David L Swartz

Boston University, Sociology, Faculty Member

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Sociologist who has published extensively on the work of Pierre Bourdieu. I am currently researching divisions with American conservatism, most notably conservative professors who support Trump and those who do not.
Phone: 617-817-6468
Address: Dept. of Sociology
Boston University
100 Cummington Mall
Boston, MA 02215

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University of California, Santa Barbara

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University of Cologne

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

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Field Museum

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University of Genova

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University of Connecticut

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Papers by David L Swartz

The Poverty of Philosophy: Marx Meets Bourdieu

Marx, Engels, and Marxisms

Chapter abstract Marx and Bourdieu embark from similar criticisms of philosophers as suffering fr... more Chapter abstract Marx and Bourdieu embark from similar criticisms of philosophers as suffering from the illusion that ideas make history-what Marx calls ideology and Bourdieu calls scholastic reason. Accordingly, both turn from the logic of theory to the logic of practice. However, where Marx sees the relations of production as leading to class struggle and revolution, Bourdieu sees bodily practice as instilling symbolic domination through habitus. This leads Marx and Bourdieu to adopt divergent views of history, divergent approaches to social change, divergent roots of symbolic domination, and divergent perspectives on contentious politics. If the followers of Marx seek to explain the quiescence of the working class by developing theories of cultural hegemony, will the followers of Bourdieu build a research program that focuses on the internal contradictions and external anomalies of Bourdieu's theory of symbolic domination?

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Founders, Heirs, and Managers: French Industrial Leadership in Transition.Dean Savage

American Journal of Sociology, Nov 1, 1981

Conversations with Bourdieu: The Johannesburg Moment

Contemporary Sociology, Jun 27, 2014

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Trump divide among American conservative professors

Theory and Society, May 27, 2023

There has been an outpouring of research on right-wing populist conservatism since the advent of ... more There has been an outpouring of research on right-wing populist conservatism since the advent of the Trump presidency and right-wing movements in Europe. Yet, little research has been devoted to divisions among conservatives themselves, especially among conservative academics. Although Trump has maintained remarkable unity within the Republican Party for electoral reasons, he has fostered sharp divisions among conservative intellectuals and academicians. This article compares 102 politically conservative professors who are Trumpists and 80 conservative professors who are anti-Trumpists. All 182 function as public intellectuals who advocate their views in print and digital media. Drawing on recent research in the sociology of intellectuals and particularly Pierre Bourdieu's analytical field perspective, this article proposes a fielding political identities and practices framework to show how these two groups of professors (Trumpists and anti-Trumpists) differ in where they teach, their intellectual orientations, their scholarly productivity, where they network with think tanks, scholarly professional associations, and government agencies, and their stances on key issues surrounding the Trump presidency. The academic Trumpists embrace the right-wing populist wave mobilized by Trump and the conservative academic critics resist this move. This polarization of views between these two groups of conservative professors is enduring and rooted in two distinct social networks that connect positions in the academic field to affiliations with think tanks, government agencies, and professional associations in the field of power that reinforce their respective political identities. This research contributes to political sociology, the sociology of intellectuals, and the sociology of conservative politics in American higher education.

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In memoriam: Pierre Bourdieu 1930–2002

Kluwer Academic Publishers eBooks, Feb 24, 2006

A travers un survol de sa carriere intellectuelle et de son oeuvre, cet article rend hommage a Pi... more

Book Review: The Bourdieu Paradigm: The Origins and Evolution of an Intellectual Social Project

Acta Sociologica, Jan 28, 2021

What was Pierre Bourdieu's intellectual heritage? What tensions and contradictions did he endeavo... more What was Pierre Bourdieu's intellectual heritage? What tensions and contradictions did he endeavour to resolve, and in what ways might he be said to have advanced on, or regressed in relation to, other perspectives? Despite his general distaste for such questions, Bourdieu's work has, thanks to its wide-ranging influence, been subjected to them more than most. A lengthy roster of figures have been cited as fundamental foundations or fruitful sources of contrast, from Marx, Weber and Durkheim through Saussure and Levi-Strauss to Wittgenstein and J. L. Austin. Now into the fray comes Derek Robbins, who has spent over three decades introducing, applying and defending Bourdieu's ideas, his style over time having increasingly become that of the deep-digging intellectual historian driven to unearth the fine details of conceptual and textual production. The Bourdieu Paradigm, his latest offering, is explicitly presented as a culmination of these labours, the major conclusion of which is that Bourdieu must be thought of as profoundly rooted in the phenomenological tradition. Rather than offer some sort of overview of Bourdieusian research in this vein, as one might expect from the Kuhnian title, Robbins thus endeavours to excavate the phenomenological lineage in which Bourdieu sits and the way in which he took it forward. He readily admits that Bourdieu drew on other sources too, and that one could write a completely different book about, for instance, the structuralist influence on his thought. This leaves one wondering whether the view presented by Robbins is not somewhat distorted as a result, and what might have been gained from tracing the phenomenological and the structuralist streams together since these are the two main pillars of Bourdieu's thought. The sublimated influence of Hegel, who forms a major point of departure for both traditions (and who also, via Alexandre Kojève, informed the French Marxism against which Bourdieu positioned himself), may have become more obvious, for example. Surprisingly, Husserl and Heidegger are treated as relatively background figures in Robbins' narrative, and Gaston Bachelard-a phenomenologist after his own fashion who had a profound bearing on Bourdieu's epistemology-is given only passing mention. The line Robbins traces runs instead from Alfred Schutz and Aron Gurwitsch 961882J CS0010.

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Fields of Knowledge: French Academic Culture in Comparative Perspective, 1890-1920.Fritz Ringer

American Journal of Sociology, Sep 1, 1993

Corporate Control, Corporate Power.Edward S. Herman

American Journal of Sociology, Nov 1, 1982

Cultural Capital

Sociology, Jan 11, 2018

Cultural capital is used conceptually and researched empirically as a staple in much contemporary... more Cultural capital is used conceptually and researched empirically as a staple in much contemporary social scientific research. The concept was coined by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu to explain educational inequality in France. His concept covers a wide variety of cultural resources, such as verbal facility, general cultural awareness, aesthetic preferences, information about the school system, and educational credentials. In later writings Bourdieu suggests that what he calls cultural capital should in fact be called “informational capital.” His point is to suggest that culture (in the broadest sense of the term) can become a power resource that socially differentiates insiders from outsiders. This inequality occurs when cultural resources become objects of struggle. The concept gained traction early in educational research, in which it has been used to explain differential achievement in schooling. As a measure of family background, the importance of cultural capital relative to income and other possible stratifying factors has become the object of considerable research and debate in the sociology of education. But the concept has been imported into many other substantive areas, such as culture, consumer tastes, family, organizations, and stratification to such an extent that today it is found across a broad range of the social sciences and now figures as an important concept in introductory sociology textbooks. And the concept has provoked criticism and debate relative to how it is measured, its effects, its distribution, and variations in different national contexts.

Pierre Bourdieu: An Intellectual Legacy

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Nov 30, 2020

The Emancipatory Potential of Critical Theory: With Bourdieu and Beyond

Sociologia, Dec 31, 2019

A comment on Mariano Croce's "The Levels of Critique. Pierre Bourdieu and the Political Potential... more A comment on Mariano Croce's "The Levels of Critique. Pierre Bourdieu and the Political Potential of Social Theory." Mariano Croce offers here a tightly structured argument on the political potential of critical social theory as conceptualized by Pierre Bourdieu. The paper takes up two frequently voiced objections to Bourdieu's thinking: first, that Bourdieu dismisses actor capacity for self-insight and autonomous action thereby reducing actors to helpless reproducers of social structures, especially among the dominated; second, that he elevates excessively the liberating role of social theory and its chief purveyors, sociologists. Croce has in mind two particular representatives of these two lines of criticism: Bruno Latour and Luc Boltanski. Croce shows these two criticisms to be fundamental misreadings of Bourdieu's thinking on human action and the the role of critical theory-and theorists-in promoting social change. This is particularly well done for Bruno Latour's criticism of Bourdieu, and critical sociology more generally, that I find dilettantish and unconvincing. Luc Boltanski's criticism, however, is more probing and cut from a different cloth. The presentations of Bourdieu's thinking and the criticisms are not new but succinctly articulated in the paper. Given that they continue to be widely repeated criticisms it is probably worthwhile for a paper like this to help set the record straight. The promise of the paper, however, comes at the very end where Croce outlines for a future text how the emancipatory potential of critical theory might be elaborated from Bourdieu's thinking in two ways: first, from within those "interstitial micro-spaces where innovative practices are produced" outside the grid of prevailing discourses; second, the potential role played by "material practices" that disrupt existing discourse. Unfortunately, these are only suggested not probed in this paper, but they seem potentially promising ways of moving with and beyond Bourdieu on this topic. What needs demonstrating, but is not, is how Bourdieu "could easily take up these challenges." I would suggest three caveats, however, that Croce might consider in working on this future project.

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Social closure in American elite higher education

Theory and Society, Apr 22, 2008

Elite college admissions exemplify processes of social closure in which status-group conflict, or... more Elite college admissions exemplify processes of social closure in which status-group conflict, organizational self-interest, the strategic use of cultural ideals of merit, and broader social trends and contingent historical events interweave to shape institutional power in the United States. The Chosen, Jerome Karabel's monumental study of the history of college admissions at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton from 1900 to 2005, offers a political sociology of elite recruitment and a cultural and social history of the definition of merit that has guided these three schools and shaped much current thinking about college admissions. As Max Weber reminded us, the very definition of cultural ideals of an epoch bear the stamp of elite group domination: not cultural ideals but cultural interests and their strategic uses guide institutional power. The book provides an impressive empirical demonstration of that proposition: it identifies four different definitions of merit as organizational gatekeeping tools that have guided Harvard, Yale, and Princeton over the last hundred years and shows how these definitions were molded by status-group conflict and organizational interests. This essay outlines the central arguments of Karabel's book; it identifies key contributions for our understanding of the history, culture, organizational interests, and politics of these three institutions; it highlights the social closure framework guiding the analysis; and it reflects on a fundamental

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Pierre Bourdieu: The Cultural Transmission of Social Inequality

Harvard Educational Review, Dec 1, 1977

Bridging the Study of Culture and Religion: Pierre Bourdieu's Political Economy of Symbolic Power

Sociology of Religion, 1996

This essay examines key features of Pierre Bourdieu&#x27;s sociology of culture in light of t... more

Theorizing fields

Theory and Society, Oct 16, 2014

Field analysis, inspired largely from the work of Pierre Bourdieu, is becoming widely used in soc... more Field analysis, inspired largely from the work of Pierre Bourdieu, is becoming widely used in sociology today. In A Theory of Fields Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam elaborate selectively on Bourdieu’s thinking to offer a conceptual framework for better understanding the creation, institutionalization, and transformation of “mesolevel social spaces” where actors compete, often through cooperation and coordination, for material and status rewards. In lieu of calling those spaces markets, organizations, networks, systems, or institutions, as is commonly done in the specialized subfields of social movements, political sociology, organizations, and institutional work in political science, FM propose the language of “strategic action field.” They argue that their strategic action field perspective can link agency to structured social spaces and serve as an integrative conceptual umbrella for these fragmented subfields of scholarly specialization. This review presents and evaluates this intellectual field strategy to provide a common and integrative conceptual framework, while calling attention to its key strengths and weaknesses.

Bringing Bourdieu’s master concepts into organizational analysis

Theory and Society, Jan 4, 2008

This article argues that while elements of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology are increasingly employed ... more This article argues that while elements of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology are increasingly employed in American sociology, it is rare to find all three of Bourdieu's master concepts-habitus, capital, and field-incorporated into a single study. Moreover, these concepts are seldom deployed within a relational perspective that was fundamental to Bourdieu's thinking. The article "Bourdieu and Organizational Analysis" by Mustafa Emirbayer and Victoria Johnson is a welcomed exception, for it draws on all three of Bourdieu's pillar concepts to propose a relational approach to the study of organizations. It both reframes existing thinking about organizations, particularly from the neo-institutional and resource dependence schools, and indicates new directions for research in organizations to move. This paper evaluates their contribution calling attention to its many strengths and suggesting a few points that need future clarification and elaboration. I am frequently asked to review journal manuscripts that draw on some aspect of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology, particularly his concepts of cultural capital and field. Very often a paper formulates just one of his concepts and attempts to apply it to some empirical object. Not infrequently the outcome of the empirical test is used to judge the relevance of Bourdieu's thinking for a particular empirical domain. Only rarely do I come across an article that attempts to draw on the ensemble of Bourdieu's thinking. The article "Bourdieu and Organizational Analysis" by Mustafa Emirbayer and Victoria Johnson is a welcomed exception for they argue that one needs to draw on all three of Bourdieu's master concepts-habitus, capital, and field-for the study of organizations. Their paper is the best presentation of Bourdieu's complex theoretical framework that I have seen for application to the study of organizations. It both reframes existing thinking about organizations, particularly from the neoinstitutional and resource dependence schools, and indicates new directions for research in organizations to move.

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The Sociology of Habit: The Perspective of Pierre Bourdieu

Otjr-occupation Participation and Health, 2002

The work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has stimulated new interest in habituated forms of... more The work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has stimulated new interest in habituated forms of conduct. His concept of habitus has become a leading reference in the growing sociological literature on theories of human action as practices. This article presents Bourdieu's concept of habitus by calling attention to its intellectual context and identifying the features that relate to the sociology of habit. The article identifies common characteristics of action regulated by habit and offers four programmatic implications for occupational therapy interventions.

From critical sociology to public intellectual: Pierre Bourdieu & politics

Kluwer Academic Publishers eBooks, Feb 24, 2006

By the late 1990s, Pierre Bourdieu had become the primary public intellectual of major social sci... more By the late 1990s, Pierre Bourdieu had become the primary public intellectual of major social scientific status at the head of the anti-globalization movement that emerged in France and in other Western European countries. This article discusses how Bourdieu became a leading public intellectual, a role that seems to contrast with his early years as a professional sociologist. It explores what seemed to change in Bourdieu’s activities and outlook as sociologist and what seems to have remained constant. It identifies several institutional conditions that seemed necessary for Bourdieu to be able to play the kind of public intellectual role he did in his later years. Bourdieu’s movement from a peripheral position to a central location in the French intellectual field, the changing character of the field itself, the growing influence of the mass media in French political and cultural life, the failures of the French Socialists in power, a cultural legacy of leading critical intellectuals in France, a unifying national issue of globalization, and the political conjuncture in 1995 all intersected in ways that opened a path for Bourdieu to choose new and more frequent forms of political action. His responses to that combination of factors at different moments reveal both a striking continuity in desire to preserve the autonomy of intellectual life and a change in view and strategy on how best to do that. The article concludes with a brief evaluation of Bourdieu’s public intellectual role.

1. Metaprinciples for Sociological Research in a Bourdieusian Perspective

Duke University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2020

From Paris to Boston: A Trajectory with Pierre Bourdieu

Sociologia e ricerca sociale, Mar 1, 2022

The author analyzes his contribution in introducing Bourdieu to the Anglophone world (and to the ... more The author analyzes his contribution in introducing Bourdieu to the Anglophone world (and to the US in particular). By doing so, he presents the reader with an abundance of anecdotes designed to illustrate observations regarding intellectual autonomy, symbolic capitals, and the international circulation of sociological ideas. Self-analysis is viewed as a straightforward and blunt version of other standard, more euphemized, academic practices (like the introductory literature review that opens scientific papers): thus, it is also supposed to be a tool for writing better.

The Poverty of Philosophy: Marx Meets Bourdieu

Marx, Engels, and Marxisms

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Founders, Heirs, and Managers: French Industrial Leadership in Transition.Dean Savage

American Journal of Sociology, Nov 1, 1981

Conversations with Bourdieu: The Johannesburg Moment

Contemporary Sociology, Jun 27, 2014

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Trump divide among American conservative professors

Theory and Society, May 27, 2023

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In memoriam: Pierre Bourdieu 1930–2002