Blackwell Reference Online

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The most influential and original French sociologist since Durkheim, Pierre Bourdieu was at once a leading theorist and an empirical researcher of extraordinarily broad interests and distinctive style. He analyzed labor markets in Algeria, symbolism in the calendar and the house of Kabyle peasants, marriage patterns in his native Béarne region of France, photography as an art form and hobby, museum goers and patterns of taste, modern universities, the rise of literature as a distinct field of endeavor, and the sources of misery and poverty amid the wealth of modern societies. Bourdieu insisted that theory and research are inseparable parts of one sociological enterprise, and refused to separate them. Bourdieu was born in 1930 in a small, rural village in the Pyrenees mountains. His very accent marked him as an outsider in elite Parisian academic life. But he rose from his humble origins to be at the top of his class at France's most elite educational institutions and eventually held the same chair at the Collège de France that Marcel and Mauss had occupied before him. Throughout his career, he insisted on the importance of advancing sociology as a science, combining empirical research with theory. At the same time, he was politically engaged, especially in the last years of his life. When he died, he was one of France's most prominent public figures, known especially for his criticisms ... log in or subscribe to read full text