ABSTRACT
Pierre Bourdieu published a series of theoretical and empirical studies that reinvigorated sociology in the 1970s–1980s. Widely recognized as the most influential sociologist of the past half-century, Bourdieu has had an extraordinary impact on many areas of sociology, including the sociology of the digital and digital sociology. Chapter 6 reviews the philosophical foundations of Bourdieu’s sociology, his theoretical framework and theoretical rivals, and his influence on both the sociology of the digital and on digital/computational sociology. The chapter discusses four features of Bourdieu’s sociology that appear to have allowed his approach to flourish even as other social and sociological theories have struggled for relevance in the digital age. These include his philosophical stance synthesizing constructionism and realism, his theories’ inseparability from empirical research practice, his familiarity with concepts developed in other disciplines and participation in interdisciplinary collaborative research projects, and the reflexivity built into his conceptual apparatus.
