, Richard. 2012. "Virtue and the Material Culture of the Nineteenth Century: the Debate Over the Mass Marketplace in France in the Aftermath of the 1848 Revolution." Theory and Society. 41:6 557-579. Link

This article treats the intellectual problem of revolution, agency, and the advent of liberal democracy from the standpoint of mid-nineteenth century France in the aftermath of the 1848 revolutions. After a discussion of the theoretical and historiographical problem-in particular the relevance for this period in history of science studies-the article discusses the views of former Saint-Simonian and political economist, Michel Chevalier, eventually turning to the debate over the free market of goods and labor between the early French socialist Louis Blanc and Chevalier in Chevalier's new role of liberal free trade activist who trumpeted the ideology of the mass marketplace. Chevalier's engagement of the social question turned on a distinctively moral, ideological, and, ultimately, technocratic defense of the free market-this free market utopianism became both starker and more ideologically refined as a result of Chevalier's engagement with Blanc, especially in regard to worker-education. Both referred to the new mass marketplace of cheap, retail goods created by the rapid advance of mass transport, modern logistics, as le bon march,. French political economists went so far as to invoke a new way of life: la vie a bon march, (literally, ``life on the cheap''). This notion of work and life was opposed by Blanc on the grounds of fraternal social solidarity. Finally, and potently, the moral virtues of the free market were conceived by Chevalier as a direct answer to social revolution, a means for affording social stability.