On the Tracks of Symbolic Power: Prefatory Notes to Bourdieu's `State Nobility'

Premised on the notion that the defining purpose of Pierre Bourdieu's work is to bring back the symbolic dimension of domination so as to found a generative anthropology of power, an analytical interpretation is offered of Bourdieu's La Noblesse d'Etat. Grandes ecoles et esprit de cor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Theory, culture & society culture & society, 1993-08, Vol.10 (3), p.1-17
Main Author: Wacquant, Loïc J.D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bourdieu, Pierre
Elites
Political Power
Ruling Class
Schools
Social Power
Symbolism
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Summary:Premised on the notion that the defining purpose of Pierre Bourdieu's work is to bring back the symbolic dimension of domination so as to found a generative anthropology of power, an analytical interpretation is offered of Bourdieu's La Noblesse d'Etat. Grandes ecoles et esprit de corps (The Nobility of the State. Elite Schools and Esprit de Corps [1989]). This work exemplifies a political sociology of symbolic forms synthesizing structuralist & constructivist approaches & offering a reconstruction of the problematic of the ruling class centered on the decisive role of the "state magic" of credentials in advanced societies. Tracing Bourdieu's analysis of the practical logic of academic classification & consecration shows how the concepts of habitus & field allow him to dissolve the antinomy between structure & agency to demonstrate empirically how elite schools provide a sociodicy in action of the existing social order. Bourdieu's analyses of the linkages between the field of elite schools & the field of corporations are then used to tease out his conception of power as an effect of structural homologies. AA
ISSN:0263-2764
1460-3616
DOI:10.1177/026327693010003001