Feminism After Bourdieu: International Perspectives (Sociological Review Monographs)

Feminism After Bourdieu: International Perspectives (Sociological Review Monographs)

by Beverley Skeggs (Editor), Lisa Adkins (Editor)

Synopsis

This book is a meeting ground for mainstream social theory and contemporary feminist theory. The book brings feminist theory face to face with Pierre Bourdieu's social theory; demonstrates how much Bourdieu's theory has to offer to contemporary feminism; comprises a series of contributions from key contemporary feminist thinkers; defines new territories for feminist theorizing; and, transforms and advances Bourdieu's social and cultural theory.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 268
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Published: 21 Apr 2005

ISBN 10: 1405123958
ISBN 13: 9781405123952

Media Reviews
Contemporaries bemoan Pierre Bourdieu's ontology of what seems to be eternal reproduction. Yet this book shows that Bourdieu is more than ever relevant for twenty-first century feminism. The authors show how Bourdieu's notion of 'symbolic violence' opens up a space of analysis of gendered power missed by the fashionable concepts of performativity. They point to the possibility of a gendered and relational phenomenology of the body that opens up vistas onto today's lived experience of gender. They bring Bourdieusian ideas of emotional capital and reflexivity into contemporary debates on affect. Bourdieu himself said that anybody can explain how things change, but that only his type of theory can explain how they stay the same. The feminist scholars that Adkins and Skeggs have brought together prove him wrong. They use the old master's concepts against the grain to throw light on the chronic mutations in what some call today's post-feminist condition. Professor Scott Lash, Goldsmiths College, University of London. A very interesting and valuable addition... This collection manages to include a range of theoretical and empirical material, thoroughly demonstrating the place of feminism after Bourdieu. Network Feminism afer Bourdieu provides a variety of uses, reappropriations, criticisms, and expansions of Bourdieu's social theory ... What is most satisfying is the refusal of the scholars to accept Bourdieu's theory as-is and then struggle to work within it. They deomonstrate the possibility of critiquing and even rejecting a theory, yet nevertheless finding components of it useful for new thought, Both feminist scholars and sociologists should find this book helpful ... Hopefully the book can reinvigorate discussion about not only Bourdieu but other theorists who have been summarily dismissed due to failures in their theories to properly address sex and gender. APA Newsletter Now with the appearance of Feminism after Bourdieu, we are fortunate to have thanks to Lisa Adkins and Beverley Skeggs, an outstanding set of new contributions to the debate which promise not only to inform and enrich it, but also direct it into the future. In doing so, perhaps one of the significant achievements of this exemplary edited collection is to show us that seemingly opposed theoretical positions on Bourdieu's legacy may in fact have more in common than might have been originally supposed ... Feminism after Bourdieu is without a doubt one of the best resources currently available to us for understanding the lifetime work of Pierre Bourdieu and its power and potential for recasting debates about gender in feminist thought. It is a work which is noteworthy for its highly innovative intellectual scope, and for the social and cultural theory fields in general ... immensely important and inspiring volume. British Journal of Sociology
Author Bio
Lisa Adkins is Reader in Sociology at the University of Manchester. Her previous books include Revisions: Gender and Sexuality in Late Modernity (2002), Gendered Work (Second Edition, 1997), Sexualizing the Social (1996) and Sex, Sensibility and the Gendered Body (1996). Beverley Skeggs is Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths College, London. Her previous publications include Sexuality and the Politics of Violence and Safety (2004), Class, Self, Culture (2004), Transformations: Thinking through Feminism (2000) and Formations of Class and Gender (1997).