This book is a highly accessible introduction to, and overview of, the work of Pierre Bourdieu - one of the world's most influential and imaginative social thinkers. In Part I, Loic Wacquant provides a clear and systematic account of the main themes of Bourdieu's work, outlining his conception of knowledge, his theory of practice and his distinctive methods of analysis. Part II takes the form of an extended dialogue in which Bourdieu and Wacquant discuss the key concepts of Bourdieu's work, confront some criticisms and objections, and develop Bourdieu's views on the relations between sociology, philosophy, history and politics. In Part III Bourdieu displays his sociological approach in practice: beginning with the practical demands of research, he moves, step by step, to a formulation of the principles of sociological reason. Supplemented by an extensive and up-to-date bibliography, this book will be essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand Bourdieu's unique and outstanding contribution to contemporary social thought. Pierre Bourdieu is Professor of Sociology at the College de France. Loiic J. D. W acquant is a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. Cover illustration: Vassily Kandinsky, Lines o f Marks (Zeichenreihenj, 1931. © 199JARS, N.Y.-ADAPG, Paris. Oefhntliche Kunstsammlung, Kupferstichkabinett Basel. ISBN D-7MSt-lD33-l An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology " i * " . 53 «r\ j,A 0 « • • y7 1 # # <&> * ^ rtfeH- j ■>— - Pierre Bourdieu a n ib iic J. D. Wacqu An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology Pierre Bourdieu and Loi'c J. D. Wacquant I Polity Press First published in Great Britain 1992 by Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers. © The University of Chicago 1992. Editorial office: Polity Press 65 Bridge Street Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK Marketing and production: Blackwell Publishers 108 Cowley Road Oxford 0X4 1JF, UK All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism, and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. ISBN 07456-1032-3 ISBN 07456-1033-1 (pbk) British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed in the United States of America on add-free paper. Contents Preface by Pierre Bourdieu vii Preface by Laic J. D. Wacquant ix I Toward a Social Praxeology: The Structure and Logic of Bourdieu's Sociology 1 LoTc J. D. Wacquant 1 Beyond the Antinomy of Social Physics and Social Phenomenology 7 2 Classification Struggles and the Dialectic of Social and Mental Structures 12 3 Methodological Relationalism 15 4 The Fuzzy Logic of Practical Sense 19 5 Against Theoreficism and Mefhodologism: Total Social Science 26 6 Epistemic Reflexivity 36 7 Reason, Ethics, and Politics 47 II The Purpose of Reflexive Sociology (The Chicago Workshop) 61 Pierre Bourdieu and Loic J. D. Wacquant 1 Sociology as Socioanalysis 62 2 The Unique and the Invariant 75 3 The Logic of Fields 94 4 Interest, Habitus, Rationality 115 5 Language, Gender, and Symbolic Violence 140 vi I Contents 6 For a Realpolitik of Reason 174 7 The Personal is Social 202 III The Practice of Reflexive Sociology (The Paris Workshop) 217 Pierre Bourdieu 1 Handing Down a Trade 218 2 Thinking Relotionally 224 3 A Radical Doubt 235 4 Double Bind and Conversion 248 5 Participant Objectivation 253 Appendixes Lo'it J. D. Wocqtrant 1 How to read Bourdieu 261 2 A Selection of Articles from Actes de la recherche en sciences sodales 265 3 Selected Recent Writings on Pierre Bourdieu 269 Acknowledgements 271 References and Bibliography 273 Name Index 313 Subject Index 321 Preface i Pierre Bourdieu This book originates in my encounter with a group of doctoral stu­ dents in sociology, anthropology, and political science at the Uni­ versity of Chicago who had organized, under the guidance of Loiic Wacquant, a semester-long seminar on my work. When I came to Chi­ cago in the Spring of 1988,1 was given in advance a long list of ques­ tions, observations, and objections at once meticulous, precise, and well grounded, and we discussed "toe-to-toe," in an atmosphere of great kindness, what are in my eyes the most fundamental issues of my research. The game of question and answer then continued and expanded in the form of interviews and dialogues held, over several months, in Chicago and Paris, with an always equally demanding and penetrating Loic Wacquant. When the idea was initially suggested of bringing together in book form the transcripts of these interviews, a few of which had already been published in part in various journals, I was undecided at first: was there not a certain self-complacency in thus offering in print semi-improvised statements and imperfectly crystallized reflections? At the same time, I had the feeling that, thanks especially to the orga­ nization and to the footnotes that Loi'c Wacquant had given it, this ex­ tended dialogue provided a successful solution to the problem I had confronted for quite some time without finding a way of reconciling contradictory constraints: how to give an overview of the core inten­ tions and results of my research that would be systematic yet acces­ sible. I believe that the mixed genre that was progressively invented as we proceeded through this dialogue, marrying the shorthand for­ mulations and liberties of oral discourse with the rigor of a body of viii I Preface by Piene Bourdieu notes linking this discourse to key elements of the written work, allows us to give a synthetic view of my fundamental concepts and of their relations without falling into the academic routinization of thought. Thus, instead of a simplistic and simplifying exposition, it should give interested readers a form of direct access to the generative principles of a work that is quite diverse both in its objects and its methods and, it may be confessed, not always very "pedagogical." The questions that were put to me raised a whole continent of se­ rious objections and criticisms. Friendly confrontation with the most advanced products of American social science forced me to explicate and to clarify presuppositions that the peculiarities of the French con­ text had hitherto allowed me to leave in the state of implicit assump­ tions. It gave me an opportunity to display more fully the theoretical goals of my work, goals that I had till then kept somewhat in the back­ ground due to a mixture of scientific arrogance and modesty (hauteur et pudeur). The debates, shorn of aggressivity as well as of compla­ cency, yet always candid and informed, I engaged in at various American universities during that stay, and which are now so cruelly lacking in the French university, were for me an extraordinary incite­ ment to reflect upon my own work. Better, they helped me overcome the repugnance that I felt toward so many exercises in theoreticist ex­ hibitionism in fashion in Paris and which inclined me to a quasi­ positivist rejection of "grand" theory and "grand" discourse on grand theoretical and epistemological issues. I must, before closing, ask for the reader's indulgence toward one of the effects, no doubt a very irritating one, of the very genre of the interview: he who is its object is put to the question, that is, sur la sellette, as we say in French, constituted as the focus of all gazes, and thus necessarily exposed to the temptation of arrogance and self- complacency. Abrupt statements, peremptory pronouncements, and simplifying assessments are the counterpart, perhaps inevitable, of the freedom granted by the situation of dialogue. The latter will have served its purpose if it has induced me to confess or to betray some of the weaknesses that lay behind many of my scientific choices. I would like to extend my warm thanks to the students who partici­ pated in the initial workshop at the University of Chicago, among them, Daniel Breslau, Josh Breslau, Carla Hess, Steve Hughes, Mat­ thew Lawson, Chin See Ming, Janet Morford, Lori Sparzo, Rebecca Tolen, Daniel Wolk, and Eunhee Kim Ti. Preface i Loic J. D. Wacquant This book will likely disconcert consumers of standardized theoretical products and disappoint harried readers in search of a formulaic and simplified translation of Bourdieu's writings—a "manual in basic Bourdieuese." It does not contain a comprehensive digest of his soci­ ology or a point-by-point exegesis of its conceptual structure; it is nei­ ther a primer nor an exercise in (meta)theory-building. It attempts, rather, to provide keys to the internal logic and broader economy of Bourdieu's work by explicating the ■principles that undergird his scientific practice. The premise of An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology is that the endur­ ing significance of Bourdieu's enterprise does not reside in the indi­ vidual concepts, substantive theories, methodological prescriptions, or empirical observations he offers so much as in the manner in which he produces, uses, and relates them. To borrow an opposition dear to him, it is the modus operandi of Bourdieu's sociology, not its opus operatum, that most fully defines its originality. The purpose of this book, the rationale behind its peculiar architecture, is to give access to a "mind in action" by exemplifying what Weber (1949: 41) would call "the conventional habits" of Pierre Bourdieu as "investigator and teacher in thinking in a particular way." The form of the book—an "oral publication"1 consisting of a the­ matic dialogue and a spoken programmatic introduction to a research seminar—was tailored to fulfill this purpose.