Reflexivity and common sense knowledge: the paradoxes of Bourdieu’s sociology of practice

Year 2011, Volume: 2 Issue: 1, 40 - 47, 30.06.2011

Meltem Karadağ

Abstract

In The Weight of the World (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002) Bourdieu propose a different
methodology. While his works were essentially designed according to the most advanced quantitative methods, Bourdieu gives a central role to qualitative methodology in The Weight of the
World. Additionally, he argues the importance of “induced and accompanied” interviews both
for the informant and the interviewee. According to Hamel (In: Robbins D, ed. Pierre Bourdieu.
London: Sage, p 142-159, 2000), Bourdieu‟s arguments in The Weight of the World clearly
mark „a real turning point for this author in relation to his former ideas on representativeness
and objectivity, as well as on the status attributed to common sense in sociology.‟ However,
contrary to Hamel, this paper will be critical, but sympathetic to Bourdieu‟s notion of reflexivity and common sense. While Bourdieu‟s notion of reflexivity entails a process of self consciousness, he will be criticised for ignoring a more conscious aspect of subjectivity. Indeed, the
article will discuss how Bourdieu‟s key concept of reflexivity considers only social scientists‟
knowledge as reflexive and lay people‟s knowledge as nonreflexive. It does so with drawing on
interviews in The Weight of the World.

Keywords

Common sense knowledge, reflexivity, false consciousness, subjectivity

References

• Bourdieu P. (1998) The state nobility, Cambridge: Polity Press.