Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu
Pierre Bourdieu is one of the world's most important social theorists and is also one of the great empirical researchers in contemporary sociology. However, reading Bourdieu can be difficult for those not familiar with the French cultural context, and until now a comprehensive introduction to Bourdieu's oeuvre has not been available.\ David Swartz focuses on a central theme in Bourdieu's work—the complex relationship between culture and power—and explains that sociology for Bourdieu is a mode...
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Pierre Bourdieu is one of the world's most important social theorists and is also one of the great empirical researchers in contemporary sociology. However, reading Bourdieu can be difficult for those not familiar with the French cultural context, and until now a comprehensive introduction to Bourdieu's oeuvre has not been available. David Swartz focuses on a central theme in Bourdieu's work—the complex relationship between culture and power—and explains that sociology for Bourdieu is a mode of political intervention. Swartz clarifies Bourdieu's difficult concepts, noting where they have been misinterpreted by critics and where they have fallen short in resolving important analytical issues. The book also shows how Bourdieu has synthesized his theory of practices and symbolic power from Durkheim, Marx, and Weber, and how his work was influenced by Sartre, Levi-Strauss, and Althusser. Culture and Power is the first book to offer both a sympathetic and critical examination of Bourdieu's work and it will be invaluable to social scientists as well as to a broader audience in the humanities.
Acknowledgements1Introducing Pierre Bourdieu12Career and Formative Intellectual Influences153Bourdieu's Metatheory of Sociological Knowledge524Bourdieu's Political Economy of Symbolic Power655Habitus: A Cultural Theory of Action956Fields of Struggle for Power1177Social Classes and the Struggle for Power1438Education, Culture, and Social Inequality1899Intellectuals and Intellectual Fields21810The Scientific Intellectual and Politics24711The Struggle for Objectivity: Bourdieu's Call for Reflexive Sociology27012Conclusion285References297Author Index319Subject Index325
