This commentary explores the assumptions, concepts, objectives, labels, and empirical techniques that underpin, guide, and characterize the research approach and methodology of Pierre Bourdieu. To further understand his approach and its applicability in the context of organization studies, Bourdieu’s general project is contrasted with historical materialism and his view of power briefly compared to that of Foucault. Furthermore, Bourdieu’s concepts of field, capital, habitus, doxa, and symbolic violence, and his understanding of language are linked to current organizational literature and theory. His focus on relational analysis, “reflexivity,” and what the author refers to as the “construction of the research object” are similarly discussed. Finally, there is a consideration of the role of the researcher and a brief discussion of the implications and limitations of a Bourdieun approach.

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This article focuses on the role of power in multistakeholder collaboration. It considers this form of organization from a nontraditional, Bourdieun perspective, which has the authors focus on the how of power and on the role of language in the constitution and the exclusion of voice. A case study-a collaboration convened by a scientific task force to resolve an environmental conflict in Canada's Banff National Park-is introduced, and this is read off against a number of Bourdieu's concepts, namely capital, field, habitus, and misrecognition, doxa, and symbolic violence. Through such a reading, the article offers insights into elements of both surface and deep-structure power. The article, by focusing on a science-driven, environmental multi-stakeholder collaboration, also challenges common-sense constructions of the environment and raises concerns over the presumed neutrality or nonpolitical nature of both scientific and economic discourse.