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Culture & Psychology

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Social positions and ! The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1354067X16652133

approximations between cap.sagepub.com

Pierre Bourdieu’s
sociology and social
representation theory
Pedro Humberto Faria Campos
Universidade Estácio de Sá- RJ / PUC-Goiás, Brazil

Rita de Cássia Pereira Lima

Universidade Estácio de Sá-RJ, Brazil

Abstract
This article proposes approximations between Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology and Serge
Moscovici’s social representation theory. Both authors are interested in the relationship
between agents/groups, social context, and culture, and both value the symbolic dimen-
sion in the construction of social reality. Bourdieu highlights the social world of struggles
between the socialized agent and culture, while Moscovici privileges interactions invol-
ving the collective subject which, whether in conflict or consensus, produces a theory of
social knowledge that is revealing of culture. In this broader context, the article high-
lights relations between ‘‘social positions’’ and ‘‘groups’’ which are present in both
Bourdieu and Willem Doise, an important collaborator of Moscovici in the area of
social representation theory. Such relations are founded on the principle of structural
homology, a principle based on the correspondence between social structure and sym-
bolic systems. This discussion leads to another: the need to understand ‘‘consensus’’
and ‘‘conflict’’ in groups, in both Moscovici and Doise, relating them to the action of
forces in Bourdieu’s social field of struggles. The notion of ‘‘group,’’ which is valued in
our text, is little discussed by these authors. We emphasize the necessity to go deeper
into group interactions in articulation with positions in the social field, and to value
group representations and practices in meaning negotiation processes, as well to discuss
the question of social change. We propose studying social representations—in groups
with homogeneous practices—as a symbolic form of condensation and measurement of

Corresponding author:
Pedro Humberto Faria Campos, Rua Sacopã, 807, ap. 103, Rio de Janeiro, CEP 22.471.180, Brazil.
Email: pedrohumbertosbp@terra.com.br

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2 Culture & Psychology 0(0)

symbolic capital, adding to this approach the notion of social position and semiotic
mediation.

Keywords
Social representations, social positions, positional approach, social field, social groups

Introduction
The interest in approximating social representation theory (SRT) and Pierre
Bourdieu’s positional sociology is not new (Doise, 1986; Wagner & Hayes,
2005), since such articulation can establish a fruitful path to understand the
impact of objective social structures on the production of symbolic formations
and culture and, conversely, understand the process of social change through sym-
bolic exchanges (sharing, negotiating, and transforming). Though recognizing that
these authors are founded on different epistemological roots, the present article
proposes the possibility of approximating both, inasmuch as certain aspects of their
thoughts converge when they theorize about the social problems of their time,
particularly regarding the relationship between agents/groups, social context, and
culture, with both authors proposing a connection, rather than opposition,
between the individual and society.
To Moscovici (1976), social representations (SR) are the privileged form of
common sense in modern times and, as a modality of social knowledge, they exer-
cise a mediation between the subject and the object (social phenomena), thus
promoting the regulation of social conducts. At the same time, the interest in
linking SRT to symbolic culture theories or other social knowledge theories is
not recent either (Billig, 2008; Fávero, 2005; Marková, 2003; Valsiner, 2003) and
reinforces the originality of this theory in the field of discussions about the rela-
tionship between culture and society, between social structures and semiotic
mediation.
In studies by both authors, we can see the value attributed to the symbolic
dimension of social relations and the negotiations of meanings that contribute to
build social reality. In spite of this similarity, Bourdieu is more interested in the
social world where struggles occur between the socialized agent and culture, with
domination relations as the foundation. In turn, Moscovici, particularly in SRT,
privileges the interactions involving the collective subject, or groups that, whether
in conflict or consensus, produce a theory of social knowledge that is revealing and
determinant of culture. If, on the one hand, Bourdieu emphasizes power relations
that occur through social institutions, on the other hand, Moscovici privileges
those community interactions and knowledge that are built by the mediation of
groups that may or may not form power levels.
The main challenge in the present article is to discuss the notions of ‘‘social
position’’ and ‘‘groups’’ in Bourdieu and in SRT, seeking similarities and differ-
ences in both theorizations. The ultimate interest of this effort is to discuss the

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Campos and Lima 3

question of social change, of social changes in the meanings of objects or changes in

the SRs that pervade institutions.
Marková (2008) highlights the specificity about SRT interactions, reinforcing
Moscovici’s (1972) triadic model, i.e. Ego–Alter–Object. The object of representa-
tion is generated in this triad where components define and complement each other
and where the object’s meanings are progressively built in the I-Other relationship.
Such model, according to Voelklein and Howarth (2005), allows SRs to be volatile
and undergo transformations over time, delimiting the theory’s historicity. In prin-
ciple, in these interactions, the Alter involves groups and institutions although the
role of the latter was less clarified by Moscovici. Nevertheless, therein is an import-
ant foundation to understanding group interactions in the construction of repre-
sentations, where the interaction between social contexts and groups, with its
respective social positions, interferes with how people represent objects of everyday
life.
Marková (2003, 2008) argues that this ‘‘dialogical triad’’ is the basis of SRT’s
interactional epistemology. However, she views this theory in the perspective of a
‘‘theory of knowledge,’’ thus treating SRs ‘‘knowledge,’’ without addressing these
symbolic formations in their nature as ‘‘mental representations.’’ Therefore, she
drives SRT away from the field of social psychology. On the other hand, she herself
warns that the Alter–Ego–Object triad is not intrinsically dynamic (Marková, 2003).
The keys to understand the dynamicity and historicity (including the problem of
change) in SRT were not explicitly offered by Moscovici, particularly as he leaves
as ‘‘parallel’’ his two major contributions to the field of social psychology: the
studies of influence (the psychology of active minorities) and SRT. What is obvious
to epistemologists (Marková, 2008) is not developed by the author himself. We will
go into this point later, when we approach the approximation with Bourdieu’s
studies.

Doise’s positional approach to SRs and Bourdieu’s

principle of structural homology
The approach to SRs as ‘‘organizing principles of individual positions,’’ also
known as ‘‘positional approach’’ (Doise, 1992) or ‘‘societal approach’’ (Doise,
2002),1 is founded on the principle of structural homology posited by Bourdieu
(1979). This principle affirms the formal and functional equivalence between the
position occupied by the individual (or group) in the social structure on the one
hand, and the ‘‘cognitive structures’’ which Doise calls ‘‘cognitive meta-systems’’
on the other. In this correspondence between social structure and symbolic systems,
the adherence of individuals and groups to the latter would be marked by the
position occupied in the social field.
Still according to the principle of structural homology, every form of social
thinking (ideology, representations, myths, values, religion) manifested by an indi-
vidual has a structural correlate, i.e. it is ‘‘marked’’ by the positions occupied by that
individual in the social pace (in fact, it results from a historical distribution of

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4 Culture & Psychology 0(0)

economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capitals, as well as from gender). According
to this perspective, the variations found in representational systems are seen as the
product of a set of positional asymmetries reflecting the power relations that struc-
ture society. It is worth noticing that structural homology does not imply a view of
social homogeneity,2 but rather that social reality, which we apprehend and can
study through its outlines delimited in fields, is not itself homogeneous.
Another aspect is that the social field is dynamic and undergoes transformations
as work, production, or culture relations change. Doise et al. (1992) connect this
‘‘dynamic of positional asymmetries’’ to the factors of identity adherence and acti-
vation; put differently, the authors connect position systems to identitary processes,
which in turn are marked by SRs. The identification or the degree of identification
(particularly the sense of belonging) has a decisive role in the construction of both
social dynamics and the dynamics of SRs themselves.
It is worth stressing that, in Doise (1992, 2002), ‘‘the social field’’ resembles
that in Bourdieu, since SRs are considered a large, structured, organized knowledge
that spreads to the whole of a society, or to most of its segments. However, Doise
does not present principles or criteria for ‘‘outlining’’ or delimiting a field: he starts
from a symbolic force that is already constituted, a normative SR connected to
individuals’ positions in the field. The example is in the study of SRs of Human
Rights (Doise, 2011), for which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a
‘‘normative model.’’
In this frame, the notion of field is valuable one, both operationally and
conceptually. Operationally because it allows the researcher, whether in sociology
or social psychology, to delimit ‘‘subspaces,’’ portions of social space which main-
tain some rationality within well-defined investigation boundaries. Conceptually
since it allows viewing the social space in fields, as contingencies affecting elements
(individuals, groups, institutions) in motion, in dynamic interactions (‘‘social
dynamics’’ would be properly used here), always constituting a field of forces.
It is worth highlighting that, in the precise context of an approximation between
the sociology of positions and the Theory of Social Representations (TSR), it is
Bourdieu who restores the dynamics of forces into the social with a greater empha-
sis than Moscovici and Doise does.
Therefore, we could thus synthesize the positional approach: (a) it considers that
the members of a group share a common field of knowledge about a social object;
(b) however, their evaluations or judgments (positions) can vary with regard to that
object or aspects thereof; (c) such ‘‘variations’’ are not caused by differences of
personality—rather, they are the effect of different ‘‘positions’’ in the social space,
i.e. as the context varies, some aspect of reality which was previously ‘‘hidden’’
becomes evident and ‘‘prompts’’ different opinions to emerge which would not in
other contexts.
We belong to different groups or have different identitary bonds that, as they are
made evident by a context, cause ‘‘variations’’ to emerge in judgments, in position
takings regarding the object. These ‘‘position takings,’’ in their measurement, are
ultimately equivalent to attitudes.

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Campos and Lima 5

The positional approach’s premise can be straightforwardly presented: norma-

tive SRs (Doise, 2011) are organizing principles of position takings. In order for us
to correctly appropriate this approach, we must carefully and effortfully avoid
confusing what seems like a ‘‘position’’ in Bourdieu with what is a ‘‘position
taking’’ in Doise’s societal approach. Let us resume Bourdieu’s definition: the
positions that individuals (and groups) occupy in the social space are organized
according to the distribution—which derives from power struggles in the historical
moment analyzed—of the principles of capital (economic, cultural, social, and
symbolic).
According to Doise (1992, 2002), the POSITION in the social structure (a
‘‘position’’ in the same sense as in Bourdieu) explains the judgments (attitudes or
position takings) toward a ‘‘social object’’; such judgments integrate an organized
set of beliefs (SRs) and are not homogeneous in a ‘‘social group.’’ In so proceeding,
Doise ‘‘adopts’’ the same view as Bourdieu with regard to the relationship between
‘‘social position’’ and ‘‘mental structures’’ and leaves two problems unsolved.
The first sits midway between the concepts of ‘‘social representation’’ and hab-
itus, since Bourdieu builds the latter as the prime form of ‘‘mental structures.’’
At some point, the hypothesis was raised that this concept equaled that of SR
(Doise, 1986, 1992). However, a more accurate analysis (Wagner & Hayes, 2005)
began to rule out that line of proposition. In the sociology of positions, habitus
does not correspond to a phenomenon that can be measured. It is a conceptual tool
for dealing with the whole of a set of perception, judgment, and disposition
schemes; it is a totality of unconscious dispositions. On the other hand, SRs
have a content (which habitus lacks) that comes out of social, conscious sharing
of meanings. While the Bourdieusian concept is inferred, SRs are collected, identi-
fied; they have a symbolic form as a ‘‘structured set of beliefs’’ (Moscovici, 1984a).
Habitus is a relational concept, in the sense that it is the result of social actions, a
‘‘bundle of social bonds’’ (Wacquant, 2002).
The second problem is that adopting the same concept of position as Bourdieu
causes the social field, which marks a position ‘‘as resulting from the distribution of
forms of capital’’, to coincide with the ‘‘field of the object of social representation,’’
without any explanation. According to Flament and Rouquette (2003), a given SR
of a social object marks the social position of a group, but this only holds to the
extent that, by knowing this representation, we can anticipate (or know) the rela-
tionship this group maintains with other groups that relate to that same object.
Without solving these theoretical deadlocks, Doise and his collaborators
promote a certain flattening of the perspective of SRs in Bourdieu’s sociology.

The three forms of consensus and the field of struggles

The necessity to understand the different views on what is called a ‘‘consensus’’
and/or a ‘‘conflict’’ (Doise, 1993; Moscovici & Doise, 1991) is closely related to the
action of forces in the social field, a subject widely approached in Bourdieu’s works
(1979, 1982, 1987, 2012, among others). Three ways of consensus (Moscovici &

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6 Culture & Psychology 0(0)

Doise, 1991) can be thus summarized: the first corresponds to the sharing of
common beliefs, with group-wide adherence to social norms; the second considers
interindividual variations, and therefore, a varied adherence to social norms; the
third assumes within-group conventions or agreements relying on power relations.
With regard to the first, thinking about forces acting homogeneously means
thinking that the actors involved adopt a ‘‘consensus,’’ a common view, or
common goals. Does this homogenizing view correspond to what actually happens
in social reality? The vision of a homogeneous social whole inherits from
Durkheim’s concept of collective representation and/or from Marx’s theory of
social classes, and it assumes a view of groups, classes, or institutions that are
also homogeneous. According to this perspective, on a given historical moment
in a social space, groups or classes can be identified which have ‘‘homogeneity’’ as
an attribute of their ‘‘worldview.’’
The symbolic elements found in a given field (ideologies, myths, beliefs, repre-
sentations, habitus) are, both in SRT and in Bourdieu’s sociology, active forces in
the field. Although these elements cannot be radically dissociated from objective
living conditions, nor from the concrete dimension of everyday activities,3 their
effect on subjects’ actions (social conducts or practices) depends on internal adher-
ence, i.e. on becoming beliefs in the full sense, or ‘‘internalized norms,’’
dispositions.
However, when our reading of the social space disentangles from the consensual
‘‘social group’’ to focus on wider social spaces, there is no denying that sets of
individuals show a greater interindividual variety, thus leading to the second form
of consensus. In the Bourdieu’s ‘‘sociology of positions,’’ the particular distribution
of economic, social, cultural, and symbolic capital, associated with gender distinc-
tion, explains individuals’ variability of positions within a single ‘‘class,’’ ‘‘group,’’
or ‘‘segment.’’ In this second concept of consensus, within one ‘‘class’’ or ‘‘field’’
(e.g. the artists, doctors, or teachers), individuals recognize the existence of beliefs,
of dominant or widely accepted views, in face of which each member can show a
‘‘variation’’ of opinions (beliefs, attitudes). It is a variation only when compared to
other positions of individuals from the same ‘‘class,’’ i.e. interindividual variations.
Within a common field of beliefs, individuals adhere nonhomogeneously to
certain aspects or dimensions of this field. Interindividual variations are nonran-
dom but rather explained by the position they occupy in face of the distribution
(which is not homogeneous either, but asymmetric, unequal) of the organizing
principles (economic, social, and cultural capital, and gender). In sum, we can
locate the second concept of consensus in the sharing of representations, yet
with a variation of judgment or adherence among individuals.
The third concept of consensus, which is seen as a convention or agreement,
leads to within-group adherence, yet not focusing on identifying consensual beliefs
or variations of position, but rather privileging the core of power relations among
groups. In this case, the majority imposes its norm by force, whether physical/
military, economic, and/or involving some kind of persuasion—by suggesting
that, at the time, such a norm is the best for the group. Consensus thus

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Campos and Lima 7

perceived constitutes the object of a psychology of social influence or a sociology

of power.

‘‘The subject of social representations’’ and social conflict

The approximation between Bourdieu and Doise which was commented on the
previous items cannot bypass the notion of ‘‘group,’’ although the authors may not
seem to emphasize it. Bourdieu posits the study of ‘‘fields’’ in connection with the
study of the formation of individuals’ habitus. However, he was not keen with
regard to the notion of groups as a theoretical question. Doise gives indications
on how to find ‘‘groups’’ through the results of measured adherences, and not by
predefined sociodemographic variables, yet he is not concerned in clarifying the
notion either. In his ‘‘positional’’ approach, he does not focus on interactions
between groups, but on the way individuals belonging to a same culture classify
information according to common positions, e.g. profession, gender, among
others.
Although it is a central notion in SRT—one from which Doise set
off—Moscovici also shuns in-depth analyses on the subject of ‘‘group.’’ The use
of the word is frequent throughout his seminal Psychoanalysis: Its Image and Its
Public (Moscovici, 1976), yet with no evident concern of the author in defining it.
Resuming our goals, we should now ask ourselves: are SRs produced by ‘‘taxo-
nomic’’ or, instead, by ‘‘reflexive’’ groups (Wagner & Hayes, 2005)? Are they the
product of large compounds (classes, fractions of classes) or of tangible sets of
individuals with a social position, who meet and communicate on a regular basis?
The difficulty to find an answer arises mainly from the seminal Psychoanalysis: Its
Image and Its Public (Moscovici, 1976). Nowhere in that work does the author
undertake to tell his reader what conception of group pervades the study. He
initially presents an ‘‘ambivalence’’ of the group as the subject of SRs. However,
in the course of this work, this ‘‘ambivalence’’ is circumscribed, connecting the
group to a symbolic sharing.
In several passages referring to SRs, the phrase ‘‘the individual or the group’’
appears, indicating that the nature of a representation (as a psychic or ‘‘mental’’
representation) in the group is the same as in the individual. This thesis is rein-
forced when the author affirms that no breach exists between the inner world and
the external world of the individual or the group. In later works, Moscovici (1988,
1998, 2001) focuses on sustaining SRT and his particular notion of common sense
as an innovative theory in the field of social psychology. In those works, the idea
that individuals and groups create SRs appears repeatedly; he seems to suggest,
more unexpectedly, that institutions ‘‘have’’ their own SRs.
Those loose statements seem to suggest a fluidness about the social nature of the
subject of SRs that disagrees with his early theorizations of the ‘‘field of the struc-
tured object.’’ Now, in Psychoanalysis: Its Image and Its public, there is another
direction: SR is a whole that supposes (or requires) a collectivity (group) homoge-
neous in relation to that very whole. As he discusses his results, Moscovici (1976)

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compares the attitudes, the field, and the information of the ‘‘classes’’ he empiric-
ally studies, to conclude that not every class or subgroup has coherent
representations.
Would ‘‘social representations’’ therefore only exist in ‘‘homogeneous’’ groups?
That is obviously not the point. In a generic grouping, such as a class or a fraction
thereof, one can see some attitude homogeneity not necessarily associated with field
or information homogeneity. In 1984, in response to a critique by Harré (1984)
about the use of groups in his seminal work, Moscovici (1984b) replies that, in that
study, he used both taxonomic and reflexive groups. However, in his argument, he
does not examine his position about considering consistent representations only in
those groups where the field of the object is structured. This argument reinforces the
statement that Moscovici left the notion of group much too open in SRT. It is
puzzling that, in his studies of social influence, group is a well-defined variable, both
objectively and operationally; however, in none of his works that we know of does
the author explicitly link the ‘‘psychology of active minorities’’ (Moscovici, 1979) to
SRT.
To us, the link Moscovici establishes between both theories is on a metatheore-
tical level: SRs are situated as the ‘‘heart of common sense,’’ and common sense is
the object that delimits and sustains the field of social psychology; this conception
is completed with the definition of the ‘‘ternary perspective’’ (Moscovici, 1984c) of
ego–alter–object, where the ego is always inscribed in social facilitation or social
influence interactions. In other words, ego–alter interactions are of a suggestive
nature; they are marked by incessant processes of categorization, negotiation of
meanings, and recategorization.
We should then examine the question of sign. One can take the Moscovician
triad as a ‘‘semiotic triangle.’’ In this triangle, Moscovici (1984c) delimits the pro-
duction of signs of objects as one of an interactional nature: the sign is within the
triangle. Here, three points should be detailed: (a) the nature of the ego–object
relationship causes a ‘‘sign of the I’’ to emerge as an identitary representation in
face of the object; (b) the object, i.e. the phenomenon itself, is progressively
inscribed, in this anchoring process, into preexistent symbolic networks that refer
directly or indirectly to the object (ideologies, belief systems, values, norms, atti-
tudes, etc.), and this relationship between the ‘‘sign of the I’’ and ‘‘contextual signs
of the object’’ is mediated by the presence of the ‘‘sign of the other’’; (c) Moscovici
is definitely interested in objects of social relevance, therefore, alter is always
‘‘another as a group,’’ which implies that the subject interacts with individuals
which, in turn, represent their identitary group (or some other group). One could
say that Moscovici’s triad includes two levels of interaction, i.e. a communicative
level situated in communicative practices and their ‘‘hand-to-hand’’ materiality
(with history incarnated in bodies, to use Bourdieu’s phrase) and in the materiality
of social institutions; and another level that we can call ‘‘semiotic.’’
Thus, the psychology of active minorities, with its reciprocal suggestion
processes—negotiations of meaning—and SRT meet. As he compares collective
representations and ‘‘social’’ representations, Moscovici (1988) argues that the

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Campos and Lima 9

former operate through the institutional mechanism of coercion, while the latter
through suggestion; the dynamics of suggestion is described in his works about
conformism and innovation, i.e. the interaction between majorities and minorities.
However, the author exempted himself from theoretically consolidating that meet-
ing (Marková, 2008).
Finally, while discussing psychoanalysis’ representation in the different ‘‘seg-
ments’’ studied, Moscovici (1976) establishes this way of knowledge (SR) as a
way of studying and understanding the social conflict, as well as a way of differ-
entiating social groups. By anchoring SRs on ideologies and values, attitudes (as
different positions taken regarding the object of representation) are reinforced;
consequently, social similarities and oppositions become intensified. By represent-
ing a social object, each group represents itself in face of the object (i.e. it builds or
reinforces an ‘‘identitary norm’’) and in face of other groups that have a direct
relation with that same object. The example of this is found in the study of psy-
choanalysis’ SR: psychoanalysis is viewed (by a group) as the attribute of another
group; the representation of psychoanalysis expresses the relationship among
groups; psychoanalysis is (represented) like an ‘‘incarnation’’ in a system of
moral values (of a given group).

Revisiting the ‘‘economics of symbolic exchanges’’

From this understanding of ‘‘group,’’ one can establish relations between Doise’s
positional approach and Bourdieu’s work. Studying position takings in consensus
or conflict situations in the social field of struggles is relevant for understanding the
action of groups, which is pervaded by symbolic elements that come into play in the
making of SRs.
Seeking the conception of ‘‘group’’ in Bourdieu’s sociology is not an overly
exhaustive task. From the very start, one realizes that the notion itself has not
much weight in the author’s conceptual architecture. In many passages it appears
as interchangeable with classes or fractions of classes; one could think about a
generic notion of partition, as it delimits parts of the society, or parts of a social
class, sets of people possessing some attribute in common; moreover, an adjective is
generally embedded, i.e. social class: an element or a component of the social
system.
The comparison between the notions of group in Bourdieu and in Moscovici
requires examining the concept of ‘‘social class’’ in the first author. According to
him, the classes, as Marx conceived them, were the result of a political action, or,
more precisely, the ‘‘effect of a theory.’’ In that sense, social classes ‘‘are yet to be
made,’’ they are not given in social reality (Burawoy, 2011). In other words, in
order for an aggregate or a set of individuals sharing the same life conditions to act
as a class, they must first make an effort to become collective, acting both politically
and voluntarily in a collective way.
The key for reading this is the REPRESENTATION–WILL relationship: a
group which develops a self-perception (representation) as a group or a class and

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10 Culture & Psychology 0(0)

has, or develops, the political will that nourishes and starts the representation of a
‘‘unified group.’’
What particularly interests us is how Bourdieu (1987) overtly connects the term
‘‘group’’ to symbolic power and symbolic capital, affirming that the ‘‘power to
make groups’’ (p. 164) is the most elaborate form, the form par excellence, of
the symbolic power, which in turn is based on two conditions, the first of which
is that the symbolic power is founded on the possession of symbolic capital.
Symbolic capital is, in fact, an effect of the distribution of other forms of capital
in terms of recognition or social value; it is ‘‘the power granted to those who have
obtained sufficient recognition to be in a position to impose recognition’’ (p. 164).
The second condition is that symbolic effectiveness depends on how much a certain
defended view (a credit, a recognition, a value) is actually supported on reality;
symbolic capital becomes more effective the more it is founded on objective reality.
If we retake all the implications from the this set of affirmations, we will cer-
tainly get to the fact that groups are not only important because they originate
agents who can act with a ‘‘conscious,’’ or at least a voluntary, political will, but
also because they generate symbolic capital, since recognition can only be achieved
in the interaction between individuals and social groups, an interaction supported
on the result of their actions for transforming objective reality. The value of rec-
ognition is inherent to social groups. The how of this operation requires establish-
ing the nature and the forms of the ‘‘mental structures’’ or the symbolic formations
involved, in order to understand the mode of interaction. Therefore, postulating SR
and social influence or suggestion processes seems to us a fruitful path, given the
arguments exposed thus far.
In the sociology of positions, the term ‘‘group’’ appears almost in permanence,
associated with a ‘‘symbolic unity.’’ Although this sociology does not overtly the-
orize it, the idea that ‘‘groups are yet to be made,’’ that they are not a priori
substances of social organization, indicates that the construction of a symbolic
unity (the sharing of common beliefs) is dynamic: maintaining, sustaining, expand-
ing the groups already established; forming new groups that support a new view.
The symbolic power is founded on the ‘‘power to build groups’’ (Bourdieu, 1987),
which relies on an incessant work (within struggles) of categorization, thus trans-
forming common sense; ‘‘a formidable social power, the power to make groups by
making the common sense, the explicit consensus, of the whole group’’ (Bourdieu,
1985, p. 729).
Although this concept does not appear in detail because a group is not formed as
a ‘‘concept’’ in the sociology of positions, we cannot find a trace of opposition to it:
a group shares a worldview (representation–will) and develops self-representation
of it, actively working for the ‘‘construction of its group’’ and for making this
worldview real. In this way, a class that is formed as such in social reality is a
type of group. One could, without loss, yet considering another stage in power
struggles, treat a class as formed of various groups.
In any perspective, the notion of group is always used by Bourdieu as a symbolic
reference; once a group is built, it begins to function as a ‘‘habitus matrix’’ as it

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Campos and Lima 11

creates durable dispositions in its members in benefit of the group’s ‘‘world view’’
of its symbolic capital.
Bourdieu (1982) argues that the social world is a place of permanent struggles,
mainly classification struggles, where the agents define reality. If symbolic power is
a ‘‘worldmaking’’ power (Bourdieu, 1987), then it is important to know and to
analyze the ‘‘nature’’ and meanings that are built in the categorization processes, in
the formation of the ‘‘common sense’’ of a group or a class, besides examining the
role of social interactions in these constructions.

Conclusions
The space of practices, which is present in both Bourdieu’s studies and in SRT, can
be an avenue for the study of groups and their positions in social space. On the one
hand, there is the dynamicity of a group’s social thinking, with its psychosocial,
communicational character—founding aspects of SRT. On the other hand, there is
Bourdieu’s emphasis on the practices of agents, particularly on the concept of
habitus, which he views as acquisitions and dispositions to act, thus presupposing
cognitive structures. In both cases, it seems to us that deeper studies are lacking on
group interactions in articulation with the positions of agents/groups in the social
field.
Although Doise (1992, 1993) may have advanced concerning the study of
groups’ social positions in SRT, he did so without the purpose of approaching
the history of the social field where those positions are instituted, and without
exploring the historicity and changes in the social contexts studied. Perhaps
Moscovici advanced further in this aspect of group interaction in his studies
about majorities/minorities, as he approached contradictions, conflicts, resistance,
and change, than he did in SRT. Now, in Bourdieu, it is capital to consider the
historical and political position of the agent/group in the social space by observing
current and previous struggles. Although he insists on the need to build a history of
the social field that materializes in institutions (which have groups with a social
identity that are socially known and recognized), he does not seem to privilege the
sociocognitive schemes that operate groups’ interactions in their respective social
positions, causing institutions to work whether to make them last or to change
them. In both cases, there is a symbolic space in the development and negotiation
of representations and practices that involves ‘‘groups’’ and ‘‘social positions’’ and
is still little explored.
Such approximations bring many consequences or empirical and methodo-
logical inspirations, among which we can point at least two. The first consists in
taking SRs as the symbolic form (in culture) of condensation of symbolic capital, on
two conditions: (a) that we adopt an approach to representations that is homolo-
gous in methods to Bourdieu’s, to make sure the evaluative or attributive dimension
of SRs is measured; that we take the ‘‘group’’ category based on the existence of
common, collective practices referring directly to the object represented—in other
words, that we seek to outline the group based on the common nature of

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12 Culture & Psychology 0(0)

individuals’ relations to the object (Abric, 1994). Thus, an avenue can be opened to
discuss Bourdieu’s structural homology. Once we preserve the principle by which
the distribution of capitals stems from constant struggles, the field will be occupied
by different groups, and the identification (measurement) of their reciprocal pos-
itions can be taken as an indicator of the social structure’s effect (capital distribu-
tion) on the symbolic forms of culture, including SRs.
A second path would be to try another approximation between a concept of SR
founded on a group homogeneous in its object-related practices (different from
Bourdieu’s concept of ‘‘way of life’’ and ‘‘tastes’’) and the notion of position and
semiotic mediation. It seems to us a consequence-laden idea to imagine a homo-
geneous group within a conflict situation and in a dynamic of influences (minority
versus majority) in order to observe, in communicative practices (particularly in
argumentative strategies), the processes of construction and negotiation of social
meanings. Next, the position would be measured according to the Bourdieusian
model in order to assess the impact of economic, social, cultural, and gender cap-
itals on the effects of power (and the ‘‘transformation’’—or not—of SRs) arising
from communicative practices.
In one of his texts (1998), Moscovici censures Vygotsky and Luria for their
uncreative exploitation of Durkheim’s collective representations. Without going
into that misty debate on the social determination of human knowledge, we
can situate, as stated a little earlier, the last two propositions as inspirations that
call for another, deeper approximation between S. Moscivici’s and P. Bourdieu’s
thoughts.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.Notes

Notes
1. The approach was ‘‘presented’’ as such in a 1992 study (Doise, Clemence, & Lorenzi-
Cioldi, 1992), in which no single ‘‘label’’ was posited, and it was designated sometimes as
‘‘SR quantitative approach,’’ others as ‘‘a multivariate approach to individual differ-
ences,’’ and still as ‘‘an approach to SRs as organizing principles of positions.’’
2. On this point, there is an established debate which can be illustrated by Dubet’s (1994)
position in ‘‘Sociology of Experience,’’ which states his point of view according to which
Bourdieu eventually created a ‘‘new determinism.’’
3. This particular aspect is not the object of discussion in the present article, but it is con-
nected to Bourdieu’s (1980) notion of practical sense and to the notion of activation in
SRT (Abric, 1994; Guimelli, 1993).

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Campos and Lima 13

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Author biographies
Pedro Humberto Faria Campos, Doctor on Social Psychology from the Université
de Provence, France, 1994. He is a Full Professor in the Postraduate Program in
Education at the Universidade Estácio de Sá (UNESA/Rio de Janeiro), BRAZIL.
Associate Researcher at Universidade Católica de Goiás (PUC-Goiás), BRAZIL.

Rita de Cássia Pereira Lima, Doctor on Sciences of Education from the Université
René Descartes/Paris V, France, 1992. She is an Adjunct Professor in the
Postgraduate Program in Education at the Universidade Estácio de Sá (UNESA/
Rio de Janeiro), BRAZIL.

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