Pierre Boudieu: Power in Society

Dengui, France 1930, a woman gives birth to a baby boy who would later be renowned intellectual, his name is Pierre Bourdieu. Bourdieu grew up speaking Gascon which is now a dead regional language and was the only one in his family to finish his studies past 16. During all of his studies he boarded at the facilities in Pau, and at multiple facilities in Paris. He got a degree in Philosophy at 25 years old. After getting his degree he taught at his alma matter, he later went to finish his military service which took him to Algeria where he later taught at the University of Algiers. This influenced his first publications which addressed the sociological Algerian situation he saw before him. He later went back to Paris to teach once again and was later named director at The Centre de Sociologie Européenne. Here he focused on 3 main areas: education, art, and methodology. Little is known about his personal life except that he was married and had 3 sons. He also became editor at a well-known publishers’ office where he published many pieces in his prolific years (1975-1983). In the late 1980’s Bourdieu joined committees set up by the socialist government he was in this position for a decade observing and finally publishing pieces about social suffering in France. He would later speak more on methodology and philosophy and later end on commenting the economics and consequences of neo-liberal economics.

I take an interest in Pierre Bourdieu because his commentary about neo-liberal economics and power in society resonate with my personal interests for my thesis which is on redesigning the American prison system. This entails looking through publications and current events surrounding the penal system and its power struggle situation. His early accomplishments are being named the director of the Centre de Sociologie Européenne, taking over editorship of LeSens Common (owned by well-known publisher Les Éditions de Minuit), becoming chair of sociology at the Collège de France, and lastly joining the Socialists governments’ committees working under François Mitterand. These are his life accomplishments, arguably his true accomplishments are his works. For example, his works on methodology and philosophy such as Le Sens Practique (1980), Questions de Sociologie (1980), and of course his 1998 work Contre-feux and his 2000 work Les Strcutures Sociales de L’économie.

Apart from the obvious, for example Les Strcutures Sociales de L’économie is in respect which would be in direct correlation with urban development. The types of capital he believes in (economic, cultural, social, and symbolic) all link either directly or indirectly to our main topic: Urban design. Economic responds to financial capital a large part of being able to fund urban developments. Cultural capital speaks of art, design, and education in reference to social classes; these are all both outcomes of urban design or issues urban design tries to tackle.

Social which links to the public space and its sense of place which is what I spoke about in a previous blog. Lastly there is symbolic capital which basically speaks to the value that one holds within a culture, which can be traced back to architecture and even urban design when you think of city halls in small towns or skyscrapers in large cities. Bourdieu is also like Relph an admirer of the idea of the ‘sense of one’s place’ (as he writes in Habitus); how it creates our perceptions and relates to our ideas of our positions and others in this space, and in turn how those perceptions affect our actions.

Once again, my interest and idea’s circle back around to place and placelessness which is what I now find to be a fundamental standing stone for Urban design.

All research in this blog is based on: Grenfell, M. (2014). Pierre Bourdieu. Durham: Acumen.

      accessed online via: http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uidaho/detail.action?docID=3061159.