PIERRE BOURDIEU

Outline of a Theory of Practice

Chapter 2: Structure and the Habitus
Habitus: systems of durable, transposable dispositions. It is the principle of
generation and structuring of practices and representations.
Structure: is conceived as the structure of the consequences of human practices.
It should not be reified. On the other hand, because of the existence of the
habitus, actors are not as free-will actors.
The habitus produces practices which tend to reproduce the regularities
immanent in the objective conditions of the production of their generating
principle. As both a cognitive and a motivating structure.
Habitus or dispositions are, in some sense, the internalization of the objective
structure. The causal relationship is: the habitus, as a product of history, produces
individual and collective practices, and hence history, in accordance with the
schemes engendered by history. Habitus and structure mutually produce each
other, and the dispositions and the social positions are mutually congruent, the
dialectic relations.
As an acquired system of generative schemes objectively adjusted to the
particular conditions in which it is constituted, the habitus engenders all the
thoughts, all the perceptions, and all the actions consistent with those conditions,
and no others.
Chapter 4: Structures, habitus, power: basis for a theory of symbolic power
The system of classification of practice: ages, sexes, occupations, different time,
space, under the recognized appropriateness, tempo, moments, and rhythms of
life. The order of practices tends to naturalize its own arbitrariness by this
classification. Out of which arises the sense of limit, and the sense of reality.
The system of classifications reproduces the objective classes and the
corresponding power relations by securing the misrecognition, and hence the
recognition of the arbitrariness on which they are based.
Doxa: when there is a quasi-perfect correspondence between the objective
order and the subjective principles of organization (as in ancient societies), the
natural and social worlds appear as self-evident ----this is called doxa, so as to
distinguish it from orthodox and heterodox which imply the awareness and
recognition of the possibility of different or antagonistic beliefs.
Against Durkheim: it is erroneous to consider only the cognitive or
speculative functions of mythico-ritual representations (because they the system
of classification), these mental structures, a transfigured reproduction of the
structures constitute a mode of production and a mode of biological and social
reproduction, contribute at least as efficaciously as the provisions of custom,
through the ethical dispositions they produce, such as the sense of honour or

respect of elders and ancestors. The theory of knowledge is a dimension of

political theory because the specifically symbolic power to impose the principles
of the construction of reality - in particular, social reality - is a major dimension
of political power.
The world of doxa: conditions of existence are very little differentiated, the
dispositions (little differentiated) are confirmed by institutions, collective
consciousness such as language, myth and art, self evidence, collective attested,
authority. Objective world conforms to the myth....no disenchantment...goes
without saying...
The field of opinion, the locus of the confrontation of competing discourses whose political truth may be overtly declared or may remain hidden, critique,
breaking the fit between subjective structure and the objective structures, raise
the question of social facts. The drawing of the line between fields of doxa and
opinion is the struggle for the imposition of the dominate systems of classification.
Then, comes the overt opposition between the right, or orthodoxy, and the
wrong, the heterodoxy, which limit the universe of possible discourse.
Symbolic Capital in the forms of prestige, honours, etc. is readily convertible
back into the economic capital and is perhaps the most valuable form of
accumulation where the natural environment is severe. The restrictive definition
of the economic interest is the historical product of capitalism. The unthinkable,
unnamable, disinterested interest. It is a transformed and thereby disguised form
of physical ''economical'' capital, produces its proper effect when it conceals the
fact that it originates in ''material'' forms of capital.
Mode of domination: the most successful ideologies are those which have no
needs of words. The dominating class justify themselves no only by ideology, but
by it practical functioning. Gentle, hidden exploitations, symbolic violence is in
the gentle, hidden form, when the overt form is impossible.