With the ongoing expansion of the uses of the concept of social capital, the literature critical on these uses has also grown. The principal references in the literature on social capital are Coleman’s and Bourdieu’s conceptual definitions, with a strong quantitative prominence of the former. Bourdieu’s definition of social capital is generally taken as a positive counterpoint, but it is merely allusive and does not go deeply into the theoretical and analytical implications. The principal objective of the present article is to demonstrate that one of the main problems in these criticisms revolving around the notion of social capital stems from its non-contextualized use, irrespective of its theoretical and epistemological bases. Such eclecticism can be very common in the social sciences, but in this specific case it is aggravated by the nominal coincidence of the notions originating in the work of Coleman and Bourdieu, which have different meanings.
En même temps que le recours au concept de capital social est de plus en plus fréquent, la littérature critique sur le sujet croît elle aussi. Les références principales pour la littérature sur le capital social sont les définitions conceptuelles de Coleman et de Bourdieu, avec une forte prééminence quantitative pour le premier. La définition du capital social chez Bourdieu sert généralement de contrepoint positif à celle de Coleman, mais il n’y est souvent fait référence que de manière allusive, sans en approfondir les implications théoriques et analytiques. Le but principal de cet article est de montrer que l’un des principaux problèmes dans la critique concernant la notion de capital social découle de ce que ce concept est utilisé hors contexte, coupé de ses bases théoriques et épistémologiques. Un tel éclectisme est courant en sciences sociales, mais dans ce cas précis, il est amplifié par la coïncidence des dénominations utilisées dans l’œuvre de Coleman et de Bourdieu, qui recouvrent des significations différentes.
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