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Pierre Bourdieu - Sketch For A Self-Analysis (2008) (A)
Pierre Bourdieu - Sketch For A Self-Analysis (2008) (A)
PIERRE BOURDIEU
Translated by
RICHARD NICE
Index i14
Publisher's Note to
the French Edition
I
Science of Science and Reflexivity (Cambridge: Polity, 2004).
II
Ein So{iologischer Selbstversuch (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2002).
jii
Lecon sur la lecon (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1982), trans, as
'A lecture on the lecture', in In Other Words: Essays towards a
Reflexive Sociology (Cambridge: Polity, 1990), pp. 177-98.
Publisher s Note to the French Edition
I
do not intend to indulge in the genre of autobiography,
which I have often enough described as both con-
ventional and illusory. I would simply like to try to
gather together and present some elements for a self-
socioanalysis. I do not conceal my apprehensions, which
go far beyond the habitual fear of being misunderstood. I
have indeed the feeling that, particularly on account of the
scale of my path through social space and the practical
incompatibility of the social worlds that it links without
reconciling them, I cannot wager - being far from sure of
achieving it myself with the instruments of sociology —
that the reader will be able to bring to bear on the experi-
ences that I shall be led to evoke, the gaze that, in my view,
is the appropriate one.
In adopting the point of view of the analyst I oblige
(and authorize) myself to retain all the features that are
pertinent from the point of view of sociology, in other
words necessary for sociological explanation and under-
standing, and only those. But, far from seeking to produce
thereby, as one might fear, an effect of closure, by impos-
ing my interpretation, 1 intend to subject that experience,
set out as honestly as possible, to critical confrontation, as
if it were any other object. I am well aware that, analysed
in that perspective, and as is appropriate all cases, in
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
1
'Le corps et le sacre', Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales,
no. 104 (1994) ('Le commerce du corps'): 2.
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
— 4 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
2
Concours general: a national competition for lycee pupils;
classes preparatoires: the lycee classes training for the competitive
examinations for entry to the grandes ecoles; oblat miracule or
'oblate': Bourdieu's term for a pupil who commits himself entirely
to the scholastic success which gives him a 'miraculous' social
mobility (trans.).
3
khdgne: the classes preparatoires training for the entrance
examinations in the 'humanities' for the grandes ecoles (trans.).
— 5 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
4
'About everything that can be written' - ironically quoting
the motto of Pico della Mirandola (trans.).
— 6 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
5
With J.-C. Chamboredon and J.-C. Passseron, Le Metier de
sociologue (Paris and The Hague: Mouton), trans, as The Craft of
Sociology (New York and Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991).
— 8 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
It is clear that, for me as for all those who then had any con-
nection with philosophy, the figure of Jean-Paul Sartre
exerted a fascination that was not without ambivalence, as
much in the intellectual order as in the domain of politics.
However, the domination of the author of L'Etre et le
Neant* was never exerted without contest in those spheres,
and those people (of whom I was one) who sought to resist
'existentialism' in its fashionable or academic forms could
draw support from a set of dominated currents: first, a
history of philosophy very closely linked to the history of
the sciences, the 'prototypes' of which were represented by
6
In English in the original (trans.).
7
In English in the original (trans.).
8
J.-P. Sartre, L'Etre et le Neant (Paris: Gallimard, 1943), trans.
as Being and Nothingness (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956).
— 9 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
9
M. Gueroult, Dynamique et metaphysique leibni{iennes (Paris:
Belles Lettres, 1935).
10
J. Vuillemin, Physique et metaphysique kantiennes (Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1955).
10
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
1
' E. Husserl, /dees directrice pour une phenomenologie (Paris:
Gallimard, 1950).
12
E. Husserl, Logique formelle et logique transcendantale (Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1957).
11
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
12
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
— 13 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
13
With J.-C. Passeron, 'Sociology and philosophy in France
since 1945: death and resurrection of a philosophy without
subject', Social Research, 34, no. 1 (spring 1967): 162-212.
14
R. Aron, Introduction a la philosophic de Vhistoire. Essaisur les
limites de Vobjectivite'(Paris: Gallimard, 1938), trans, as Introduction
to the Philosophy of History: An Essay on the Limits of Historical
Objectivity (Boston: Beacon Press, 1961).
14
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
— 15 —
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17
S. Winter, Freud and the Institution of Psychoanalytic Knowledge
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999).
— 16 —
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17
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18
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
— 19 —
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20
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22
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19
S. de Beauvoir, Force of Circumstance (London: Putnam, 1965).
— 24 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
20
Cf. Charles Baudelaire's poem 'Les Phares* in Les Fleurs du
Mal (trans.).
— 25 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
21
G. Canguilhem, Etudes d'histoire et de philosophic des sciences
(Paris: Vrin, 1968).
— 26 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
— 27 —
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— 28 —
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— 29 —
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22
French Institute of Public Opinion.
23
French national science research council.
— 30 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
>
acceptance, while ethnology, through Levi-Strauss, was
fighting to be recognized as a science in its own right (par-
ticularly by making use of reference to linguistics, which was
then at its zenith); and also dominated within the university
field, where, for many philosophers, still full of statutory
self-assurance, and for many literary scholars concerned for
distinction, the 'human sciences' were jumped-up newcom-
ers and intruders. Not surprisingly, in this 'refuge' disci-
pline - a welcoming, indeed, too welcoming haven that, as
Yvette Delsaut has neatly put it, 'did not intimidate' - one
found a small stratum of professors teaching the history of
the discipline and doing little or no research, and a 'mass'
(not in fact a very large one) of researchers attached to the
CNRS and some other institutions, who came from the most
diverse academic origins (the licence11 in sociology did not
exist when the second generation entered the field). These
researchers devoted themselves mainly to empirical research
which was as ill-armed theoretically as it was empirically —
so many indices and factors of an enormous dispersion
(especially as regards level of qualifications) which was not
conducive to the establishment of a universe of rational dis-
cussion. It is not exaggerated, I think, to speak of a pariah
discipline-, the 'devaluation' of everything concerned with-
Tajcial mutters, in an intellectual milieu nonetheless very
occupied and preoccupied with politics (but many commit-
ments, especially those in the Communist Party, are still a
paradoxical way of keeping the social world at arm's length),
compounded - or was the primary cause of - a dominated
27
Equivalent of Bachelor's degree (trans.).
— 35 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
28
F. Matonti, La Double Illusion. La Nouvelle Critique9, une
revue du PCF, 1966-1980 (Paris: La Decouverte, 2004).
— 36 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
29
The leading French business school (trans).
— 37 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
>
acceptance, while ethnology, through Levi-Strauss, was
fighting to be recognized as a science in its own right (par-
ticularly by making use of reference to linguistics, which was
then at its zenith); and also dominated within the university
field, where, for many philosophers, still full of statutory
self-assurance, and for many literary scholars concerned for
distinction, the 'human sciences' were jumped-up newcom-
ers and intruders. Not surprisingly, in this 'refuge' disci-
pline - a welcoming, indeed, too welcoming haven that, as
Yvette Delsaut has neatly put it, 'did not intimidate' - one
found a small stratum of professors teaching the history of
the discipline and doing little or no research, and a 'mass'
(not in fact a very large one) of researchers attached to the
CNRS and some other institutions, who came from the most
diverse academic origins (the licence11 in sociology did not
exist when the second generation entered the field). These
researchers devoted themselves mainly to empirical research
which was as ill-armed theoretically as it was empirically —
so many indices and factors of an enormous dispersion
(especially as regards level of qualifications) which was not
conducive to the establishment of a universe of rational dis-
cussion. It is not exaggerated, I think, to speak of a pariah
discipline-, the 'devaluation' of everything concerned with-
Tajcial mutters, in an intellectual milieu nonetheless very
occupied and preoccupied with politics (but many commit-
ments, especially those in the Communist Party, are still a
paradoxical way of keeping the social world at arm's length),
compounded - or was the primary cause of - a dominated
27
Equivalent of Bachelor's degree (trans.).
— 35 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
28
F. Matonti, La Double Illusion. La Nouvelle Critique9, une
revue du PCF, 1966-1980 (Paris: La Decouverte, 2004).
— 36 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
29
The leading French business school (trans).
— 37 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
— 38 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
— 39 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
30
Sociologie de VAlgerie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1958), trans, as The Algerians (Boston: Beacon Press, 1962).
— 40 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
36
French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies
(trans.).
37
Municipal social housing.
— 46 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
34
'Les categories de l'entendement professorar (with Monique
de saint Martin), Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales,
3(1975)169-93.
— 43 —
Sketch for a Self Analysis
35
Le Sens pratique (Paris: Editions de Minuit, f.1980), trans, a s
The Logic of Practice (Cambridge: Polity, 1990).
— 44 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
— 45 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
36
French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies
(trans.).
37
Municipal social housing.
— 46 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
— 47 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
48
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
49
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
38
With A. Darbel, J.-R Rivet and C. Seibel, Travail et tra-
vailleurs en Algerie (Paris and The Hague, 1963), pp. 260—7.
39
Sections Administrates Specialises - government agents
working to 'integrate' the native population (trans.).
— 50 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
40
P. Bourgois, En Quite de respect. Le crack a New York (Paris:
Editions du Seuil, 2001).
41
M. Sanchez-Jankowski, Islands in the Street: Gangs in Urban
American Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).
42
P. Bourdieu et al., La Misere du monde (Paris: Editions du
Seuil, 1993), trans, as The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in
Contemporary Society (Cambridge: Polity, 1999).
— 51 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
49
See The Bachelors* Ball(Cambridge: Polity, 2008) (trans.).
'Les relations entre les sexes dans la societe paysanne', Les
Temps Modernes, 18, no. 195 (1962): 307-31.
— 59 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
— 60 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
47
An Algerian siding with the French in the war of independence.
— 55 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
— 56 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
I have called the cultural sabir, and of which I will give just
one example: 'The Beni Toufout (the name of a tribe) . . .
what's that, what does that mean?' he would ask. 'Beni
Toufout? Tu votes [you vote, pronounced with an Algerian
accent, to sound like Toufout]. You see, we invented
democracy. . .')
— 57 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
48
Supporters of an agrarian route towards Algerian socialism
(trans.).
— 58 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
49
See The Bachelors* Ball(Cambridge: Polity, 2008) (trans.).
'Les relations entre les sexes dans la societe paysanne', Les
Temps Modernes, 18, no. 195 (1962): 307-31.
— 59 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
— 60 —
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— 73 —
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— 74 —
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S4
See above, note 16.
— 75 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
-65 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
It has no doubt been the taste for 'living all lives' that
Flaubert speaks of, and for seizing every opportunity to
enter into the adventure that opens up each time with the
discovery of new milieux (or simply the excitement of
starting a new research project), that, together with the
refusal of the scientistic definition of sociology, has led me
to interest myself in the most diverse social worlds. I think
that the reading I did in my interminable summer vacations
gave me a desire to explore unknown social milieux that is
perhaps felt less by those whose existence has confined
them to a more or less perfectly homogeneous social world.
In myfirstyear of khagne, as a young student still dazzled
by a Paris that gave reality to literary reminiscences, I
naively identified with Balzac (I remember a stupefying
first encounter with his statue, at the Vavin crossroads!), so
much so that more than once, when I was out walking on a
Sunday, I would follow strangers so as to discover their
quartier, their building, their surroundings, which I would
endeavour to guess.
There have been few times when I have not been
working on several personal research projects in parallel,
often very different in their objects, not to mention those
that I pursued vicariously, through the research that I
directed, often very closely, or that I proposed and coordi-
nated within the framework of the Centre de Sociologie
Europeenne. And so I have been able to participate in uni-
verses of thought, past or present, very distant from my
own, such as those of the aristocracy or bankers, dancers at
the Paris Opera or actors at the Theatre Fran9ais, auction-
eers or notaries, and work myself into them, through a
— 66 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
,2
La Distinction. Critique sociale du jugement (Paris: Minuit,
1979), trans, as Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of
Taste (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984).
— 67 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
80
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
59
The two terms are in English in the original (trans.).
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71
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— 72 —
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— 73 —
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— 74 —
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S4
See above, note 16.
— 75 —
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— 76 —
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— 77 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
56
'Champ intellectuel et projet createur', Les Temps Modernes
(Problemes du structuralisme), 246 (Nov. 1966): 865-906; trans, as
'Intellectual field and creative project', Social Science Information^
8, no. 2 (1968): 89-119.
,7
See below, p. 82 (trans.).
— 78 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
58
'Non chiedetemi chi sono. Un profilo de Michel Foucault',
L'indice (Rome), no. i (Oct. 1984): 4-5 (cf. 'A free thinker: "Do not
ask me who I am" \ Paragraph (London), no. f (1985): 80-7).
— 79 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
80
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59
The two terms are in English in the original (trans.).
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
70
With L. Boltanski, R. Castel and J.-C. Chamboredon, Un Art
moyen. Essai sur les usages sociales de la photographie (Paris: Edi-
tions de Minuit, 1965), trans, as Photography: The Social Uses of an
Ordinary Art (Cambridge: Polity, 1989).
71
See above, note 32.
72
Reproduction interdite. La dimension symbolique de la
domination economique', Etudes Rurales (Paris), 113-14
(Jan.—June 1989): 15-36. English translation in The Bachelors*Ball
(Cambridge: Polity, 2008).
73
Meditations pascaiiennes (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1997).
Trans, as Pascalian Meditations (Cambridge: Polity, 1999).
104
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
74
In English in the text (trans.).
— 105 —
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— 85 —
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86
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— 87 —
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no
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— 90 —
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62
Student paid to supervise in a lycee (trans).
91 —
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— 92 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
63
E. GofFman, Asylums (Chicago: Aldine, 1961).
64
J. Genet, The Miracle of the Rose (London: Blond, 1965).
— 93 —
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— 94 —
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— 95 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
70
With L. Boltanski, R. Castel and J.-C. Chamboredon, Un Art
moyen. Essai sur les usages sociales de la photographie (Paris: Edi-
tions de Minuit, 1965), trans, as Photography: The Social Uses of an
Ordinary Art (Cambridge: Polity, 1989).
71
See above, note 32.
72
Reproduction interdite. La dimension symbolique de la
domination economique', Etudes Rurales (Paris), 113-14
(Jan.—June 1989): 15-36. English translation in The Bachelors*Ball
(Cambridge: Polity, 2008).
73
Meditations pascaiiennes (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1997).
Trans, as Pascalian Meditations (Cambridge: Polity, 1999).
104
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
74
In English in the text (trans.).
— 105 —
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— 106 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
7:>
Les Regies de Van. Genese et structure du champ litteraire (Paris:
Editions du Seuil, 1992), trans, as The Rules of Art (Cambridge:
Polity, 1996).
— 107 —
may bruise the Holderlinian-Heideggerian-Blanchotian
cult of the sacred in literature and art, the 'impious dis-
mantling of thefiction*of which Mallarme speaks can only
intensify the pleasure of the love of art.
This tension perhaps never appeared to me in more dra-
matic fashion than when I gave my inaugural lecture at the
College de France, in other words at a moment of entry
into a role that I found hard to integrate into my own idea
of myself. I had several times refused to be a candidate and
I had explained this, to Fran£ois Jacob in particular, and
then to my friends, in particular Andre Miquel, who
insisted that I should be a candidate and whom I had even
tried to convince that my eventual competitor, a grandilo-
quent and propheticfigure,would fit the part very well, in
a sense better than me. This reluctance (the word is too
weak, but 'repugnance' is too strong), springing from deep
inside me, led me to a whole series of acts designed to burn
the bridges, such as lending my name in support of the can-
didature of Coluche76 for the presidential election of 1981,
or an article in Actes de la Recherche on haute couture77 in
which, killing two birds with one stone, I quoted an article
by Roland Barthes in Elle about Chanel and an essay by
Andre Chastel78 in Le Monde which amounted to an adver-
torial for a brand of perfume. Preparing that inaugural
76
An anarchic comedian (trans.).
77
With Yvette Delsaut, 'Le couturier et sa griffe. Contribution
a une theorie de la magie', Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales,
1 (Jan. 1975): 7-36.
78
Art historian and professor at the College de France (trans.).
— 108 —
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— 109 —
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
no
W
hy have I written and, above all, for whom?
Perhaps to discourage biographies and biogra-
phers, while providing, as a kind of profes-
sional point of honour, the information that I would have
liked tofindwhen I tried to understand the writers or artists
of the past, and while seeking to extend reflexive analysis
beyond the generic discoveries obtained from scientific
analysis itself - and to do this without giving way to the
(very strong) temptation to deny or refute distortions or
defamations, to undeceive or to surprise. I could not be
unaware of the more or less wild attempts at objectivation
that my analyses have provoked in response, with no other
justification than the malicious aim of objectivating the
objectivator, along the childish lines of 'if you say it, you
must be it': he denounces glory and honours, but he is avid
for glory and honours; he excoriates the media but he is a
media figure; he attacks the educational system but is
enslaved to academic honours, and so on ad infinitum.
What is certain, in any case, is that if I am not impossible
to situate as an empirical agent, I have always sought to be
so, as much as possible, in my role as a researcher, in par-
ticular by taking account of my position and its evolution
over time, as I have done here, so as to try to control the
effects they could have on my scientific position-takings.
And I have done so not to escape the reduction of my
works to their social conditions, in accordance with the
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
112
Sketch for a Self-Analysis
— 115 —
Index
— n6 —