Pierre Bourdieu was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 sociologist

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

, anthropologist

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

, and philosopher.

Starting from the role of economic capital for social positioning, Bourdieu pioneered investigative frameworks and terminologies such as cultural

Cultural capital

The term cultural capital refers to non-financial social assets; they may be educational or intellectual, which might promote social mobility beyond economic means....

, social

Social capital

Social capital is a sociological concept, which refers to connections within and between social networks. The concept of social capital highlights the value of social relations and the role of cooperation and confidence to get collective or economic results. The term social capital is frequently...

, and symbolic capital

Symbolic capital

In sociology and anthropology, symbolic capital can be referred to as the resources available to an individual on the basis of honor, prestige or recognition, and functions as an authoritative embodiment of cultural value...

, and the concepts of habitus, field

Field (Bourdieu)

Field is one of the core concepts used by French social scientist Pierre Bourdieu. A field is a setting in which agents and their social positions are located. The position of each particular agent in the field is a result of interaction between the specific rules of the field, agent's habitus and...

 or location, and symbolic violence

Symbolic violence

The concept of symbolic violence was first introduced by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu to account for the tacit almost unconscious modes of cultural/social domination occurring within the every-day social habits maintained over conscious subjects....

 to reveal the dynamics of power relations in social life. His work emphasized the role of practice

Practice (social theory)

Practice is a concept widely used in social sciences such as sociology, anthropology, and archaeology, referring broadly to anything people do. It overlaps with the Weberian notion of social action and the Marxist concept of praxis...

 and embodiment or forms in social dynamics and worldview construction, often in dialogue and opposition to universalized Western philosophical traditions.