In this article, I seek to compare Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice, the
cultural theory developed by Mary Douglas and Michael Thompson, and the
relational models theory pioneered by Alan Fiske, and attempt to sketch how
these theories could possibly be combined. I argue that the three theories are
among the most interesting conceptual enterprises in the social sciences of the
last few decades, as they all represent –quite similar– syntheses of
long-standing social-science dualisms, such as objectivism vs. subjectivism,
social structure vs. free will, functionalism vs. social conflict, etc. Besides
these commonalities, I spell out the relative strengths and weaknesses of each
of these approaches. This allows me to conclude by considering whether, and how,
it might be possible to synthesise these syntheses by picking the most
interesting features of the three theories, and avoiding their less appealing
ones.
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