Returning Struggles to the Practice Turn: How Were Bourdieu and Boltanski Lost in (Some) Translations and What to Do about It?

Abstract

This article argues for bringing struggles back into the practice turn in international political sociology. It will unpack a set of theoretical distinctions to respond to the following questions: How does one describe practices (relationalism vs. substantialism)? Where do practices occur (fields vs. communities)? How do practices change (disputes vs. struggles)? This article criticizes Pouliot and Adler for removing struggles from Bourdieu’s structural constructivism in order to frame practices as “the smallest unit of analysis” (Adler and Pouliot, 2011b, 10-13) in international relations (IR). The paper also takes stock of the constitutive differences between Bourdieu’s and Boltanski’s sociologies. It thereby faults Gadinger and Bueger’s practice theory for obfuscating these differences. Finally, in foregrounding struggles as a specifically social-constructivist concept, the argument will call for a more complex sociological understanding of conflict and change in IR. The analytical power of each set of theoretical distinction is illustrated through a case study of bordering struggles in post–Soviet Central Asia.