Genetic Structuralism, Psychological Sociology and Pragmatic Social Actor Theory Proposals for a Convergence of French Sociologies
نویسنده
چکیده
For or Against Pierre Bourdieu PIERRE BOURDIEU died in Paris on 23 January 2002. He left some 40 book-length essays and over 200 articles. Unpublished texts are being brought out, and much more is to come. Even before his death, sociology textbooks presented his genetic structuralism (which he sometimes also called structuralist constructivism in opposition to Bloor’s or Latour’s relativist constructivism [Bourdieu, 2001: 41]) as ‘one of the most significant [sociologies] to appear in France after the war’ (Corcuff, 1995: 41–2). Despite the fact that textbooks and sociology courses cannot avoid mentioning Bourdieu, and that the public at large is in general favourably inclined towards him, the scientific community is increasingly divided. On the one hand, his faithful French-speaking followers maintain that his theory is a genuine ‘symbolic revolution, a new way to perceive the social world’ (Pinto, 1998: 224). This revolution has also spread beyond Frenchspeaking areas and, in the UK, some consider Bourdieu’s system to be ‘the most comprehensive and sophisticated available at present’ (Fowler, 1997). On the other hand, we have those he used to call his most ‘fervent enemies’. J. Verdès-Leroux, one of his earliest followers, contends today that Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology is merely an ‘ideological discourse’ and a ‘scientific
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