Bourdieu and The Study of Religion

My PhD research draws heavily upon sociology. Going the sociology route meant delving into a large body of literature largely unfamiliar to me. A good chunk of last year was spent immersing myself in this body of work. David Wells' research on evangelicalism and modern/postmodern life has been my inspiration for pursuing this type of research. Wells' books on the subject have utilized a good amount of sociology and, consequently, have provided an interesting angle on the issue of church and culture.

Recently, my supervisor recommended that I look at the work of French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu. For Bourdieu, any society consists of various "fields." Each field contains different types of capital, that is, material and non-material resources that give individuals an edge in life. For example, in the economic field there is a struggle over monetary resources. In academia, individuals might vie for prestige. Religion is a field bound up with its own type of capital: meaning, salvation, etc. For Bourdieu, the struggle for significance is fundamental to understanding social relations. Individuals compete to etch out a place in the field or social arena they inhabit. And individuals become adept at navigating a number of different, yet perhaps overlapping, fields. Shaping an individual's play in the field is habitus, that is, an urge or impulse that directs one's actions. It sounds to me like habitus is somewhat like a worldview, although less systematic and tidy than the way one would traditionally think of a worldview. Habitus is operative at a deeper level of consciousness than a worldview might be.

Bourdieu dabbled in religion but spent the bulk of his work investigating this theory as it applied to culture and art. Sociologists of religion, however, have been applauding its usefulness for the study of religion. And--while I do not agree with some of the presuppositions undergirding Bourdieu's theory--I think it will be a helpful template for understanding some of my research. I have read several journal articles on Bourdieu but have yet to get my hands on any of his books--so my understanding of him is limited to secondary sources; I will take a trip to the library this week to remedy that.