Bourdieu and the paradox of individualization

Abstract

Already during the development of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory, criticisms were directed against his reduction of action to structural determinations, critics instead emphasizing the autonomy of the decisions of individual actors. Since then, evaluations have appeared in both French and German literature suggesting that efforts to precisely define the individual’s position in social space and to trace their decisions back to this position are less and less suitable for the valid empirical and theoretical elaboration of macro-level stratification relations, individual life paths, and the lived experience of actors.

In my paper, I try to map the decisions made by Bourdieu that are responsible for the apparent loss of the persuasive power of his theory, which decreases in proportion to the unfolding of the tendencies of individualization. During the nominal synthesis of the „subjectivist” and „objectivist” sociological approaches – explicitly confronting phenomenologically oriented sociology – Bourdieu tacitly defined his position in opposition to the interpretative sociological program in general. As a consequence, his theory does not have sufficient capacity to examine the conditions of structural individualization. By parting with interpretative sociology, Bourdieu renounced its guarantees, in the absence of which his theory could rightfully be accused of structural determinism.

Sociologists who are eager to map the process of individualization find themselves in a paradoxical situation: with the decreasing relevance of the usual categories of macrostructural analysis, their subject of research seems to slip out of their hands; yet at the same time, given the undoubted socio-structural determination of the tendency, they rightfully feel competent in examining the issue. To resolve the paradox, I propose to consider Bourdieu’s theoretical framework as a point of reference in the evaluation of the macro-scale individualization process. His work should be applied as a point of reference for an interpretative sociological approach, taking into account not only the individual but also the subjective perspective, which attempts to offer accounts that are not only causally adequate, but are also meaningfully adequate in Weber’s sense.