Towards a Critical Sociology of Dominant Ideologies: An Unexpected Reunion between Pierre Bourdieu and Luc Boltanski

This article aims to demonstrate the enduring relevance of Pierre Bourdieu and Luc Boltanski’s ‘La production de l’idéologie dominante’ [‘The production of the dominant ideology’], which was originally published in Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales in 1976. More than three decades later, in 2008, a re-edited version of this study was printed in book format as La production de l’idéologie dominante, which was accompanied by a detailed commentary, written by Luc Boltanski and entitled Rendre la réalité inacceptable. À propos de « La production de l’idéologie dominante » [Making Reality Unacceptable. Comments on ‘The production of the dominant ideology’]. In addition to containing revealing personal anecdotes and providing important sociological insights, this commentary offers an insider account of the genesis of one of the most seminal pieces Boltanski co-wrote with his intellectual father, Bourdieu. In the Anglophone literature on contemporary French sociology, however, the theoretical contributions made both in the original study and in Boltanski’s commentary have received little – if any – serious attention. This article aims to fill this gap in the literature, arguing that these two texts can be regarded not only as forceful reminders of the fact that the ‘dominant ideology thesis’ is far from obsolete but also as essential for understanding both the personal and the intellectual underpinnings of the tension-laden relationship between Bourdieu and Boltanski. Furthermore, this article offers a critical overview of the extent to which the unexpected, and partly posthumous, reunion between ‘the master’ (Bourdieu) and his ‘dissident disciple’ (Boltanski) equips us with powerful conceptual tools, which, whilst illustrating the continuing centrality of ‘ideology critique’, permit us to shed new light on key concerns in contemporary sociology and social theory. Finally, the article seeks to push the debate forward by reflecting upon several issues that are not given sufficient attention by Bourdieu and Boltanski in their otherwise original and insightful enquiry into the complexities characterizing the daily production of ideology

Durkheim in the Neoliberal Organization: Taking Resistance and Solidarity Seriously

Durkheim’s contributions to organization studies have so far been decidedly marginal, and largely concentrated on culture. In this paper, we draw upon his theory of anomie and solidarity to show how a Durkheimian view of contemporary organizations and work has special relevance today for debates about how workers, particularly middle managers, can reshuffle a capacity to resist neoliberal efforts to profoundly disrupt their working conditions, in particular their autonomy to define what is a job well done. We show how Durkheim’s insights can account for the unexpected rekindling of forms of social solidarity in highly competitive and individualistic organizational settings, through dissident efforts that convey a renewal of a certain work ethos severed by neoliberal managerial policies and practices. Recent studies on resistance confirm Durkheim’s view that forms of collective activity, resembling supposedly ‘old’ mechanisms of former days, continue to exist and develop in contemporary societies and organizations, in response to pressure to put people in situations of inter-individual competition that disrupts social relationships