Bourdieu and constructivist structuralism 1: Habitus and capitalPierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist and philosopher, very interested in power relations in societies and in social life. He was born in 1930 and died in 2002 at the age of 71, leaving behind a vast legacy of work, which enormously influenced the field and opened up many opportunities for discussion and debate. His most famous book is Distinction: A Social Critique of Taste. Bourdieu's view on epistemology was that it is a mixture of objectivism and subjectivism; it can't be one or the other, we have to use both to understand society. Objectivism believes that social reality is an entity in itself and that the focus should be on this reality and not on observations and illusions. On the other hand, subjectivism believes that the focus should be on representations to understand how people understand their own reality. He also viewed society in terms of structuralism and voluntarism. This means that there are structures, but you have to understand people as agents, not just structures, and not overemphasize rules and systems. At the same time, people act according to their will, but there is always a field in which they can act, or a domain in which they can act. These two beliefs are manifested in the following terms, in the way he understood society and in the way he spoke about it. In The Logic of Practice, Bourdieu discusses what he calls structures, habitus, practices and their work in society. A very important term he looked at was “terrain”. He argued that one cannot view society as a single structure managed by a certain set of rules. There cannot be a single structure for all of society; rather he proposes the notion of field. ...... middle of paper ...... accordingly. He differs from the strict Marxist in the way he considers that areas are not entirely based on economics but that there are other aspects that help shape society. I agree with him on this point. I also agree with him on how he views structure; there is a structure but it differs from one area to another. I believe some of the major theories and theorists don't recognize this part. They tend to generalize their conclusions and it doesn't always make sense. I think the way Bourdieu studies a society and breaks it down into areas for each area is very important, and the way he sees it through objectivism and subjectivism is also a great way to view society, because it covers thus all aspects of society. . This approach leaves more room for understanding the dynamics of society as a whole and does not look at it from just one side...