Locating Bourdieu

Pierre Bourdieu (1930--2002) had an enormous influence on social and
cultural thought in the second half of the 20th century, leaving a mark on fields as
diverse as sociology, anthropology, critical theory, education, literary criticism,
art history, and media studies. From his childhood in a rural French village, to his
fieldwork in Algeria, to his ascension to the Chair of Sociology at the Collège de
France, Bourdieu's life followed a trajectory both complex and contradictory. In
this original and eloquent study, Deborah Reed-Danahay offers fresh insights on
Bourdieu's work by drawing on the perspectives of ethnography and autobiography.
Using Bourdieu's own reflections upon his life and career and considering the
totality of his research and writing, this book locates Bourdieu within his French
milieu and within the current state of discussion of Europe and its colonial legacy.
Locating Bourdieu revisits major themes and concepts such as structure and practice,
taste and distinction, habitus, social field, symbolic capital, and symbolic
violence, adding new perspectives and discovering implications of Bourdieu's work
for understanding emotion, social space, and personal narrative. The result is a
work of impressive scholarship and intellectual creativity that will appeal to
scholars, students, and non-specialists alike.

New Anthropologies
of Europe -- Daphne Berdahl, Matti Bunzl, and Michael Herzfeld, editors