Category: Uncategorized

• “Populism” and the idea of morally superior elites

  Is populism a good concept? Or is it a new way of denigrating “the people” and glorifying the elites? It might be more of the latter than you think, according to a fascinating paper by French political sociologist Annie Collovald. The concept of populism has basically done a 180, as it moved from a label…

  magneflemmen

  February 27, 2023

  Uncategorized

  class, elites, front nationale, ideology, legitimation, political sociology, politics, populism, symbolic power

• Cultural capital approaching 60

  Cultural capital will soon turn 60 (I’m folllowing Johan Heilbron, who in the Dictionnaire International Bourdieu dates the concept to the publication of Les héritiers in 1964). A lot has happened to that concept throught its long life. In a new paper, Mike Savage, Annick Prieur and I discuss some recent studies and reflect on…

  magneflemmen

  February 20, 2023

  Uncategorized

  Bourdieu, class, cultural class analysis

• Arguing empirically about the theory of practice

  A major issue in sociology is what is sometimes called the structure-action problem. It involves the problem of to what extent social phenomena are to be accounted for in terms structural properties of societies, or in terms of the actions and interactions of individuals. The debates over this issue often involves the problem of voluntarism…

  magneflemmen

  September 2, 2022

  Bourdieu, Lahire, theory, theory of practice, Uncategorized

  action, Bourdieu, determinism, Lahire, practice, social theory, structure, theory, voluntarism

• What’s useful in Marxism?

  What’s useful in Marxism and what should be discarded?[1] That’s the question Anthony Giddens set out to answer in a book that came out 40 years ago: A contemporary critique of historical materialism: Vol 1 – Power, property and the state. Even beyond the beautiful cover design, the book merits serious consideration. It is one…

  magneflemmen

  September 1, 2022

  Uncategorized