This article explores what cultural studies can learn from the detailed consideration of the individual voice in Bourdieu’s (1999) The Weight of the World. This book addresses the criticism often made of Bourdieu’s earlier work—that it ignored individual agency in favor of structure—through a depiction of French society’s space of points of view. Based on in-depth interviews, it offers an intriguing methodology, although leaving unresolved methodological uncertainties and theoretical absences, including a neglect of the role of media and popular culture in everyday experience. To build on Bourdieu’s work, the conclusion suggests that we explore how a range of social categories derived from media and popular culture are employed in everyday action and thought.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Alexander, J. (1995). Fin de Siècle Social Theory. London: Verso.
2.
Bauman, Z. (1992). Intimations of postmodernity. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
3.
Billig, M. (1997). The dialogic unconscious: Psychoanalysis, discursive psychology and the nature of repression. British Journal of Social Psychology, 36, 139-159.
4.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. UK: Cambridge University Press.
5.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction. London: Routledge.
6.
Bourdieu, P. (1990a). The logic of practice. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
7.
Bourdieu, P. (1990b). On symbolic power. In Language and symbolic power (pp. 163-170). Cambridge, UK: Polity.
8.
Bourdieu, P. (1996). The state nobility. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
9.
Bourdieu, P. (1998a). On television and journalism. London: Pluto.
10.
Bourdieu, P. (1998b). Acts of resistance. London: Pluto.
11.
Bourdieu, P. (1999). The weight of the world. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
12.
Bourdieu, P. (2000). Pascalian meditations. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
13.
Bourdieu, P. (2002). Pour un Savoir Engagé. Le Monde Diplomatique, February, 3.
14.
Bourdieu, P., Darbel, A., Rivet, J. P., & Seibel, C. (1963). Travail et Travailleurs en Algérie. The Hague, the Netherlands: Mouton.
15.
Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. C. (1979). The inheritors: French students and their relation to culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
16.
Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1992). Invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
17.
Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1999). On the cunning of imperialist reason. Theory Culture & Society, 16(1), 41-56.
18.
Brubaker, R. (1985). Rethinking classical theory: The sociological vision of Pierre Bourdieu. Theory and Society, 14, 745-775.
19.
Calhoun, C. (1995). Critical social theory. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
20.
Couldry, N. (2000) Inside culture: Reimagining the method of cultural studies. London: Sage.
21.
Couldry, N. (2003a). Media rituals: A critical approach. London: Routledge.
22.
Couldry, N. (2003b). Media meta-capital: Extending the range of Bourdieu’s field theory. Theory and Society, 32(5 & 6), 653-677.
23.
deCerteau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
24.
Denzin, N. (2003). Performing [auto]ethnography politically. The Review of Education, Pedagogy & Cultural Studies, 25(3), 257-278.
25.
Dubet, F. (1994). The system, the actor and the social subject. Thesis Eleven, 38, 16-35.
26.
Dubet, F. (1995). Sociologie du sujet et sociologie de l’expérience. In F. Dubet & M. Wieviorka (Eds.), Penser le Sujet (pp. 103-121). Paris: Fayard.
27.
Elliott, A. (1996). Subject to ourselves. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
28.
Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
29.
Gilligan, C. (1982). In another voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
30.
Grass, G., & Bourdieu, P. (2000). A literature from below. The Nation, 3, 25-27.
31.
Gray, A. (1997). Learning from experience: Cultural studies and feminism. In J. McGuigan (Ed.), Cultural methodologies (pp. 87-105). London: Sage.
32.
Grindstaff, L. (2002). The money shot: Trash, class and the making of TV shows. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
33.
Gupta, A., & Ferguson, J. (1997). Discipline and practice. In A. Gupta & J. Ferguson (Eds.), Anthropological locations: Boundaries and grounds of a field science (pp. 1-46). Berkeley: University of California Press.
34.
Luhmann, N. (1999). The reality of the mass media. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
35.
Maigret, E. (2000). Les Trois Héritages de Michel de Certeau: Un projet éclaté d’analyse de la modernité. Annales, 3, 511-549.
36.
Marcus, G. (1999). The uses of complicity in the changing mise-en-scene of anthropological fieldwork. In S. Ortner (Ed.), The fate of “culture”: Geertz and beyond (pp. 86-109). Berkeley: University of California Press.
37.
Martuccelli, D. (1999). Sociologies de la Modernité. Paris: Gallimard.
38.
McNay, L. (1999). Gender, habitus and the field: Pierre Bourdieu and the limits of reflexivity. Theory, Culture & Society, 16(1), 95-117.
39.
McRobbie, A. (1998). British fashion design. London: Routledge.
40.
Merton, R. (1938). Social structure and anomie. American Sociological Review, 3, 672-682.
41.
Mills, C. W. (1970). The sociological imagination. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
42.
Nightingale, C. (1993). On the edge: A history of poor Black children and their American dreams. New York: Basic Books.
43.
Potter, J., & Wetherall, M. (1987). Discourse and social analysis: Beyond attitudes and behaviour. London: Sage.
44.
Press, A. (1991). Women watching television. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
45.
Probyn, E. (1993). Sexing the self. London: Routledge.
46.
Rabinow, P. (1996). Essays on the anthropology of reason. Berkeley: University of California Press.
47.
Runciman, W. G. (1972). Relative deprivation and social justice. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
48.
Scott, J. (1992). Experience. In J. Butler & J. Scott (Eds.), Feminists theorize the political (pp. 22-40). New York: Routledge.
49.
Sennett, R. (1999). The corrosion of character. New York: Norton.
50.
Sennett, R., & Cobb, J. (1972). The hidden injuries of class. UK: Cambridge University Press.
51.
Skeggs, B. (1997). Formations of class and gender. London: Sage.
52.
Steedman, C. (1986). For the love of a good woman. London: Verso.
53.
Swartz, D. (1997). Culture and power: The sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
54.
Tilly, C. (1999). Durable inequality. Berkeley: University of California Press.
55.
Touraine, A. (1988). Return of the actor. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
56.
Touraine, A. (2000). Can we live together?Cambridge, UK: Polity.
57.
Walkerdine, V. (1997). Daddy’s girl. London: Macmillan.
58.
Young, J. (1999). The exclusive society. London: Sage.
