Bourdieu, Pierre

(1930-2002)

   sociologist

   A leading champion of the antiglobalization movement, Pierre Bourdieu was born in Deguin, Pyrénées-Atlantique, and educated in Paris at the École normale supérieure. After teaching at the University of Algiers, he became professor at the Collège de France and began his writings. His works are based on a triple translation of Karl Marx, Max Weber, and émile durkheim. He sought to analyze such issues as force, legitimacy, and belief in groups. Bourdieu also considered the work of claude Lévi-Strauss and borrowed ideas from Sigmund Freud (for example, that of "denial"). Beginning with Les Héritiers (1966), up to La Distinction critique sociale du jugement (1979), Bourdieu was interested particularly in the sociology of culture and the link between domination and symbolic violence. The dominated internalize the condition under the form of a disposition to act, or "habitus" (Le Sens pratique, 1980). His notion of space, considered as a series of rooms, allows an analysis of the constraints that weigh on individuals; this is essentially reproduced in the school system (La Reproduction: éléments d'une théorie du système d'enseignement, 1970). The difference of capital culture between students, which the school treats in an egalitarian fashion, gives children of different social categories unequal chances for success. Bourdieu and his students were critical of the concept of public opinion and the use of opinion polls, as well as the mechanisms that claim to represent the views of dominant groups. Règles de l'art: genèse et structure du champ littéraire (1992), a study of the work of gustave flaubert, is also an important contribution to the socialization of art. One of France's leading sociologists, Bourdieu has been described as the "intellectual reference" for any opposition to free-market orthodoxy and globalization.