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Symbolic Violence and the Making of the French Agriculturalist: An Enquiry into Pierre Bourdieu's Sociology

The University of Chicago

This paper is a discussion of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology, with emphasis on his theory of symbolic violence. Using Sylvain Maresca's work on delegation and representation among the French peasantry as an empirical illustration, I examine Bourdieu's key concepts (capital, field, habitus, symbolic power), his approach to social organisation and dynamics (social space, strategies of conversion and reproduction), and map out the basic structure of his framework. Several difficulties are discussed: the closure of the conceptual system, the form of explanations, the oversight of the state, the underestimate of material determinations, and the lack of a theory of historical transformation. Having underlined the meta- theoretical grounding of his model, I conclude by arguing that Bourdieu offers the means for a dialectical transcendence of interpretive and structural sociologies.

Journal of Sociology, Vol. 23, No. 1, 65-88 (1987)
DOI: 10.1177/144078338702300105


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