ABSTRACT
Bourdieu was trained as a philosopher. However, in reaction to his experiences in Algeria and the Béarn in the 1950s he began to adopt an anthropological stance with regard to what he saw around him. The chapter connects his anthropological influences – Lévi-Strauss – with immediate philosophical concerns involving French writers such as Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. It demonstrates the mix between these traditions and the founding fathers of sociology – Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Comte. It also addresses an equally important tradition of non-positivist philosophy of science – Bachelard, Koyré, Canguilhem – and connects it with the central feature of reflexivity in Bourdieu’s work. The chapter sets out the characteristics of a Bourdieusian approach to studying society and the main features of ‘field analysis’. In describing these Bourdieusian perspectives, the chapter therefore explores the links between philosophy, empirical research methodology and the kind of knowledge they gives rise to.
