In this book, Ibrahim employs Bourdieu's key concepts in order to explain the complex dynamics of social movements by detailing the key stages of development of, and ideological conflict between, 21st century British anti-capitalist organizations, and their interactions with wider social and political forces.
Social movements are not only a potential challenge to societies, they also challenge social theory. This volume looks at social movements and social movement research through the lens of different social theories. What can social movement studies learn from these theories? And: What can these theories learn from the analysis of social movements? From this double vantage point, the book discusses the theories of Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Niklas Luhmann, Jeffrey Alexander, and Judith Butler, as well as rational choice theory, relational sociology, and organizational neo-institutionalism.
Power is the central organizing principle of all social life, from culture and education to stratification and taste. And there is no more prominent name in the analysis of power than that of noted sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Throughout his career, Bourdieu challenged the commonly held view that symbolic power—the power to dominate—is solely symbolic. He emphasized that symbolic power helps create and maintain social hierarchies, which form the very bedrock of political life. By the time of his death in 2002, Bourdieu had become a leading public intellectual, and his argument about the more subtle and influential ways that cultural resources and symbolic categories prevail in power arrangements and practices had gained broad recognition. In Symbolic Power, Politics, and Intellectuals, David L. Swartz delves deeply into Bourdieu’s work to show how central—but often overlooked—power and politics are to an understanding of sociology. Arguing that power and politics stand at the core of Bourdieu’s sociology, Swartz illuminates Bourdieu’s political project for the social sciences, as well as Bourdieu’s own political activism, explaining how sociology is not just science but also a crucial form of political engagement.
This book offers a clear and comprehensive overview of the key sociological approaches to the study of social movements. The author argues that each of these approaches makes an important contribution to our understanding of social movements but that none is adequate on its own. In response he argues for a new approach which draws together key insights within the solid foundations of Pierre Bourdieu's social theory of practice.
Are contemporary societies organized by class? In recent years the apparent fragmentation of established class structures and the emergence of new social movements - in particular the women's movement and environmentalism - have altered the traditional expressions of class in society. At the same time, these changes have posed fundamental questions for the concept of class in sociology and political science. In this major reassessment, Klaus Eder offers a new perspective on the status of class in modernity. Drawing on a critique of Bourdieu, Touraine and Habermas, he outlines a cultural conception of class as the basis for understanding contemporary societies. His model reevaluates the role of the middle classes, traditiona
This third edition of Social Theory Re-Wired is a significantly revised edition of this leading text and its unique web learning interactive programs that "allow us to go farther into theory and to build student skills than ever before," according to many teachers. Vital political and social updates are reflected both in the text and the online supplements. "System updates" to each section offer an expanded set of contemporary theory readings that focus on the impacts of information/digital technologies on each of the text’s five big themes: 1) the Puzzles of Social Order, 2) the Social Consequences of Capitalism, 3) the Darkside of Modernity, 4) Subordinated/Alternative Knowledges, and 5) Self-Identity and Society. New to this edition: The "big ideas/questions" thematic structure of the text as well as the connections between classical and contemporary theorists continues to be popular with instructors. This feature is enhanced in the new edition An expanded "Podcast Companions" series now pairs at least one podcast to every reading in the book Many new updates to the exercise platform allow students to theorize and build theory on their own New readings excerpts include such important recent work as: Shoshana Zuboff’s "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism," Ruha Benjamin’s "Race After Technology," David Graeber’s "Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit," Sherry Turkle’s “Always-On/Always-on-You.”
There is increasing academic interest in how Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology can be applied to management and organization studies (MOS). In a context of increasing complexity faced by organizations and those who work in them due to globalization, neoliberalism, austerity, financial crisis, ecological issues, populism and developing technologies, there is untapped potential to use Bourdieu’s theoretical inventions to arrive at greater understandings of how change, transition and crisis shape work, organizational life as well as relations between different organizational and sectorial fields. This book aims to take a specific focus on the relational nature of Bourdieu’s work and its relevance for contemporary organizations. It provides empirically-grounded examples that showcase the explanatory strength of Bourdieu ́s intellectual concepts, such as field, habitus, capital, hexis, hysteresis, symbolic power, symbolic violence, doxa, illusio as applied to the current challenges within MOS. Such challenges include issues resulting from globalization, neoliberalism, financial crisis, ecological crisis, populism and developing technologies, to name but a few; and added to those, a global pandemic. The twelve chapters presented in this book study a great variety and range of organizational phenomena that are organized into three thematic sections: ‘Neoliberalism, fields and hysteresis’, ‘Global and national movements as sites for competition and symbolic domination’ and the ‘The emergence and transformation of professional fields’. The chapters show a concern with the challenges and opportunities such developments offer to MOS scholars and to managers and employees in public and private sector organizations. It will be of interest to researchers, academics and students in the fields of organizational studies, critical management studies, human resource management and sociology.
In this series of trenchant essays, Pierre Bourdieu continues the urgent project begun in Acts of Resistance. Dissecting the claims of neoliberalism, Bordieu calls for an international social movement capable of forming a counterforce to the project of capitalist globalisation.
Pierre Bourdieu was a brilliant sociologist and social thinker; he was also an intensely political man whose work is of profound significance for rethinking democracy. This original volume presents and develops Bourdieu's distinctive contribution to the theory and practice of democratic politics. It explicates and illustrates his core concepts of political field and field of power, his historical model of the bureaucratic state, and his influential analyses of the practices and institutions involved in the paradoxical phenomenon of political representation - starting with the enigma of delegation, or what he called the "mystery of ministry." The fruitfulness of Bourdieu's approach is demonstrated in a series of integrated studies of voting, public opinion polls, party dynamics, class rule, and state-building, as well as by careful analyses of Bourdieu's own civic engagements and his theoretical treatment of the politics of reason and recognition in contemporary society. Charting the connections between Bourdieu's political views, the main nodes of his sociology of democratic representation, and the implications of this sociology for progressive civic thought and action, this book will be of interest to students and scholars across the gamut of disciplines as well as to citizens concerned with renewing struggles for social justice.
These critical essays bring together prominent scholars in the social sciences to consider the diverse nature of the legacy of Pierre Bourdieu in contemporary social theory. In offering a range of perspectives on the continuing relevance of Bourdieu's sociology, the essays of this volume examine Bourdieu's relationship to both classical and contemporary social theory. This collection constructs an intellectual bridge between French-speaking and English-speaking accounts of Bourdieu's work.