The Weight of the World

by Bourdieu, Pierre; Ferguson, Priscilla Parkhurst; Accardo, Alain

• ISBN13: 9780804738446
• ISBN10: 0804738440
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-12-01
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

Confined in their governmental ivory towers, their actions largely dictated by public opinion polls, politicians and state officials are all too often oblivious to the everyday lives of ordinary citizens. These persons, who often experience so much hardship in their lives, have few ways to make themselves heard and are obliged either to protest outside official frameworks or remain locked in the silence of their despair. Under the direction of Pierre Bourdieu, France's foremost sociologist, a team of 22 researchers spent three years studying and analyzing the new forces of social suffering that characterize contemporary societiesthe daily suffering of those denied the means of acquiring a socially dignified existence and of those poorly adjusted to the rapidly changing conditions of their lives. Social workers, teachers, policemen, factory workers, white-collar clerks, farmers, artisans, shopkeepersno one seems to be immune from the frustrations of today's life, not to speak of the institutions of the family, work, and education. The book can be read like a series of short stories, which include: a steel worker who was laid off after 20 years and now struggles to support his family on unemployment benefits and a part-time job; a trade unionist who finds his goals undermined by the changing nature of work; a family from Algeria living in a housing tract on the outskirts of Paris who must cope with pervasive forms of racism; and a schoolteacher confronted with urban violence. Reading these stories enables one to register these people's lives and the forms of social suffering that infuse them. The original publication of this book was a major social and political event in France, where it topped the best-seller list and triggered a widespread public debate on inequality, politics, and civic solidarity. It offers not only a distinctive method for analyzing social life, but another way of practicing politics.

Author Biography

Pierre Bourdieu is Professor of Sociology at the College de France and Director of Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.

Table of Contents

Translator's Preface	p. viii
Acknowledgments	p. x
To the Reader	p. 1
The Space of Points of View	p. 3
Jonquil Street	p. 6
A Displaced Family	p. 23
Everyone in a Place of their Own	p. 37
The View from the Media	p. 46
The Order of Things	p. 60
An Integrated Family	p. 77
A Bad Investment	p. 88
Rehabilitation	p. 95
The Last Difference	p. 106
Site Effects	p. 123
America as Social Dystopia	p. 130
Inside "The Zone"	p. 140
Homeless in El Barrio	p. 168
The Abdication of the State	p. 181
An Impossible Mission	p. 189
Institutional Bad Faith	p. 203
Double Binds	p. 206
The View from the State	p. 213
Disorder among Agents of Order	p. 222
Woman and Cop	p. 227
A Living Reproach	p. 239
On the Way Down	p. 255
Permanent and Temporary Workers	p. 257
The Old Worker and the New Plant	p. 267
The Temp's Dream	p. 282
Working Nights	p. 297
Possession	p. 309
The End of a World	p. 317
The Shop Steward's World in Disarray	p. 321
The Stolen Work	p. 338
A Silent Witness	p. 354
Such a Fragile Equilibrium	p. 361
Hanging by a Thread	p. 370
A Life Lost	p. 381
The Fall	p. 392
Broken Careers	p. 408
Outcasts on the Inside	p. 421
Those Were the Days	p. 427
A Paradise Lost	p. 441
Cogs in the Machine	p. 455
A Double Life	p. 463
French Class	p. 484
The Upper Hand	p. 488
Institutional Violence	p. 492
The Contradictions of Inheritance	p. 507
Academic Destiny	p. 514
A Compromising Success	p. 529
The Spirit of Contradiction	p. 536
Wife and Colleague	p. 549
The Curse	p. 561
Emancipation	p. 580
The Sick Person as Object	p. 590
Solitude	p. 599
Understanding	p. 607
Postscript	p. 627
Glossary	p. 630
Index	p. 635
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