Bourdieu: special terms

It is here he introduces such terms as habitus, structuration, doxa and opinion, social, cultural and economic capital.

Habitus (from Mauss) denotes a set of dispositions that are inscribed in the body, shaping its most fundamental habits and skills, and transmitting the effects of social power into the person. Habitus thus contains within it both the attributes of power, and those of skill (and thus esthetics) - and the power-esthetics-body axis remained central to much of Bourdieu's later work.

Structuration is the process by way of which social structures are formed; as in much practice-theoretical work (see Ortner 1984), this concepts aims to unify action-oriented and structure-oriented theories.

Doxa and opinion denote, respectively, a society's taken-for-granted, non-questioned truths, and the sphere of that which may be openly contested and discussed.

The three forms of capital represent an expansion of Marxian thought; economic capital being that which is closest to Marx's original concept of capital (ownership of means of production and commodities); social capital denotes the sum total of network resources available to the individual; cultural capital, similarly, is the sum of meaningful resources at the individual's disposal.

In 1979, Bourdieu published La distinction: Critique sociale du jugement (English edition 1984: Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste). This voluminous monograph discusses the relationship between (esthetic) taste and class position in France. He who has "good taste" has also acquired the distinction that separates him from other class positions in society.

Among the concepts introduced in Bourdieu's later work, social fields are of particular importance. Social fields are arenas for the accumulation of the three forms of capital, and arenas for competition between accumulating actors.

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