Pierre Bourdieu: uno scienziato sociale tra capitale e (sociologia) politica

The present work on the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu is divided into three parts related to as many objectives and research questions. In particular, I have tried to: a) reconstruct the theoretical approach of the French sociologist – never separated from practice, in particular from that empirical work which is not a simple verification of a predefined hypothesis, in line with the classical positivist canon – starting from one of the key concepts of his thought, that of capital, considered in its multidimensionality, identifying its specificity (in addition to some similarities) with respect to other approaches, in order to reach a discussion of what can be defined as a Bourdieusian economic anthropology. In this sense, my attention has focused on the Marx/Bourdieu relationship, focusing critically on the main interpretations of such dense and inexhaustible relationship; on the antibourdieusian critique of the supporters of the gift paradigm, revealing mainly gaps and misunderstandings; on the specific difference between Bourdieu and the theorists of human capital, while emphasizing the closeness between the French sociologist and the Théorie de la regolation; b) analyze and evaluate the sociological-political implications of the Bourdieusian theoretical production, trying to restore its originality and analytical radicalism. In particular, I focused on the constitution of the political field, on its specificity and on the process of alienation of the political capital, as well as on the fetishistic character of political delegation; on the struggle for symbolic domination as well as on the criticisms raised to the democratic doxa in the name of effective democratic politics, with particular attention given to the positions of Bernard Manin and Jacques Rancère; on the Bourdieusian considerations on the State as an ambivalent holder of the monopoly of material and symbolic violence; on the political and sociological Bourdieusian commitment against the neoliberal hegemony and for the affirmation of a European social movement; c) analyze the increase of electoral abstention in Italy – contextualized in the European context, but not exclusively – with particular reference to the political elections, giving to the Bourdieusian perspective (almost absent in the Italian scholarly output) the relevance it deserves, and reading it in terms of the persistence and reconfiguration of the unrecognized census system relative to the liberal-democratic systems (in their weakening phase). Furthermore, I have tried to present in fairness the concrete experiences, the social trajectories and the motivations of those who do not express a ‘valid vote’, adopting a predominantly qualitative approach and focusing on a limited territorial reality such as the Italian Province of Pesaro and Urbino, which is also affected by an increase in abstention, although in a more limited form than at the national level.