Editing Pierre Bourdieu (section)

{{short description|French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher (1930–2002)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2024}}
{{Infobox philosopher
|name             = Pierre Bourdieu
|image            = Pierre Bourdieu (1).jpg
|caption          = Bourdieu in 1996
|birth_date       = 1 August 1930
|birth_place      = [[Denguin]], France
|death_date       = {{death date and age|2002|01|23|1930|08|01|df=y}}
|death_place      = [[Paris]], France
|alma_mater       = [[École Normale Supérieure]]
|institutions     = [[École pratique des hautes études]] (before 1975) <br/> [[École des hautes études en sciences sociales]] (after 1975) <br/> [[Collège de France]]
|school_tradition = {{hlist|[[Structuralism]]|[[genetic structuralism]]<ref>Patrick Baert and Filipe Carreira da Silva, [https://books.google.com/books?id=3a2T8L8RRokC ''Social Theory in the Twentieth Century and Beyond''], Polity, 2010, p. 34.</ref>|[[critical sociology]]<ref>Piet Strydom, ''Contemporary Critical Theory Methodology'', Routledge, 2011, p. 179.</ref>}}
|main_interests   = {{hlist|[[Sociology]]|[[Power (sociology)|power]]}}
|notable_ideas    = {{hlist|[[Cultural capital]]|[[Field (Bourdieu)|field]]|''[[Habitus (sociology)|habitus]]''|''[[Doxa#Use in sociology and anthropology|doxa]]''|[[Reflexivity (social theory)|reflexivity]]|[[social capital]]|[[symbolic capital]]|[[symbolic violence]]|[[practice theory]]}}
}}
'''Pierre Bourdieu''' ({{IPAc-en|UK|b|ʊər|ˈ|d|j|ɜː}}, {{IPAc-en|US|b|ʊər|ˈ|d|(|j|)|uː}}; {{IPA|fr|pjɛʁ buʁdjø|lang}}; {{langx|oc-gascon|Pèir Bordièu}}; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French [[Sociology|sociologist]] and [[Intellectual|public intellectual]].<ref name="practice">{{cite web|url=http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521291644|title=Outline of a Theory of Practice|last=Bourdieu|first=Pierre|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|author=Douglas Johnson |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/jan/28/guardianobituaries.books |title=Obituary: Pierre Bourdieu &#124; Books |newspaper=The Guardian |date= 28 January 2002|access-date=20 April 2014}}</ref> Bourdieu's contributions to the [[sociology of education]], the [[Sociological theory|theory of sociology]], and sociology of [[aesthetics]] have achieved wide influence in several related academic fields (e.g. anthropology, [[media studies|media]] and [[cultural studies]], education, [[popular culture]], and [[the arts]]). During his academic career he was primarily associated with the [[School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences]] in [[Paris]] and the [[Collège de France]].

Bourdieu's work was primarily concerned with the dynamics of power in society, especially the diverse and subtle ways in which power is transferred and social order is maintained within and across generations. In conscious opposition to the [[idealist]] tradition of much of [[Western philosophy]], his work often emphasized the corporeal nature of social life and stressed the role of [[Practice theory|practice]] and embodiment in [[social dynamics]]. Building upon and criticizing the theories of [[Karl Marx]], [[Sigmund Freud]], [[Max Weber]], [[Émile Durkheim]], [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]], [[Erwin Panofsky]] and [[Marcel Mauss]] among others, his research pioneered novel investigative frameworks and methods, and introduced such influential concepts as [[cultural capital|cultural]], [[social capital|social]], and [[symbolic capital|symbolic]] forms of capital (as opposed to traditional economic forms of [[Capital (economics)|capital]]), the [[cultural reproduction]], the [[Habitus (sociology)|habitus]], the [[Field (Bourdieu)|field]] or location, and [[symbolic violence]]. Another notable influence on Bourdieu was [[Blaise Pascal]], after whom Bourdieu titled his ''Pascalian Meditations''.

Bourdieu was a prolific author, producing hundreds of articles and three dozen books, nearly all of which are now available in English. His best-known book is ''[[Distinction (1979 book)|Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste]]'' (1979), in which he argues that judgments of taste are acts of social positioning. The argument is put forward by an original combination of [[social theory]] and data from [[Quantitative research|quantitative]] surveys, photographs and interviews, in an attempt to reconcile difficulties such as how to understand the subject within objective structures. In the process, Bourdieu attempts to reconcile the influences of both external social structures and subjective experience on the individual.<ref group="lower-roman">See [[structure and agency]]</ref> The book was named "the sixth most important sociological work of the twentieth century" by the [[International Sociological Association]] (ISA).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.isa-sociology.org/en/about-isa/history-of-isa/books-of-the-xx-century/|title=ISA – Books of the Century|website=www.isa-sociology.org|access-date=28 September 2015}}</ref>

Pierre Bourdieu's work emphasized how [[social class]]es, especially the ruling and [[intellectual]] classes, preserve their social privileges across generations despite the myth that contemporary [[post-industrial society]] boasts [[social equality|equality]] of opportunity and high [[social mobility]], achieved through formal education.