Thinking the body as a basis, provocation and burden of life

Ariel Wilkis

Thinking the Body

Durkheim, Mauss, Bourdieu: The Agreements and Disagreements of a Tradition

Introduction

In this article, I would like to reflect on the place of the body in the sociological tradition whose main precursor is Durkheim.

I will focus on observing how the body becomes central to the concerns of this tradition.

This brief history starts with a bodiless sociological theory (represented by Emile Durkheim) and reaches a sociological theory based on the body (represented by Marcel Mauss and Pierre Bourdieu). The body becomes the privileged place from which to substantiate an understanding of the persistence of the social world, its consistency and its durability.

In the first section of the article, I reveal the connections ...