Stock up for summer! Buy 2 Books 📚 Get 1 FREE

The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: Outline of a Theory of Practice, Pierre Bourdieu

Outline of a Theory of Practice

Pierre Bourdieu

Outline of a Theory of Practice is recognized as a major theoretical text on the foundations of anthropology and sociology. Pierre Bourdieu, a distinguished French anthropologist, develops a theory of practice which is simultaneously a critique of the methods and postures of social science and a general account of how human action should be understood. With his central concept of the habitus, the principle which negotiates between objective structures and practices, Bourdieu is able to transcend the dichotomies which have shaped theoretical thinking about the social world. The author draws on his fieldwork in Kabylia (Algeria) to illustrate his theoretical propositions. With detailed study of matrimonial strategies and the role of rite and myth, he analyses the dialectical process of the 'incorporation of structures' and the objectification of habitus, whereby social formations tend to reproduce themselves. A rigorous consistent materialist approach lays the foundations for a theory of symbolic capital and, through analysis of the different modes of domination, a theory of symbolic power.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Cambridge University Press
  • Publish Date: Jun 2nd, 1977
  • Pages: 255
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.90in - 5.90in - 0.70in - 0.85lb
  • EAN: 9780521291644
  • Categories: • Sociology - General• Anthropology - Cultural & Social

More books by Pierre Bourdieu

Book Cover for: Photography: A Middle-Brow Art, Pierre Bourdieu
Book Cover for: Acts of Resistance: Against the Tyranny of the Market, Pierre Bourdieu
Book Cover for: Language and Symbolic Power, Pierre Bourdieu
Book Cover for: Pascalian Meditations, Pierre Bourdieu
Book Cover for: Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Pierre Bourdieu
Book Cover for: Masculine Domination, Pierre Bourdieu
Book Cover for: Homo Academicus, Pierre Bourdieu
Book Cover for: The Logic of Practice, Pierre Bourdieu
Book Cover for: The Field of Cultural Production, Pierre Bourdieu
Book Cover for: The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field, Pierre Bourdieu
Book Cover for: Forms of Capital: General Sociology, Volume 3: Lectures at the Collège de France 1983 - 84, Pierre Bourdieu
Book Cover for: An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, Pierre Bourdieu
Book Cover for: Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Societies, Pierre Bourdieu
Book Cover for: Sociology Is a Martial Art: Political Writings by Pierre Bourdieu, Pierre Bourdieu
Book Cover for: The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger, Pierre Bourdieu
Book Cover for: The Interest in Disinterestedness: Lectures at the College de France 1987-1989, Pierre Bourdieu

Praise for this book

'[Outline of a theory of practice] can be highly recommended as a complex and often beautifully written piece of philosophical literature.' The Times Higher Education Supplement
'Few bodies of work are so systematic, so comprehensive, so creative, so fertile as Bourdieu's. Few theorists glide so adroitly between levels and styles of analysis, and few reach so keenly to the heart of so many analytic issues.' American Journal of Sociology