Bourdieu’s theory of social fields is one of his key contributions to social sciences and humanities. However, it has never been subjected to genuine critical examination. This book fills that gap and offers a clear and wide-ranging introduction to the theory. It includes a critical discussion of its methodology and relevance in different subject areas in the social sciences and humanities. Part I "theoretical investigations" offers a theoretical account of the theory, while also identifying some of its limitations and discussing several strategies to overcome them. Part II "Education, culture and organization" presents the theory at work and highlights its advantages and disadvantages. The focus in Part III devoted to "The State" is on the formation and evolution of the State and public policy in different contexts. The chapters show the usefulness of field theory in describing, explaining and understanding the functioning of the State at different stages in its historical trajectory including its recent redefinition with the advent of the neoliberal age. A last chapter outlines a postcolonial use of the theory of fields.

Highlighting the conceptual work at the heart of Pierre Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology, this cutting edge collection operationalizes Bourdieusian concepts in field analysis. Offering a unique range of explorations and reflections utilizing field analysis, the eighteen chapters by prominent Bourdieusian scholars and early career scholars synthesize key insights and challenges scholars face when going ‘beyond the fields we know’. The chapters offer examples from discipline contexts as diverse as cultural studies, poetry, welfare systems, water management, education, journalism and surfing and provide demonstrations of theorizing within practical examples of field analysis. One of the foremost social philosophers and sociologists of the twentieth century, Bourdieu is widely known in cultural studies and education and his approaches are increasingly being taken up in health, social work, anthropology, family studies, journalism, communication studies and other disciplines where an analysis of the interplay between individuals and social structures is relevant. With its unique interdisciplinary focus, this book provides a useful guide to doing field analysis and working with Bourdieusian methods research, as well as key reading for methodology courses at post-graduate level.

Highlighting the conceptual work at the heart of Pierre Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology, this cutting edge collection operationalizes Bourdieusian concepts in field analysis. Offering a unique range of explorations and reflections utilizing field analysis, the eighteen chapters by prominent Bourdieusian scholars and early career scholars synthesize key insights and challenges scholars face when going ‘beyond the fields we know’. The chapters offer examples from discipline contexts as diverse as cultural studies, poetry, welfare systems, water management, education, journalism and surfing and provide demonstrations of theorizing within practical examples of field analysis. One of the foremost social philosophers and sociologists of the twentieth century, Bourdieu is widely known in cultural studies and education and his approaches are increasingly being taken up in health, social work, anthropology, family studies, journalism, communication studies and other disciplines where an analysis of the interplay between individuals and social structures is relevant. With its unique interdisciplinary focus, this book provides a useful guide to doing field analysis and working with Bourdieusian methods research, as well as key reading for methodology courses at post-graduate level.

Analysis of art, literature and aesthetics

Pierre Bourdieu was one of the most influential social thinkers of the past half-century, known for both his theoretical and methodological contributions and his wide-ranging empirical investigations into colonial power in Algeria, the educational system in France, the forms of state power, and the history of artistic and scientific fields-among many other topics. Despite the depth and breadth of his influence, however, Bourdieu's legacy has yet to be assessed in a comprehensive manner. The Oxford Handbook of Pierre Bourdieu fills this gap by offering a sweeping overview of Bourdieu's impact on the social sciences and humanities. Thomas Medvetz and Jeffrey J. Sallaz have gathered a diverse array of leading scholars who place Bourdieu's work in the wider scope of intellectual history, trace the development of his thought, offer original interpretations and critical engagement, and discuss the likely impact of his ideas on future social research. The Handbook highlights Bourdieu's contributions to established areas of research-including the study of markets, the law, cultural production, and politics-and illustrates how his concepts have generated new fields and objects of study.

Adressing a range of issues and debates in the natural and social sciences, this work provides a sociological analysis of science which enables readers to understand the social mechanisms which shape scientific practice.

In recent years there has been an outpouring of work at the intersection of social movement thoery, organizational theory, economic, and political sociology. The problems at the core of these areas, Fligstein and McAdam argue, have a similar analytic and theoretical structure. Synthesizing much of this work, A Theory of Fields offers a general perspective on how to understand the problems related to understanding change and instability in modern, complex societies through a theory of strategic action fields.