Abstract
Classification Struggles comes 4 years after their French release and marks the first of a five-volume series of lectures given by Pierre Bourdieu at the Collège de France. This first volume covers issues in ‘general sociology’, building on and extending classical social theory.
As Bourdieu begins, he explains that the lectures could be taken in any sequence (p. 4), but that the point is to convey his method. He is clear that he is not proclaiming dogma (p. 4), or typologies – which he calls ‘epistemological monstrosities’ (p. 10), because they conflate divisions from reality with the sociologist’s constructed classifications. Instead, he takes the reader through the fundamentals of the classification of social groups.
As a whole, this series of lectures constitutes Bourdieu’s reflections on how to classify, but also what the act of classification entails. The lectures can be roughly set into two parts. The first part establishes what he asserts is a ‘true science of classification’ (p. 70) – the integration of relations between practical and objective classifications via accumulating diverse criteria. He explains that the problem of classification, unlike other sciences, involves how to objectively classify social agents, because they, in fact, classify themselves; the world is already hierarchical and organized prior to the sociologist’s arrival. Beginning in this way, Bourdieu elaborates arguments emphasizing ‘everyday life’ with examples of insults and accusations illustrating blatant classificatory acts. Continuing, he indicates that sociology must not only analyse self-presentation though, as strategies of self-presentation are consequential, he asserts, because they are ‘group strategies’ (p. 33).
By the June lectures, Bourdieu begins to elaborate how classification struggles are about symbolic power – principles of judgement and perception – because what is so often at stake in life is the existence of social groups. It is at this point that clear linkages can be made to his theory of the state as he consistently returns to Max Weber. If Weber’s definition of the state was the ‘monopoly of legitimate violence’, then Bourdieu’s is that the state is a ‘monopoly of legitimate symbolic violence’ (p. 125). He gives many examples, discussing nation-building, borders, naming, law, and language – all are intimately linked to classification struggles because the state is the ultimate classifier. They remain important because these issues constitute battles about the truth of social life over which people continue to struggle (p. 128). Towards the end of the lectures, Bourdieu pivots his discussions to concerns about sociology generally, arguing implicitly for a reflexive sociology that does not see its vision as ‘the alpha and the omega’, but sees itself embroiled in the struggles of classification as well (p. 132).
A notable feature is Bourdieu’s reference to his own empirical work. Perhaps the elaboration of his theory of practice is well known to be derived from his ethnological studies, but here we see his sociological practice in surveys, interviewing, and even an experimental ‘micro-situation’ (p. 62). Bourdieu makes several references to Erving Goffman, but also to ethnomethodology throughout, showing how his own analysis of ‘everyday life’, of social practice, was informed by these authors.
Readers knowing Bourdieu’s major works, but perhaps not the historical, social, and political context of it, will enjoy the addition of an essay by Patrick Champagne and Julien Duval (p. 134). The essay establishes insights not immediately apparent within the lectures, touching upon tendencies that Bourdieu himself does not directly establish. For example, the essay includes relevant details about Bourdieu’s relation to American sociology, how these lectures fit into the history of sociology in France dating back to Durkheim, and how rereading Weber informed his analysis of the state (e.g. pp. 112, 125).
The lectures cover a range of subjects, accessible to professors and students in the social sciences and humanities generally. Just as Bourdieu maintained a commitment to pushing the boundaries of sociology and exposing the act of research to reflection and analysis, the editors of this work, some of whom attended his lectures, are now providing clarity and context to Bourdieu’s works. If, as Champagne and Duval cautiously claim, Bourdieu’s synthetic lectures on general sociology can be ‘considered somewhat equivalent to Max Weber’s Economy and Society’ (pp. 137–138), then the sociological field has much to look forward to in future publications.