From Social Theorist to Global Intellectual: The International Reception of Bourdieu’s Work and Its Effect on the Author

The international success of Bourdieu, attested by the numerous translations of his books, may seem paradoxical for a body of work so firmly anchored in empirical studies centered on France. This oeuvre has been in effect received and appropriated as a theoretical reference and “research program” (Lakatos). This chapter analyzes the geography and stages of Bourdieu’s international reception through the prism of the translation of his books. First acknowledged as a sociologist of education and of culture, he acquired in the early 1990s the status of a social theorist, before becoming a “global intellectual,” and after his death a classical author. The effects of this reception on his reflection on the circulation of ideas and on comparativism is examined in the last section.