The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society
Language: English
Pages: 656
ISBN: 0804738459
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
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 societies—the 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, shopkeepers—no 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.
Children of a New World: Society, Culture, and Globalization
Scientific Controversies: A Socio-Historical Perspective on the Advancement of Science
Postcolonial Borderlands: Orality and Irish Traveller Writing
Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present
Global Inequalities Beyond Occidentalism (Global Connections)
Object of widespread envy. Along with money and clothes, it is a constant preoccupation of young men in the ghetto, holding center stage in the "professional game" and conspicu~ ous display of status (Folb, Runnin' Down Some Lines, pp. 83-6, 109-16), Thus it is not uncommon for them to consent to extreme sacrifices in order to acquire a "pair of wheels that look the deal." One of my main informants in Woodlawn proudly drove a brand new 4x4 Jeep Cherokee but, predictably, it was not long before.
Meditations (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999). V1l1 Translator's Preface are quite wonderful. (They have worked well for me in my courses in sociology.) The translator's goal with the interview as story must be to render the quality of these diverse lives, the pungency, the pathos, as the case may be, and tbe specificity of their social and work settings (the automobile plant, the scbool system, the political landscape, and so on).2 However, as Bourdieu eloquently insists, The Weight of the.
Trade words, that's ious. It's about everything and nothing ... about trivial things. But that's how it is. all, it involves only me on my side. But at hottom, I am defending the interests of everybody and even the interests of the district, of the whole community. These are l/ivial nonsense The last time there was trouble, even slight, between you, where was it, and how, and over what? Mme Meunier It's always the same thing. Over trivial nonsense: the cats ... the dog ... the kids. - How's.
Who live on the margin of the law, have made the ZUPs their territory, all the more so as the architecture of these ensemhles lends itself to rhis rather well: they have been intentionaJly located at a distance from the main streets, which has the unintended consequence of turning them into veritable islands cut off from the city center. Some of the young people in these families get their resources from a subterranean economy based principally on theft and, more recently, drugs. FinaJly, there.
During this meeting you explai11ed to us your program's aim and its rules, and reminded us that it would only be made if all the conditions were p1'esent; in this agreed-upon framework, we were ready to participate since it allowed for expression by residents of the area and could help build a more positive image of the town. We shared our opinions with you, our observations, and you took note of them. One week later, some of us were contacted again outside of the ,ules that had been laid down,.