From critical sociology to public intellectual: Pierre Bourdieu and politics

Theory and Society

Volumn 32, Issue 5-6, 2003, Pages 791-823

  Swartz, David L ^a  

^a BOSTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 4143097104     PISSN: 03042421     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/b:ryso.0000004956.34253.fb     Document Type: Review

References (96)

1. A shorter version of this article was delivered as a lecture at the City University of New York Graduate Center, May 9, 2003. I wish to thank Cynthia Fuchs Epstein and David Lavin for making that possible. I also wish to thank David Karen, Niilo Kauppi, Fredéric Lebaron, Elliot Weininger, Vera Zolberg, and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.
2. Pierre Bourdieu, "Against the Destruction of a Civilization," in Acts of Resistance. Against the Tyranny of the Market, ed. Pierre Bourdieu (New York: The New Press, 1995), 24-28.
3. Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron, The Inheritors: French Students and their Relation to Culture (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979).
4. Some of his sociological work, however, had been a contributing factor to French student leader political awareness in May 1968. The Inheritors informed their political analysis of the French university situation and contributed to a more politicized view among many French university students of university conditions. In addition, Bourdieu and several colleagues at the Center for European Sociology drafted in 1968 a statement regarding the strike. See Pierre Bourdieu, "Appel à l'organisation d'états généraux de l'enseignement et de la recherche," in Interventions, 1961-2001. Science sociale et action politique (Marseille: Agone, 1968), 63-68. But he did not participate in the May 68 demonstrations as did Foucault. He did not publish analyses of the May 1968 events in the immediate aftermath as did Raymond Boudon and Alain Touraine, nor did he editorialize in the French press on the significance of the events as many French intellectuals did. His analyses would come later in Pierre Bourdieu, Luc Boltanski, and Pascal Maldidier, "La Défense du Corps," Social Science Information 10 4 (1971); and in Pierre Bourdieu, Homo Academicus (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), but only as elements of analyses focused on the French university teaching profession.
5. Some of his sociological work, however, had been a contributing factor to French student leader political awareness in May 1968. The Inheritors informed their political analysis of the French university situation and contributed to a more politicized view among many French university students of university conditions. In addition, Bourdieu and several colleagues at the Center for European Sociology drafted in 1968 a statement regarding the strike. See Pierre Bourdieu, "Appel à l'organisation d'états généraux de l'enseignement et de la recherche," in Interventions, 1961-2001. Science sociale et action politique (Marseille: Agone, 1968), 63-68. But he did not participate in the May 68 demonstrations as did Foucault. He did not publish analyses of the May 1968 events in the immediate aftermath as did Raymond Boudon and Alain Touraine, nor did he editorialize in the French press on the significance of the events as many French intellectuals did. His analyses would come later in Pierre Bourdieu, Luc Boltanski, and Pascal Maldidier, "La Défense du Corps," Social Science Information 10 4 (1971); and in Pierre Bourdieu, Homo Academicus (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), but only as elements of analyses focused on the French university teaching profession.
6. Some of his sociological work, however, had been a contributing factor to French student leader political awareness in May 1968. The Inheritors informed their political analysis of the French university situation and contributed to a more politicized view among many French university students of university conditions. In addition, Bourdieu and several colleagues at the Center for European Sociology drafted in 1968 a statement regarding the strike. See Pierre Bourdieu, "Appel à l'organisation d'états généraux de l'enseignement et de la recherche," in Interventions, 1961-2001. Science sociale et action politique (Marseille: Agone, 1968), 63-68. But he did not participate in the May 68 demonstrations as did Foucault. He did not publish analyses of the May 1968 events in the immediate aftermath as did Raymond Boudon and Alain Touraine, nor did he editorialize in the French press on the significance of the events as many French intellectuals did. His analyses would come later in Pierre Bourdieu, Luc Boltanski, and Pascal Maldidier, "La Défense du Corps," Social Science Information 10 4 (1971); and in Pierre Bourdieu, Homo Academicus (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), but only as elements of analyses focused on the French university teaching profession.
7. A key difference between the political activism of Bourdieu and that of Sartre is that Bourdieu entered the political arena with an intellectual practice directly related to the issues he spoke to politically, whereas Sartre as philosopher and literary figure did not. Bourdieu's defense of the welfare state against privatization stemmed in part from what he learned while researching the negative social and economic effects on those most directly affected by downsizing the welfare safety net. See Pierre Bourdieu et al., The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society, trans. Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, et al. (Stanford: Standford University Press, 1999 [1993]) and Pierre Bourdieu, les structures sociales de l'économie (Paris: Édition du Seuil, 2000). Another key difference is that, whereas Sartre in his later years was used by radical left groups as a kind of figurehead, Bourdieu was able to mobilize in his later years key radical left constituencies in protest against welfare state cutbacks.
8. A key difference between the political activism of Bourdieu and that of Sartre is that Bourdieu entered the political arena with an intellectual practice directly related to the issues he spoke to politically, whereas Sartre as philosopher and literary figure did not. Bourdieu's defense of the welfare state against privatization stemmed in part from what he learned while researching the negative social and economic effects on those most directly affected by downsizing the welfare safety net. See Pierre Bourdieu et al., The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society, trans. Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, et al. (Stanford: Standford University Press, 1999 [1993]) and Pierre Bourdieu, les structures sociales de l'économie (Paris: Édition du Seuil, 2000). Another key difference is that, whereas Sartre in his later years was used by radical left groups as a kind of figurehead, Bourdieu was able to mobilize in his later years key radical left constituencies in protest against welfare state cutbacks.
9. Pierre Bourdieu, "Sociologues des mythologies et mythologies de sociologues," Les temps modernes 211, no. December (1963).
10. nd edition (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1991 [1968]).
11. See Pierre Mounier, Pierre Bourdieu, une introduction, ed. Hugues Jallon, Une introduction (Paris: Pocket/La Découverte, 2001), 233.
12. For example, one can find featured in the October 1998 issue of The Magazine Litteraire expressions of the popular criticisms of Bourdieu's political activities in the late 1990s.
13. See, for example, Jeannine Verdès-Leroux, Le savant et la politique. Essai sur le terrorisme sociologique de Pierre Bourdieu (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1998).
14. This explanatory perspective overlaps to some extent with that of Louis Pinto, Pierre Bourdieu et la théorie du monde social (Paris: Albin Michel, 1998).
15. See David Swartz, Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), for a brief description of French sociology during the period.
16. Bourdieu's early institutional mentor, Raymond Aron, was an important exception to these early patterns. Aron wrote a column for the French newspaper Le Figaro while teaching at the Sorbonne.
17. Bourdieu, Chamboredon, and Passeron, The Craft of Sociology: Epistemological Preliminaries.
18. Indeed, Bourdieu set out an ambitious program of nothing less than setting sociology on firm epistemological grounds and developing an approach to the study of the social world that seemed no less ambitious than that of Emile Durkheim at the beginning of the twentieth century. The parallel to Durkheim has been drawn by several observers, such as Michel Offerlé, Engagement sociologique: Pierre Bourdieu en politique, Regards sur l'actualité (Paris: La Documentation Française, 1999), and Loïc J.-D. Wacquant, "The Structure and Logic of Bourdieu's Sociology," in An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, ed. Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc J.-D. Wacquant (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
19. Indeed, Bourdieu set out an ambitious program of nothing less than setting sociology on firm epistemological grounds and developing an approach to the study of the social world that seemed no less ambitious than that of Emile Durkheim at the beginning of the twentieth century. The parallel to Durkheim has been drawn by several observers, such as Michel Offerlé, Engagement sociologique: Pierre Bourdieu en politique, Regards sur l'actualité (Paris: La Documentation Française, 1999), and Loïc J.-D. Wacquant, "The Structure and Logic of Bourdieu's Sociology," in An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, ed. Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc J.-D. Wacquant (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
20. Bourdieu, Chamboredon, and Passeron, The Craft of Sociology: Epistemological Preliminaries.
21. One central theme in The Craft of Sociology was epistemological, not political, at least in the usual sense of that distinction. Sociology needed to be set up on firm epistemological grounds as a science. But, as Wacquant points out in Wacquant, "The Structure and Logic of Bourdieu's Sociology," 50, for Bourdieu, "even epistemology is fundamentally political." Bourdieu writes in Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977 [1972]), 165: "The theory of knowledge is a dimension of political theory because the specifically symbolic power to impose the principles of construction of reality in particular social reality is a major dimension of political power." In other words, the cognitive is political.
22. Indeed, this is the view shared by many who have examined closely the ensemble of Bourdieu's writings and political activities. See, for example, Craig Calhoun, "Pierre Bourdieu, the Centrality of the Social, and the Possibility of Politics," in Bourdieu: Le colloq Cerisy, ed. J. DuBois, P. Durant, and Y. Winkin (Paris: Seuil, forthcoming); Philippe Fritsch, "Introduction," in Propos sur le Champ Politique, ed. Pierre Bourdieu (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2000), 26; Gérard Mauger, "L'Engagement sociologique," Critique, no. 579-580 (1995); and Wacquant, "The Structure and Logic of Bourdieu's Sociology," 47-59. This is also the view of Frank Poupeau (personal communication, Paris, June 2002) who is one of the editors of the most complete set of Bourdieu's political writings.
23. Indeed, this is the view shared by many who have examined closely the ensemble of Bourdieu's writings and political activities. See, for example, Craig Calhoun, "Pierre Bourdieu, the Centrality of the Social, and the Possibility of Politics," in Bourdieu: Le colloq Cerisy, ed. J. DuBois, P. Durant, and Y. Winkin (Paris: Seuil, forthcoming); Philippe Fritsch, "Introduction," in Propos sur le Champ Politique, ed. Pierre Bourdieu (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2000), 26; Gérard Mauger, "L'Engagement sociologique," Critique, no. 579-580 (1995); and Wacquant, "The Structure and Logic of Bourdieu's Sociology," 47-59. This is also the view of Frank Poupeau (personal communication, Paris, June 2002) who is one of the editors of the most complete set of Bourdieu's political writings.
24. Indeed, this is the view shared by many who have examined closely the ensemble of Bourdieu's writings and political activities. See, for example, Craig Calhoun, "Pierre Bourdieu, the Centrality of the Social, and the Possibility of Politics," in Bourdieu: Le colloq Cerisy, ed. J. DuBois, P. Durant, and Y. Winkin (Paris: Seuil, forthcoming); Philippe Fritsch, "Introduction," in Propos sur le Champ Politique, ed. Pierre Bourdieu (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2000), 26; Gérard Mauger, "L'Engagement sociologique," Critique, no. 579-580 (1995); and Wacquant, "The Structure and Logic of Bourdieu's Sociology," 47-59. This is also the view of Frank Poupeau (personal communication, Paris, June 2002) who is one of the editors of the most complete set of Bourdieu's political writings.
25. Indeed, this is the view shared by many who have examined closely the ensemble of Bourdieu's writings and political activities. See, for example, Craig Calhoun, "Pierre Bourdieu, the Centrality of the Social, and the Possibility of Politics," in Bourdieu: Le colloq Cerisy, ed. J. DuBois, P. Durant, and Y. Winkin (Paris: Seuil, forthcoming); Philippe Fritsch, "Introduction," in Propos sur le Champ Politique, ed. Pierre Bourdieu (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2000), 26; Gérard Mauger, "L'Engagement sociologique," Critique, no. 579-580 (1995); and Wacquant, "The Structure and Logic of Bourdieu's Sociology," 47-59. This is also the view of Frank Poupeau (personal communication, Paris, June 2002) who is one of the editors of the most complete set of Bourdieu's political writings.
26. Indeed, this is the view shared by many who have examined closely the ensemble of Bourdieu's writings and political activities. See, for example, Craig Calhoun, "Pierre Bourdieu, the Centrality of the Social, and the Possibility of Politics," in Bourdieu: Le colloq Cerisy, ed. J. DuBois, P. Durant, and Y. Winkin (Paris: Seuil, forthcoming); Philippe Fritsch, "Introduction," in Propos sur le Champ Politique, ed. Pierre Bourdieu (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2000), 26; Gérard Mauger, "L'Engagement sociologique," Critique, no. 579-580 (1995); and Wacquant, "The Structure and Logic of Bourdieu's Sociology," 47-59. This is also the view of Frank Poupeau (personal communication, Paris, June 2002) who is one of the editors of the most complete set of Bourdieu's political writings.
27. Pierre Bourdieu and Otto Hahn, "La théorie," VH 101 2, no. Summer (1970): 15 Also see Swartz, Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, 249-255, 59-62.
28. Pierre Bourdieu and Otto Hahn, "La théorie," VH 101 2, no. Summer (1970): 15 Also see Swartz, Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, 249-255, 59-62.
29. In a particularly pointed formulation of this idea of the political effects of science, Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (London: Sage, 1977), 218, write: "If there is no science but of the hidden, then the science of society is, per se, critical, without the scientist who chooses science ever having to choose to make a critique: the hidden is, in this case, a secret, and a well-kept one, even when no one is commissioned to keep it, because it contributes to the reproduction of a 'social order' based on concealment of the most efficacious mechanisms of its reproduction and thereby serves the interests of those who have a vested interest in the conservation of that order." My thanks to Elliot Weininger for reminding me of this passage.
30. Bourdieu and Hahn, "La théorie," 20. See D. Swartz, Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, 247-269 for a discussion of how Bourdieu thinks that the sociologist, armed with the tools of critical science, can and should have a responsibility for playing a key role in modern political life.
31. Bourdieu and Hahn, "La théorie," 20. See D. Swartz, Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, 247-269 for a discussion of how Bourdieu thinks that the sociologist, armed with the tools of critical science, can and should have a responsibility for playing a key role in modern political life.
32. A fuller presentation of Bourdieu's normative vision is beyond the scope of this article but his vision calls for protecting the autonomy of the scientific field from the distorting effects of politics, while simultaneously orienting one's scientific research so that it will have the maximum effect in the public arena. It also calls for a reflexive practice of sociology, one that does not import the logic of political struggle into the scientific arena yet is able to produce symbolic effects that can shape political life. See Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc J.-D. Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992); and Swartz, Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, for a fuller discussion.
33. A fuller presentation of Bourdieu's normative vision is beyond the scope of this article but his vision calls for protecting the autonomy of the scientific field from the distorting effects of politics, while simultaneously orienting one's scientific research so that it will have the maximum effect in the public arena. It also calls for a reflexive practice of sociology, one that does not import the logic of political struggle into the scientific arena yet is able to produce symbolic effects that can shape political life. See Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc J.-D. Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992); and Swartz, Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, for a fuller discussion.
34. Max Weber, "Science as a Vocation," in From Max Weber, ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1970). Bourdieu is sharply critical, however, of the "ethical neutrality" often attributed to Weber. "The ideal of 'ethical neutrality,'" he writes in Bourdieu and Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, 218, is but "a mere non-aggression pact with the established order."
35. Max Weber, "Science as a Vocation," in From Max Weber, ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1970). Bourdieu is sharply critical, however, of the "ethical neutrality" often attributed to Weber. "The ideal of 'ethical neutrality,'" he writes in Bourdieu and Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, 218, is but "a mere non-aggression pact with the established order."
36. Pierre Bourdieu, "The Attitude of the Algerian Peasant Toward Time," in Mediterranean Countrymen, ed. Jesse Pitt-Rivers (Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1964); and Pierre Bourdieu, Algeria 1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
37. Pierre Bourdieu, "The Attitude of the Algerian Peasant Toward Time," in Mediterranean Countrymen, ed. Jesse Pitt-Rivers (Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1964); and Pierre Bourdieu, Algeria 1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
38. Pierre Bourdieu, "Révolution dans la révolution," Esprit 1, no. January (1961); Pierre Bourdieu, "Les sous- prolétaires algériens," Les temps modernes, no. 199 (1962).
39. Pierre Bourdieu, "Révolution dans la révolution," Esprit 1, no. January (1961); Pierre Bourdieu, "Les sous- prolétaires algériens," Les temps modernes, no. 199 (1962).
40. Bourdieu and Passeron, The Inheritors: French Students and their Relation to Culture.
41. Bourdieu and Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture.
42. See Pierre Bourdieu, "L'opinion publique n'existe pas," Noroit 155-156 (1971); Pierre Bourdieu, "Les doxosophes," Minuit 1, no. November (1972).
43. See Pierre Bourdieu, "L'opinion publique n'existe pas," Noroit 155-156 (1971); Pierre Bourdieu, "Les doxosophes," Minuit 1, no. November (1972).
44. See Pierre Bourdieu, "Questions de politique," Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 16, no. September (1977); and Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984 [1979]), 463-511.
45. See Pierre Bourdieu, "Questions de politique," Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 16, no. September (1977); and Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984 [1979]), 463-511.
46. Pierre Bourdieu, The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power, trans. Lauretta C. Clough (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996 [1989]).
47. Bourdieu et al., The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society.
48. Although an agrégé, Bourdieu never defended a doctoral thesis, which was a prerequisite (a necessary but not sufficient condition) for obtaining a chair in the French university at that time.
49. The Collège stands at the summit of the research sector of French intellectual life. Bourdieu was elected to the Chair of Sociology, a position held earlier by Marcel Mauss and Raymond Aron.
50. This was the golden age of post-World War II French sociology. The social sciences captured much of the attraction that had previously been accorded to philosophy and the humanities. Anthropologist Lévi-Strauss emerged to become a significant opposing intellectual reference in France to the philosopher/literary figure Sartre. Bourdieu recounts in Pierre Bourdieu, In Other Words: Essays Toward a Reflexive Sociology (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 3-33; and Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990 [1980]), 1-21, how the success of Lévi-Strauss was important in shaping Bourdieu's intellectual outlook. Bourdieu used structuralism, as did many other aspiring French social scientists of the period, as a strategy for legitimating his intellectual identity as a social scientist against the dominating literary/humanist/philosophical culture represented by Sartre. See Pierre Bourdieu, "The Berber House," in Rules and Meanings, ed. Mary Douglas (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), as one particularly direct expression of Lévi-Strauss's structuralism on Bourdieu's early work.
51. This was the golden age of post-World War II French sociology. The social sciences captured much of the attraction that had previously been accorded to philosophy and the humanities. Anthropologist Lévi-Strauss emerged to become a significant opposing intellectual reference in France to the philosopher/literary figure Sartre. Bourdieu recounts in Pierre Bourdieu, In Other Words: Essays Toward a Reflexive Sociology (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 3-33; and Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990 [1980]), 1-21, how the success of Lévi-Strauss was important in shaping Bourdieu's intellectual outlook. Bourdieu used structuralism, as did many other aspiring French social scientists of the period, as a strategy for legitimating his intellectual identity as a social scientist against the dominating literary/humanist/philosophical culture represented by Sartre. See Pierre Bourdieu, "The Berber House," in Rules and Meanings, ed. Mary Douglas (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), as one particularly direct expression of Lévi-Strauss's structuralism on Bourdieu's early work.
52. This was the golden age of post-World War II French sociology. The social sciences captured much of the attraction that had previously been accorded to philosophy and the humanities. Anthropologist Lévi-Strauss emerged to become a significant opposing intellectual reference in France to the philosopher/literary figure Sartre. Bourdieu recounts in Pierre Bourdieu, In Other Words: Essays Toward a Reflexive Sociology (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 3-33; and Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990 [1980]), 1-21, how the success of Lévi-Strauss was important in shaping Bourdieu's intellectual outlook. Bourdieu used structuralism, as did many other aspiring French social scientists of the period, as a strategy for legitimating his intellectual identity as a social scientist against the dominating literary/humanist/philosophical culture represented by Sartre. See Pierre Bourdieu, "The Berber House," in Rules and Meanings, ed. Mary Douglas (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), as one particularly direct expression of Lévi-Strauss's structuralism on Bourdieu's early work.
53. An International Sociological Association survey placed Distinction as the 6th most important social scientific work of the twentieth century. The Logic of Practice was ranked 4th and Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture 48th. The only other French thinkers to make it into the top 50 were Emile Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (13th), The Division of Labor in Society (34th), The Rules of Sociological Method (35th), and Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (16th). Contemporary Sociology (May 1996) reviewed Outline of a Theory of Practice as one of the 10 most influential books of the past 25 years.
54. Lévi-Strauss is the only other social scientist to have received this coveted award.
55. See Christophe Charle, Naissance des "intellectuels," 1880-1900, Le sens commun (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1990).
56. This was the view, for example, of Raymond Boudon (personal communication, Paris 1988).
57. This point is suggested by Mounier, Pierre Bourdieu, une introduction, 217-218.
58. See Luc Boltanski, "L'espace positionnel, multiplicitédes positions institutionnelles et habitus de classe," Revue française de sociologie 14 1 (1973).
59. Anecdotal reports suggest that it was becoming more acceptable, indeed viewed positively, by a growing number of French academics (particularly those teaching within political science institutes), to write for and appear in the mass media. Attitudes had changed considerably from the days when Raymond Aron's appointment at the Sorbonne had caused concern among some French scholars precisely because Aron wrote a column for Le Figaro.
60. Patrick Champagne, Faire l'opinion. Le nouvel espace politique (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1979).
61. See Pierre Bourdieu,"The Market of Symbolic Goods," Poetics 14, no. April (1985); Pierre Bourdieu, On Television (New York: New Press, 1998 [1996]); and Regis Debray, Teachers, Writers, Celebrities: the Intellectuals of Modern France (London: Verso, 1981).
62. See Pierre Bourdieu,"The Market of Symbolic Goods," Poetics 14, no. April (1985); Pierre Bourdieu, On Television (New York: New Press, 1998 [1996]); and Regis Debray, Teachers, Writers, Celebrities: the Intellectuals of Modern France (London: Verso, 1981).
63. See Pierre Bourdieu,"The Market of Symbolic Goods," Poetics 14, no. April (1985); Pierre Bourdieu, On Television (New York: New Press, 1998 [1996]); and Regis Debray, Teachers, Writers, Celebrities: the Intellectuals of Modern France (London: Verso, 1981).
64. It is ironical that Bourdieu, whose sociological investigations had not focused on social movements, as for example had his rival Alain Touraine, became in his later years politically catalyzed by a social movement just as the movement itself was enhanced by Bourdieu's presence.
65. This is not to suggest that Bourdieu became in his later years a "mediacrat" shuttling from one public appearance to another in the manner of some French intellectuals. Bourdieu in fact was very selective in his public appearances; he turned down many more invitations than he accepted.
66. Bourdieu, les structures sociales de l'économie.
67. There is a certain irony here in contrasting Bourdieu's political aims with some of the criticism traditionally leveled against Bourdieu's sociological theory of action. Many critics have charged his sociology with being too deterministic. Yet Bourdieu's attacks against neo-liberalism seem precisely to call attention to the determining forces of globalization and to raise the hope and possibility of choosing some alternative course of action rather than their sublime acceptance.
68. Bourdieu later sharply criticized the way this report was used by Mitterrand largely to legitimate his presidential campaign in 1988 rather than adopting any substantial reforms proposed by the report.
69. Bourdieu agreed to work with the commission, despite his frustration with the first report, because of his respect for the socialist prime minister Michel Rocard (personal communication, Franck Poupeau, Paris, June 2002).
70. In this respect, he was quite different from Anthony Giddens who agreed to play a formal role in Tony Blair's labor government in the United Kingdom.
71. His reluctance to break totally with the regime before the early 1990s can be seen in the famous statement "La virtue civile" that he wrote in September 1988 in Le monde, in which he comes to the support of the prime minister Michel Rocard for the way Rocard handled the movement for independence in New Caledonia. The statement, however, also reflects a growing concern of his relationship to the Mitterrand presidency, a concern that asks what conditions can be created or under what conditions is it likely that the voice of science and rationality will be heard by political leaders. This theme shows both his growing skepticism and lingering hope for the French left at the end of the 1980s and very early 1990s to do something different.
72. Indicative of Bourdieu's changing consciousness regarding the political vocation of the sociologist is his observation that the professionalization of sociology as science resulted in the loss of the classical political function emphasized by the early social theorists. Bourdieu writes: "In fact, one can say, to simplify a little, that the social sciences paid dearly to gain recognition as science (which remains contested): by a self censure that constitutes a veritable self mutilation, sociologists - beginning with me, who frequently denounced the temptation of social prophesying and philosophizing - refused all opportunity to propose 'ideal and global' representations of the social world, as if such would signal a lack of sufficient embrace of scientific morality and thereby discredit the author." Pierre Bourdieu, Propos sur le Champ Politique (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2000), 104. Here Bourdieu speaks of that loss in terms of a regrettable sacrifice both personally and professionally. By the late 1980s, he no longer accepts this "scientistic abdication, which ruins political conviction," and argues that "the time has come when scholars are needed to intervene in politics, with all their competence, to impose utopias based in truth and rationality." Bourdieu, Propos sur le Champ Politique, 104-105 (my translation).
73. Indicative of Bourdieu's changing consciousness regarding the political vocation of the sociologist is his observation that the professionalization of sociology as science resulted in the loss of the classical political function emphasized by the early social theorists. Bourdieu writes: "In fact, one can say, to simplify a little, that the social sciences paid dearly to gain recognition as science (which remains contested): by a self censure that constitutes a veritable self mutilation, sociologists - beginning with me, who frequently denounced the temptation of social prophesying and philosophizing - refused all opportunity to propose 'ideal and global' representations of the social world, as if such would signal a lack of sufficient embrace of scientific morality and thereby discredit the author." Pierre Bourdieu, Propos sur le Champ Politique (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2000), 104. Here Bourdieu speaks of that loss in terms of a regrettable sacrifice both personally and professionally. By the late 1980s, he no longer accepts this "scientistic abdication, which ruins political conviction," and argues that "the time has come when scholars are needed to intervene in politics, with all their competence, to impose utopias based in truth and rationality." Bourdieu, Propos sur le Champ Politique, 104-105 (my translation).
74. I recall a conversation with Bourdieu in Paris in 1993, when in response to my query about the reception of The State Nobility he shrugged and pointed out that while nothing significant had happened in France, by contrast, the book was receiving considerable attention in Germany.
75. Pinto, Pierre Bourdieu et la théorie du monde social, 182-183, makes a similar point.
76. See Pierre Bourdieu, Acts of Resistance. Against the Tyranny of the Market, trans. Richard Nice (New York: The New Press, 1998); and Pierre Bourdieu, Firing Back: Against the Tyranny of the Market, trans. Loïc Wacquant (New York: New Press, 2003 [2001]).
77. See Pierre Bourdieu, Acts of Resistance. Against the Tyranny of the Market, trans. Richard Nice (New York: The New Press, 1998); and Pierre Bourdieu, Firing Back: Against the Tyranny of the Market, trans. Loïc Wacquant (New York: New Press, 2003 [2001]).
78. Personal communication, Paris 1992.
79. See Pierre Bourdieu and Hans Haacke, Free Exchange, trans. Hans Haacke and Randal Johnson (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995 [1994]). I am indebted to Gérard Mauger (personal communication, Paris, June 2002) for bringing to my attention how much Bourdieu looked to the artist world as a way of breaking through the taken-for-granted assumptions of power relations.
80. See Pierre Bourdieu and Hans Haacke, Free Exchange, trans. Hans Haacke and Randal Johnson (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995 [1994]). I am indebted to Gérard Mauger (personal communication, Paris, June 2002) for bringing to my attention how much Bourdieu looked to the artist world as a way of breaking through the taken-for-granted assumptions of power relations.
81. See Pierre Bourdieu, "The Corporatism of the Universal: The Role of Intellectuals in the Modern World," Telos 81, no. Fall (1989) and Pierre Bourdieu, "Pour une Internationale des intellectuels," in Interventions, 1961-2001. Science sociale & action politique (Marseille: Agone, 2002 [1989]).
82. See Pierre Bourdieu, "The Corporatism of the Universal: The Role of Intellectuals in the Modern World," Telos 81, no. Fall (1989) and Pierre Bourdieu, "Pour une Internationale des intellectuels," in Interventions, 1961-2001. Science sociale & action politique (Marseille: Agone, 2002 [1989]).
83. Pierre Bourdieu, "For a Corporatism of the Universal," in The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 399-348.
84. Pierre Bourdieu, "Une révolution conservatrice dans l'édition," Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 126-127 (1999).
85. See Pierre Bourdieu, "Le pouvoir n'est plus rue-d'Ulm mais à l'ENA," Le Nouvel Observateur, 9-15 March 1989, where Bourdieu indicates that underlying the monopolizing power of corporate and administrative elites is a shift in power from the Ecole Normale Supérieure (formative site of traditional intellectuals, such as Sartre, Foucault and Bourdieu himself) toward the Ecole Nationale d'Administration (formative site of senior public and private managers in France today).
86. Pierre Bourdieu, Interventions, 1961-2002. Science sociale et action politique (Marseille: Agone, 2002), 253.
87. ARESER, Quelques diagnostics et remèdes urgents pour une université en péril (Paris: Liber-Raisons D'Agir, 1997).
88. Pierre Bourdieu, "Un parlement des écrivains pour quoi faire?" in Interventions, 1961-2001. Science sociale & action politique (Marseille: Agone, 2002), 289-292; and Bourdieu, Interventions, 1961-2002. Science sociale et action politique, 254.
89. Pierre Bourdieu, "Un parlement des écrivains pour quoi faire?" in Interventions, 1961-2001. Science sociale & action politique (Marseille: Agone, 2002), 289-292; and Bourdieu, Interventions, 1961-2002. Science sociale et action politique, 254.
90. Bourdieu, On Television.
91. See the Raisons d'agir website for both a history and current agenda of political actions since Bourdieu's death: www.raisonsdagir.org.
92. Bourdieu, On Television.
93. Julien Duval et al., Le "décembre" des intellectuels français (Paris: Liber-Raisons D'Agir, 1998), 60-61.
94. Offerlé, Engagement sociologique: Pierre Bourdieu en politique.
95. I write this in the summer of 2003 when again large street demonstrations respond to a new initiative by the Chirac center right government to implement similar kinds of welfare state reforms as were proposed in 1995.
96. In a brief reflection published in 1983 in Lire, Bourdieu assesses the significance of May 1968 as entirely of the "symbolic order" with "hardly no effect on the political field." See Bourdieu, Interventions, 1961-2002. Science sociale et action politique, 62.