The Forum How Has Bourdieu Been Good to Think With? The Case of the United States

The place of Bourdieu in the small pantheon of individuals who have determined the shape of the social sciences at the beginning of the twenty-first century is beyond question. His work has transformed the terms of the discourse and what frontier research means in U.S. sociology today. This is no small feat given that this discipline is a huge machine indeed, as our some 14,000 sociologists are dispersed over more than 800 programs offering sociology degrees and as our departments train academics who take teaching positions not only in the United States, but also in the most central and the most remote corners of the planet. Thus, we should not be surprised that we are still debating (as Claude Levi-Strauss [1963] would put it), for what purpose has Bourdieu been ‘‘good to think with’’ (1963:89). This crossAtlantic conference organized to mark the 35th anniversary of the publication of Bourdieu’s landmark contribution, Distinction (Bourdieu, 1986), is the perfect occasion to attempt to bring elements of response to this question. The question itself presumes a pragmatic approach to Bourdieu’s work, one that considers it legitimate to pick and choose concepts, as opposed to