BOURDIEU – HABITUS, SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE, THE GIFT: “YOU GIVE ME / I GIVE YOU” PRINCIPLE
BOURDIEU – HABITUS, SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE, THE GIFT: “YOU GIVE ME / I GIVE YOU” PRINCIPLE

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, my aim is to give an outline of Bourdieu’s sociological theories, of his unitary representation of social science, annihilating the disciplinary borderlines between sociology and anthropology. It is not only about the proposal of a new epistemological basis to the Durkheimian tradition, but also the conceptual and methodological apparatus necessary to such an approach. The critique of the perspectives (he inspired from originally) represented by the structuralist objectivism (Claude Levi-Strauss) and existential subjectivism (Jean-Paul Sartre) constitutes the “strategic” movement of analysis or overcoming of the dominant positions in the French space. Further I point out the implications of applying the idea of gift exchange mechanism, in classdifferentiated societies, their affective effects (gratitude, love, admiration). In the hypothesis centred on the gift exchange, an agent sacrifices its profit for a longterm binding relationship. The idea is to aim at a larger profit through alliances that are formed as an effect of gift exchange. All this are shown briefly by explaining the key concepts that Bourdieu uses in the sources cited. The concept of symbolic capital is constructed starting from the analysis of the “sense of honour” in the Kabyle society. Hereupon, Bourdieu resumes a central theme of anthropology: the gift exchange (gift/counter gift) addressed to the famous study by Marcel Mauss. He highlighted the strategic dimension, dissimulation of price calculation and time frame between giving and receiving. The concept of habitus has had a long tradition in the philosophical thinking. This Latin term is used as different from the word habitude. It represents the “system of dispositions”, “structuring structure”, namely a predisposition, tendency, propensity, inclination.

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