From Bourdieu to Cultural Sociology

Abstract

This paper offers an account of Bourdieu’s rise to sociological ‘stardom’ in the last 30 years, giving special attention to the transnational dimensions of this process. It discusses the scope and relevance of his work to the field (in the making) of cultural sociology, showing how he contributed to its current form. It also presents the articles which constitute the contents of the journal special issue. The paper insists on the importance of assessing both the virtues and limits of Bourdieu’s intellectual legacy through the means of historicization and sociological self-understanding, these being preconditions that allow the furthering of the ‘progress of reason’ which Bourdieu himself located as at the core of scientific endeavours.

‘Hipster Capitalism’ in the Age of Austerity? Polanyi Meets Bourdieu’s New Petite Bourgeoisie

“…Bourdieu’s conceptual architecture is an ‘insightful and strategically’ useful heuristic for interpreting how and why the hipster deploys taste in the marketplace (Santoro, 2011: 14). Bourdieu (1984) conceives of society as a ‘social space’: an empirically formed multi-dimensional social topography comprising three dimensions over which social struggles occur.…”

“If at First You don’t Succeed”: Why Žižek Failed in France but Succeeded in England

“…For instance, the article demonstrates how vouching is a specific mechanism of transferring social capital from one node to another in an intellectual network, by which Ernesto Laclau's Preface to Žižek's first English book presented his work as an innovative contribution to post‐Marxist social theory. Thus, the article is also sensitive to the fact that an intellectual's positioning is an on‐going process as it is inevitably also the product of others' interpretations and critique (Bourdieu, 1999; Santoro, 2011).…”

The Hidden Dimensions of the Musical Field and the Potential of the New Social Data

“…2.1 There has been much written over recent years on the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu (for a discussion of Bourdieu's ‘sociological stardom’ see Santoro 2011). Many social scientists have found a good deal of mileage in his central concepts and analytical frameworks.…”