Pierre Bourdieu Quotes
Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher whose work fundamentally reshaped the twentieth-century social sciences. Drawing on long ethnographic work in Algeria during the war of independence and on extensive empirical study of French education and culture, he developed the concepts of habitus, field, and cultural capital that have become standard vocabulary in sociology, education, and anthropology. The quotes below are attributed to Pierre Bourdieu, organized by topic.
Browse Pierre Bourdieu by topic
Pierre Bourdieu on Death
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“Pierre Bourdieu on a strike meeting of governmental employees in Lyon/France, 1995. Quote from: Grefe C., Greffrath M. & Schumann H. Attac: Was wollen die Globalisierungskritiker? Berlin: Rowohlt p. 15”
You can fight the international technocracy in an efficient way only by challenging it on its very own field of activity, the economic science, and by opposing a kind of knowledge that respects human beings and realities towards that mutilated kind of knowledge used by the technocrats themselves.
Pierre Bourdieu on Justice
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“I often say that sociology is a martial art, a means of self-defense. Basically, you use it to defend yourself, without having the right to use it for unfair attacks.”
(2000), La Sociologie est un sport de combat ; cited in: John Horne, Wolfram Manzenreiter (2004), Football Goes East . p. xii
Pierre Bourdieu on Knowledge
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“If the sociologist has a role, it is probably more to furnish weapons than to give lessons.”
(talk at the Conference of the AFEF, Limoges, October 30, 1977) -
“(talk at the Conference of the AFEF, Limoges, October 30, 1977)”
If the sociologist has a role, it is probably more to furnish weapons than to give lessons. -
“The practical mastery of the logic or of the imminent necessity of a game — a mastery acquired by experience of the game, and one which works outside conscious control and discourse (in the way that. for instance, techniques of the body do).”
(1990), In Other Words p. 60 -
“(1990), In Other Words p. 60”
The practical mastery of the logic or of the imminent necessity of a game — a mastery acquired by experience of the game, and one which works outside conscious control and discourse (in the way that. for instance, techniques of the body do). -
“Practice has a logic which is not that of the logician .”
(1990), The Logic of Practice . p. 86 -
“(1990), The Logic of Practice . p. 86”
Practice has a logic which is not that of the logician . -
“You can fight the international technocracy in an efficient way only by challenging it on its very own field of activity, the economic science, and by opposing a kind of knowledge that respects human beings and realities towards that mutilated kind of knowledge used by the technocrats themselves.”
Pierre Bourdieu on a strike meeting of governmental employees in Lyon/France, 1995. Quote from: Grefe C., Greffrath M. & Schumann H. Attac: Was wollen die Globalisierungskritiker? Berlin: Rowohlt p. 15 -
“Male domination is so rooted in our collective unconscious that we no longer even see it.”
(1998), " On male domination " Le Monde Diplomatique , Oct. 10, 1998 -
“(1998), " On male domination " Le Monde Diplomatique , Oct. 10, 1998”
Male domination is so rooted in our collective unconscious that we no longer even see it.
Pierre Bourdieu on Mind
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Attributed to Pierre Bourdieu:
“Habitus is the embodied history of social position.”
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“The mind is a metaphor of the world of objects which is itself but an endless circle of mutually reflecting metaphors.”
Equisse d'une Théorie de la Pratique(1977) | p. 91 -
“Television enjoys a de facto monopoly on what goes into the heads of a significant part of the population and what they think.”
(1998: 18); as cited in: Helen Kelly-Holmes (2001) Minority Language Broadcasting: Breton and Irish . p. 8
Pierre Bourdieu on Politics
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“The most successful ideological effects are those which have no need of words, and ask no more than complicitous silence.”
p. 188 -
Attributed to Pierre Bourdieu:
“Cultural capital is at least as decisive as economic capital in shaping life chances.”
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Attributed to Pierre Bourdieu:
“Symbolic violence is exercised most powerfully when it is not seen as violence.”
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“Sociology is a martial art.”
(2000), La Sociologie est un sport de combat ; cited in: John Horne, Wolfram Manzenreiter (2004), Football Goes East . p. xii -
Attributed to Pierre Bourdieu:
“The disenchantment of the world is the deepest of modernity's effects.”