ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights some divergent uses of the concept and try to discern what if anything ties different strands of field theory and research together. Bourdieusian fields are usually French, theorists from this tradition have been increasingly interested in moving beyond national borders to examine global or transnational fields. But the organizational field is a more fundamental concept, since it defines how organizations select models for emulation, where they focus information-gathering energy, which organizations they compare themselves with, and where they recruit personnel. The chapter highlights an approach that has been especially prominent in recent American sociology namely, N. Fligstein and Doug McAdam's theory of strategic action fields. For Pierre Bourdieu, a field is a configuration of social positions that exist in opposition and tension as actors vie for symbolic capital – that is, the sort of economic, political, social, or cultural capital that is valorized in this particular field.
