Bourdieusian Prospects

Lisa Adkins, Caragh Brosnan, Steven Threadgold

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780367871673
• eBook ISBN: 9781317542667
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Sociologie

Bourdieusian Prospects considers the ongoing relevance of Bourdieu's social theory for contemporary social science. Breaking with the tendency to reflect on Bourdieu's legacies, it brings established and emergent scholars together to debate the futures of a specifically Bourdieusian sociology. Driven by a central leitmotif in Bourdieu's oeuvre, namely, that his work not be blindly appropriated but actively interpreted, contributors to this volume set out to map the potentials of Bourdieusian inflected social science. While for many social scientists the empirical and theoretical developments of the twenty-first century mark a limit point of Bourdieusian social theory, this collection charts both how and why a Bourdieusian sociology has a future, which is crucial for the ongoing development and roll out of an engaged, relevant and critical social science.

1 Introduction

The prospects of a Bourdieusian sociology

Caragh Brosnan and Steven Threadgold

The work of Pierre Bourdieu has become so integral to contemporary sociology that it is impossible to imagine the discipline - or its fate - without it. Since his writing began to reach English-speaking audiences in the 1970s, and particularly in recent years, Bourdieu's influence has grown exponentially. His concepts are canonical in the sociology of education (Grenfell et al. 1998; Reay 2004), in understanding consumption practices and cultural taste (Bennett et al. 2009; Coulangeon and Duval 2014) and in conceptualising the body (Bennett et al. 2013a; Crossley 2001). His work has considerable impact in Australia (Bennett et al. 2013b; Bennett, Emmison and Frow 1999), the US (Lamont 2012; Lizardo 2012; Sallaz and Zavisca 2007) and in particular the UK (Thatcher, Ingram, Burke and Abrahams 2015), where it has been operationalised in the recent resurgence of class analysis (Savage 2015; Atkinson 2015a). Indeed, Bourdieu is currently the most cited sociologist in the world (Chernilo 2014) and, fifteen years after his death, his works are still appearing in English for the first time.

Despite his work seemingly taking on a life of its own in the twenty-first century, Bourdieu was a product of the preceding century. Born in 1930 to a postal worker father in the rural Béarn region of France, Bourdieu experienced the social mobility common in many Western countries during the mid-twentieth century. Access to higher education via scholarships enabled him to attend elite institutions and paved the way for an academic career, culminating in his appointment as Chair of Sociology at the Collège de France. This trajectory also informed his thought, and he regularly noted his discomfort in the surrounds of French academia. Many of Bourdieu's key empirical studies, underpinning the theoretical framework that he would develop throughout his life, were conducted in France and Algeria in the 1960s, that is, during periods of upheaval that ushered in social and cultural change.

Given, as Bourdieu himself claimed, social theory is a product of the social conditions in which it is produced, and given that the social world has undergone significant transformations since the 1960s, one urgent question regarding Bourdieu's social theory concerns its ongoing relevance to the contemporary world. With this question in mind, this volume enquires into the prospects for Bourdieusian sociology and social theory. It does so not only in a setting of broad-scale social change but also one in which new theoretical approaches are in ascendance across the social sciences. This volume therefore debates the futures of Bourdieusian sociology and social theory in a landscape in which the empirical world and the sociological imagination are on-the-move.

In regard to the empirical world, a wide array of changes are at issue: the massification of education; the emergence of digital technologies and communication; the rise of a global precarious labour market; and the folding of the advances made by progressive feminist, civil rights and environmental movements into the very logic of capitalist expansion. These changes all raise particular challenges to Bourdieu's oeuvre. With such changes in mind a number of Bourdieu's interlocutors have critically engaged with his work. For instance, the collection Feminism after Bourdieu (Adkins and Skeggs 2005) mounted an extensive feminist critique of Bourdieu's oeuvre and pushed towards new understandings (see also Susen and Turner 2011). His work has also attracted a wide range of criticism, from conservative critiques of 'sociological terrorism from the left' (Verd̀es-Leroux 2001), through left-critiques that maintain Bourdieu reproduces the very hierarchies he attacks (Rancière 2004), to internal sociological critiques of 'failed synthesis' (Alexander 1995). Indeed, there are many critical sociological engagements with Bourdieu's theoretical suppositions, especially his conceptual triad of capitals, field and habitus (Goldthorpe 2007; Hilgers and Mangez 2015; Lahire 2011). Recently, a number of broader developments in social theory have raised some more profound challenges to Bourdieu's social theory, not least in the form of querying a subject centred dispositionalism (Boltanski 2011; Thévenot 2011).

Cognisant of these challenges, this volume is, nevertheless, driven by a central leitmotif in Bourdieu's oeuvre, namely, that his work not be blindly appropriated, but actively interpreted. Bourdieu wanted fellow travellers, not disciples; his work to be used as a companion, to inspire, transform and to create (Bourdieu 2008: 12). In this spirit, the chapters in this volume ask how and in what ways are Bourdieusian travellers currently transforming and creating, and whether or not changes to and in the world mark a limit point to this work of transformation. This volume therefore seeks to address a series of questions regarding the prospects for Bourdieusian sociology. Does Bourdieusian sociology have a future? If so, what are its contours? Is it meaningful or relevant to discuss a post-Bourdieusian sociology? Does such a sociology entail travelling or breaking with the resources of Bourdieu?

This introductory chapter outlines the key issue to be considered in this volume, namely, the prospects for Bourdieusian sociology and social theory. Firstly, it discusses the potential ramifications for sociology of Bourdieu's dominance as a social theorist - within and outside sociology itself- and calls for renewed reflexivity among sociologists around the way his work is deployed. Secondly, it highlights, as an example, one emerging area of social theory where Bourdieu's framework might be drawn on and reworked to yield new insights: research on affect and emotions. While these facets of social life are largely absent in Bourdieu, this burgeoning research area - crosscutting sociology, psychology, geography and cultural studies - generally lacks engagement with class. This section of the chapter therefore sets out an agenda for a sociology of class, affect and emotions, demonstrating how Bourdieu's work can be revitalised through engagement with new theoretical and empirical areas - a project continued in the remainder of the volume. In the final section, the chapters that comprise the volume are introduced.

Towards a sociology of Bourdieusian sociology

Lamont remarks on the 'extraordinary growth of the "Bourdieu industry" over the last 30 years' (2012: 230), referring to the employment of Bourdieusian scholars in the academy, as well as to the proliferation of translations, secondary literature, conferences, special issues and other outputs during this period (Santoro 2011). Far from languishing, Bourdieusian sociology appears to be phenomenally successful, with no sign of slowing down; so at first glance, its prospects look good. Yet, the ubiquity of Bourdieu within sociology, and the permeation of his theories beyond sociology and academia itself, provoke a number of questions, including why his work continues to be used to such an extent within sociology, what - if anything - it continues to contribute to sociology, and, what does sociology contribute over and above Bourdieusian work in other fields? Or, put more succinctly, by continuing to draw so much on Bourdieu in sociology, might we risk having too much of a good thing?

Bourdieu's high citation rate is fuelled by the fact that his theoretical concepts have been picked up and applied in numerous academic fields outside of sociology, from economics to nursing, from tourism studies to complementary medicine, in marketing, psychology, management, design and architecture, to name just a few. No longer can sociologists claim Bourdieu's concepts as their own. His theories have become well enough established in some fields for studies of their influence to be conducted by those imbedded within such fields, for example, Malsch et al.'s (2011) analysis of Bourdieu's influence in accounting literature. Not only has Bourdieu's influence spread well beyond the field of sociology, but his concepts have also been taken up outside of academia, for instance, in journalism, the arts and creative industries, education, and in politics itself (Santoro 2011) (see Bennett in Chapter 6 of this volume, for a discussion of the concept of cultural capital in this light).

This ongoing proliferation and application is testimony to the continued prospects of Bourdieu's approach. But it also begs the question of whether Bourdieusian sociology can still offer anything distinctive, and what the implications are for sociology of continuing to draw so heavily on a set of ideas that have now become almost commonplace. There is no doubt that Bourdieu's work has benefitted the entire field of sociology, as Lamont (2012: 229) has argued: 'Sociology, anthropology, legal studies, science studies, and other fields are much better off today than they were 30 years ago, and this is in no small measure due to the unbelievably generative set of questions that Bourdieu and his main collaborators put on the various disciplinary agendas'. But whether sociology will be better off in future by continuing to work with this same set of questions and concepts is not clear. The answer depends at least in part on how Bourdieu's work is deployed in the field.

As Bourdieu's influence has grown, there have been a number of critiques of the ways his concepts are being applied. Atkinson (2011) laments the introduction of several new species of habitus, even by Bourdieu's foremost protege (Wacquant 2014a, 2014b, 2016; Atkinson 2015b), which he argues to have lost some of the explanatory power of Bourdieu's own formulation. James (2015) cautions against the 'light' usage of Bourdieusian concepts in education research, which not only gives the impression that theory is 'dispensable' in this field, but also allows research to continue with doxic values remaining unchallenged, Malsch et al. (2011) also found that the majority of accounting papers citing Bourdieu engaged with his work only in a superficial manner. Outside academia, it is certain that Bourdieu's concepts are not always used in the critically reflexive way they were intended. Not long ago a private girls' school in Australia published a newsletter item that referenced Bourdieu and included tips for parents to 'ensure we continue to positively imprint our cultural capital to our children and children's children' (Skillen 2012: n.p.).

Sociologists though are not immune to superficial or problematic usage of Bourdieu's work. France and Threadgold (2015) highlight an over-reliance on habitus, capital and field in youth sociology, alongside a neglect of Bourdieu's accompanying concepts. Sallaz and Zavisca's (2007) analysis of four major American sociology journals found that what they call 'limited citations' - papers that cited Bourdieu's work without engaging with it explicitly - were making up a greater proportion of papers citing Bourdieu over time. They suggest that, rather than signifying tokenism, this may mean that Bourdieu's concepts have come to be so taken-for-granted in sociology that they no longer require explaining (ibid.: 27). This in itself may be problematic, however, pointing to a growing inertia in the field as certain readings of Bourdieu become doxic. Moreover, there is a fine line between using Bourdieu as a touchstone and referencing his work for the 'gravitas' it endows, as Reay (2004: 440) has argued regarding the use of habitus. Warczok and Zarycki (2014: 335) also note the 'global prestige' of Bourdieu's theories, fuelling their citation in social science. A certain amount of cultural capital may (ironically) attend Bourdieu's theories, but as these become increasingly accessible to agents outside sociology, sociology has less of a claim to distinction on this basis.

Continued engagement with Bourdieu's work in sociology must be carried out in a reflexive manner. This is particularly so at a time when the value of social science is being questioned and debated (Brewer 2013). Sociologists, alongside other colleagues in the social sciences, arts and humanities, are under increased pressure to prove their worth by showing 'impact', 'relevance' and 'engagement' with their work in society. This is difficult for sociology to unpick when its knowledge base is in a constant two-way flow between the discipline and the societies it studies (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992; Giddens 1990). As Bourdieu explains, sociology suffers the peculiar problem that the content of its work is readily judged by outsiders because its subject-matter is familiar to everyone (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992: 186). Additionally, it is difficult for sociology as a field to attain scientific autonomy because sociologists are often called on to cooperate with the political field, and can therefore be influenced by it (ibid.: 182-186). Bourdieu notes a tendency for sociologists to oversell their expertise and to offer input on topics they have not investigated scientifically, in exchange for public and political reward (ibid.: 185-187). This is likely only to increase as academic sociologists are called upon to engage with all forms of media in an effort to demonstrate impact.

In terms of how these dynamics might shape the way Bourdieu is deployed within sociology there are at least two possible scenarios. One is that sociologists will continue to draw heavily on Bourdieu's concepts because of their increasing popularity among the public and policy-makers, in the hope of facilitating the uptake of sociological knowledge in external fields, leading to demonstrable 'impact'. There may be a temptation to cash in the cultural capital that comes with knowledge of Bourdieu's work by becoming 'expert advisors' in other fields where his concepts are more novel. While there is nothing wrong with these activities in themselves - they may be a viable form of public sociology (Burawoy 2005) - the danger is that the development of Bourdieusian sociology will stagnate as it becomes more hete...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Contributors
• 1 Introduction: the prospects of a Bourdieusian sociology
• 2 Learning with Bourdieu: pedagogy, cosmology and potty training
• 3 Travelling with Bourdieu: elite schools and the cultural logics and limits of global mobility
• 4 Bourdieu and the future of knowledge in the university
• 5 Pierre Bourdieu: the State, the Enlightenment and the Scottish literary field
• 6 Capitalising culture: the political career of a governmental actor
• 7 Objects and materials: with, against and beyond Bourdieu
• 8 Hermeneutic Bourdieu
• Index