Bourdieu's Sociology in English By Bahattin Akşit A Sociology Combining Theory & Research

Bourdieu's Sociology in English By Bahattin Akşit A Sociology Combining Theory & Research

Ellliot & Turner (Eds.) 2001. Profiles in Contemporary Sociology, London, Sage publications , chp.28.

Bourdieu, P. ve Wacquant, L. 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, Polity Press.

Basic Concepts of Bourdieu as outlined in the book An invitation to Reflexive Sociology:

Sociology as socio-analysis :

comparison with psycho-analysis;

Homoacademicus as an example of sociology of sociology and science:

escaping from social determinisms and be objective about one’s own universe;

Study of kinship relations in Algeria and his own village:

making exotic mundane and mundane exotic;

relational approach fostered by the concept of the field;

particularity within generality and generality within particularity;

Logic of fields and its relation to capital:

real is the relational; transformation of Hegel's real is rational;

field as a network of objective relations between positions;

relatively and irreducible autonomous social microcosms;

field as game, investment in the game (illusio);

material interest vs symbolic interest; illusio 

specific interest as illusio;

illusio/interest versus indifference/ataraxia;

strategic orientation towards game;

difference between field, apparatus and system;

steps for the study of field: position of each field vis-à-vis the field of power; mapping out the objective structure of positions;

habitus of the agents;

external determinations over agents mediated through fields;

homologies between the fields;

fields as system of relations independent of populations;

identifying specific capital in each field;

hermeneutic circle between field and capital;

agents as bearers of capitals;

statist capital as meta-capital.

Habitus and its relation to capital:

capital presents itself under three fundamental species: economic capital, cultural capital and social capital;

cultural capital as informational capital;

the actual logic of practice;

habitus as socially constituted structured and structuring dispositions;

habitus as subjectivized society;

Language, gender and symbolic violence: 

against opposition between culturalism and materialism;

linguistic relations as relations of symbolic power;

illusion of linguistic equality;

linguistic habitus and linguistic market;

linguistic competence as statutory ability;

sociology of philosophy;

symbolic domination; symbolic violence;

village study: “singles’ fairs” “Reproduction Forbidden: Symbolic bases of economic domination”, outmigration from villages through symbolic violence;

misrecognition;

male sociodicy.

Scientific Field, Habitus and Realpoitic of reason:

Comparison of American sociology with French sociology;

against imitation of natural sciences and for a autonomous and agonistic social scientific field;

transforming libido dominandi into libido sciendi;

transformation of and shift from commonsense to social science and danger of social science returning to commonsense;

scientific field and scientific reason as historical structures and practices cannot be reduced to history;

recognized scientific authority protecting against heteronomy; 

scientific civilizing process;

scientific habitus is a historical transcendence;

sociology not not being a meta-science for other sciences;

science as rational utopianism by being against irresponsible voluntarism and fatalistic scientism.

Bourdieu’s approach to sociological research:

carrying out theoretical analyses through routine and everyday empirical objects; transforming highly abstract questions into practical scientific operations; developing scientific habitus, learning scientific modus operandi;

construction of research object;

relational thinking against substantive thinking;

finding boundaries of a field; systematic analysis of particular/singular; analogical reasoning based on reasoned intuition of homologies; comparative method;

Break from commonsense through social history; epistemological break is also a social break;

Paradox of necessity of being involved in practical logic of everyday life and theoretical logic of academia and being able to rupture from both with a radical conversion to produce a new sociological gaze, a sociological eye.