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Cited by 17,271Social and Cultural DynamicsAnthropological Studies and InsightsContemporary Sociological Theory and Practice

The Logic of Practice

Bourdieu, Pierre·1990·Stanford University Press eBooks
DOI 10.1515/9781503621749
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Abstract

Our usual representations of the opposition between the "civilized" and the "primitive" derive from willfully ignoring the relationship of distance our social science sets up between the observer and the observed. In fact, the author argues, the relationship between the anthropologist and his object of study is a particular instance of the relationship between knowing and doing, interpreting and using, symbolic mastery and practical mastery—or between logical logic, armed with all the accumulated instruments of objectification, and the universally pre-logical logic of practice. In this, his fullest statement of a theory of practice, Bourdieu both sets out what might be involved in incorporating one's own standpoint into an investigation and develops his understanding of the powers inherent in the second member of many oppositional pairs—that is, he explicates how the practical concerns of daily life condition the transmission and functioning of social or cultural forms. The first part of the book, "Critique of Theoretical Reason," covers more general questions, such as the objectivization of the generic relationship between social scientific observers and their objects of study, the need to overcome the gulf between subjectivism and objectivism, the interplay between structure and practice (a phenomenon Bourdieu describes via his concept of the habitus), the place of the body, the manipulation of time, varieties of symbolic capital, and modes of domination. The second part of the book, "Practical Logics," develops detailed case studies based on Bourdieu's ethnographic fieldwork in Algeria. These examples touch on kinship patterns, the social construction of domestic space, social categories of perception and classification, and ritualized actions and exchanges. This book develops in full detail the theoretical positions sketched in Bourdieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice. It will be especially useful to readers seeking to grasp the subtle concepts central to Bourdieu's theory, to theorists interested in his points of departure from structuralism (especially fom Lévi-Strauss), and to critics eager to understand what role his theory gives to human agency. It also reveals Bourdieu to be an anthropological theorist of considerable originality and power.

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  • Du Bois explains the blindness and self-justification of Whites in terms of a combination of economic interest and habitus.

    “Anticipating Pierre Bourdieu ( 1990 ), he explains the blindness and self-justification of Whites in terms of a combination of economic interest and habitus”

    From Sociology and the Theory of Double Consciousness (2015) · cites this paper as Bourdieu 1990

  • Objective and subjective dimensions of routines are mutually constitutive.

    “As practiced, objective and subjective dimensions are mutually constitutive (Bourdieu, 1990).”

    From Reconceptualizing Organizational Routines as a Source of Flexibility and Change (2003) · cites this paper as Bourdieu, 1990

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Authors
Bourdieu, P.
Venue
Stanford University Press eBooks
Publisher
Stanford University Press
Published
1990-06-01
DOI
10.1515/9781503621749
OpenAlex
W1543166800
Cited by
17,271
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 878 · 2025: 704 · 2024: 584 · 2023: 502 · 2022: 572 · 2021: 725 · 2020: 865 · 2019: 844 · 2018: 891 · 2017: 790 · 2016: 843 · 2015: 882 · 2014: 907 · 2013: 818 · 2012: 820
FWCI
55.93
Type
book
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Stanford University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Cultural Dynamics
  • Social Sciences › Anthropology › Anthropological Studies and Insights
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice
Keywords
Pierre Bourdieu, practice theory, knowing and doing, observer-observed relationship, habitus, symbolic capital, objectivism and subjectivism, human agency, kinship, domestic space, ritual, classification, domination, Algeria, ethnography

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