Introduction to Symposium "A Different Reading of the International": Pierre Bourdieu and International Studies

In: International political sociology, Band 5, Heft 3, S. 219-224

Abstract

This special issue of International Political Sociology consists of a symposium of papers that demonstrate the possibilities applying the political sociology of Pierre Bourdieu to international studies, both theoretically and empirically. The papers are all derived from a panel entitled "A Different Reading of the International" organized at the 2010 ISA Annual Conference in New Orleans. Correspondingly, the main claim of this special issue is that the sociology of Bourdieu provides a different look at the international, one that is highly productive for further transforming international studies. Our interest in developing this specific symposium has moreover been spurred by the general momentum which Bourdieusian sociology currently is experiencing with respect to both international and European studies (for references, please see the individual chapters). In this growing literature, one can now distinguish between a grouping of more sociologically informed studies and an emergent body of political science research which draws on Bourdieusian concepts. This symposium has a more sociological orientation than is usual in international studies, which is still very much dominated by political science reasoning. It also insists on the need to conduct empirical research using a specific set of thinking tools derived from Pierre Bourdieu's sociology as a means for providing a new reading of the international. Our goal is, however, not to provide a history of Bourdieusian ideas or to celebrate Pierre Bourdieu as yet another rising star in the pantheon of fashionable French thinkers for the IR market. We also resist treating Bourdieu as a philosopher cutoff from his empirical research on "examples" that seem irrelevant for IR specialists, or presenting a ready-made and condensed version of Bourdieu for an IR audience in search of minor adjustments in the division of labor between soft constructivism and mainstream realism. Adapted from the source document.