Pierre Bourdieu and International Relations

Over time, Pierre Bourdieu became an emergent reference in international relations—quite paradoxically, given that Bourdieu himself did not pay much attention to international relations as such. This chapter exhaustively reviews the works of Bourdieu in search of the international, both as a dimension of social capital and as a social space across societies. It then retraces how pioneering scholars used the theory and concepts of Bourdieu to develop their analysis of transnational processes. It also assesses the more recent blossoming of scholarship using Bourdieu in international relations, sometimes at the risk of inconsistency with the theory of Bourdieu. It finally suggests a coherent reconstruction of a theory of transnational fields based on Bourdieu for further research. Throughout the chapter, the notion of field serves as a golden thread to go back to its genealogy, to be found, surprisingly, in international relations.