Bourdieu’s Five Lessons for Criminology

Abstract

Drawing on a close reading of Pierre Bourdieu's works, I offer five lessons for a science of crime and punishment: (1) always historicize; (2) dissect symbolic categories; (3) produce embodied accounts; (4) avoid state thought; and (5) embrace commitment. I offer illustrative examples and demonstrate the practical implications of Bourdieu's ideas, and I apply the lessons to a critique of orthodox criminology.

Resilience in the Face of Victimization: A Bourdieusian Analysis of Dealing With Harms and Hurts Among Street-Involved Individuals Who Smoke Crack Cocaine

“…Thus, while building their resilience in the street field (e.g., enacting violent revenge, engaging street social support), a cementing of structural marginalization occurs simultaneously. This is particularly evident in research on the carceral habitus, “a set of corporeal dispositions characteristic of those having passed through institutions of legal punishment” (Shammas, 2017, p. 10), which examines the effects of prison on inmates and the challenges to reintegration following incarceration (Caputo-Levine, 2012; Moore, 2019). The habitus is transposable; people carry their dispositions with them as they enter new circumstances and fields (Bourdieu, 1997/2000; Fleetwood, 2016).…”

“…Over the last decade or so, there has been emerging interest in using Bourdieusian concepts to examine street culture, drugs, and crime (Shammas, 2017). Although, Bourdieu did not consider these topics—with the notable exception of The Weight of the World (Bourdieu, 1993b), where he discussed issues of social suffering, urban discontent, poverty, and street crime—many researchers have taken up his concepts of field (Sandberg & Fleetwood, 2017; Shammas & Sandberg, 2016), habitus (Bourgois & Schonberg, 2007; Fleetwood, 2016; Fraser, 2013; Sandberg & Pedersen, 2011), capital (Ilan, 2013; Sandberg, 2008a, 2008b), and even symbolic violence (Bourgois et al, 2004; Parkin & Coomber, 2009, 2010).…”

Field, capital and the policing habitus: Understanding Bourdieu through the NYPD’s post-9/11 counterterrorism practices

“…While engagement with Bourdieu’s theories is infrequent in criminology, a few criminologists have recognized the value of Bourdieusian social-structural approaches in studying crime, control and deviance (Atkinson, 2016; Caputo-Levine, 2013; Chan, 1997; Deering, 2011; Fleetwood, 2016; Fraser, 2013; Fraser and Atkinson, 2014; Ilan, 2012; McNeill et al, 2009; Moyle and Coomber, 2017; Prieur, 2018; Sandberg, 2008; Sandberg and Pedersen, 2011; Schlosser, 2012; Shammas, 2018; Ugwudike, 2017; Winlow and Hall, 2003).…”

“…While commonplace in sociology, Bourdieu’s theories are uncommon in security and criminology literature. Nonetheless, a few scholars have used Bourdieu’s theories to explore how social relations and power dynamics structure security, crime and deviance (Abrahamsen and Williams, 2011; Bigo, 2008; Chan, 1997; Diphoorn and Grassiani, 2016; Dupont, 2004; Sandberg, 2008; Shammas, 2018). This article extends existing scholarship through several original contributions to Bourdieusian theory in criminology and security literature.…”

Amateurism, scientific control, and crime: historical fluctuations in anti-doping discourses in sport

“…To do so, we draw on criminological adaptations of genealogical analysis (see Shah, 2017) to examine the varying means by which the use of performance-enhancing substances emerged as "deviant," including its increasing criminalization in recent years. Historical accounts informed by textual and discourse analysis enable the scrutiny of the diverse meanings of taken-for-granted crime control concepts (Shah, 2017), thus addressing longstanding critiques of criminology's lack of reflexive historical engagement (see Lynch, 2000;Shammas, 2017). Recognizing the growing criminological interest in sport more generally (e.g.…”