ABSTRACT
The objective of this chapter is to present the work and the way of working, the ideas and the way of thinking of Bourdieu, who was a distinguished and prolific researcher and the author of some of the most seminal works of the twentieth century. The main parts of this chapter are as follows: (1) the presentation of Bourdieu's ambitious goal which is to combine a theory of action, a theory of society and a theory of sociological knowledge; (2) his areas of investigation which, based on a collective enterprise, are large and from an epistemological reflection to a sociology of science; from ethnology to a theory of practice; from a sociology of education and cultural practices to a sociology of the fields of symbolic production; (3) his participation to many intellectual and political debates. Bourdieu, a rigorous sociologist, becomes a committed intellectual who presents sociology as a “martial sport”; (4) the legacy of Pierre Bourdieu; what happens in the few years since his death? The particularities of each generation are outlined in the first section of this chapter. Despite their differences, each generation retains, to varying degrees, a commitment to certain shared core concepts of critical theory, notably: a Hegelian understanding of “reason”, a commitment to a connection between philosophy and social research, the diagnosis of social pathologies, the disclosure of false consciousness, and an immanent-transcendent methodology. These core themes are explored in the second section of this chapter. While the central ideas of critical theory continue to offer exceptional potential for social research today, the tradition faces multiple challenges which require serious consideration. In particular, critical theory needs to engage openly with decolonial and post-colonial theory and non-Western experiences.
