L'anthropologie économique de Pierre Bourdieu

Abstract

Bourdieu's contribution to the analysis of economies and change. Does Pierre Bourdieu apply concepts from economic theory to his theory of fields and does he limit himself to an analysis of reproduction ? A survey of his work suggests that the answer to both questions is «no». To be sure he makes ample use of economic vocabulary, but he declines it in a way specific to each field and obtains very different results from those developed by rational-choice theory that a Chicago economist would apply indiscriminately to social phenomena as a whole. Likewise, more than a set of concepts that seem to evoke an immobile history, the interplay of variations and invariables is all the more central as Pierre Bourdieu frequently calls on historical perspective. He suggests at least five mechanisms to explain change and crisis: innovation instigated by the dominant players in a field, the entry of new actors, the endogenous shifting of borders between fields under the impact of the strategies deployed in them, struggles for State power and above all desynchronization between field and habitus due to changes in context. Finally, striking homologies appear between Pierre Bourdieu's sociology and the research inspired by regulation theory, even if the aims and basic notions of the two theoretical constructions remain distinct. homologies appear between Pierre Bourdieu's sociology and the research inspired by regulation theory, even if the aims and basic notions of the two theoretical constructions remain distinct.