Social Magic: on an Unnoticed Concept of Pierre Bourdieu

Abstract

This article is an attempt to sequentially explicate and reconceptualize the term «social magic» in the dictionary of Pierre Bourdieu. «Social magic», arising in the Bourdieu system of concepts in the context of an attempt to describe acts of symbolic power and inheriting the conceptualization of Marcel Mauss’ magic, is a multi-valued term; it is hard to say with certainty whether it is a metaphor, another name for this or that concept of reflexive sociology, or an independent distinctive figure. The article substantiates the assumption that social magic is an autonomous and effective concept of reflexive sociology, which allows us to describe phenomena that are beyond the focus of the concepts of «acts of institution» and «symbolic power». Firstly, the author shows which particular set of fragments of Pierre Bourdieu can be used to explicate the concept of social magic. The boundaries in which the question of social magic and its localization in the system of concepts of Pierre Bourdieu can be asked are described and described. Secondly, «social magic» is explicated and reconceptualized on the basis of using Judith Butler’s performative theory and tracing the connections between Marcel Mauss’ conceptualization of magic and Bourdieu’s conceptualization of social magic. Thirdly, an attempt is made to show what place such interpretation of social magic can occupy in the system of concepts of reflective sociology: it is assumed that Mauss’ conceptualization of magic does not only funds conceptualization of «social magic» as a concept, but also indirectly affects the concept of participant objectivation, acting as the theoretical—or metaphorical—unconscious of conceptualization of the role of a sociologist in Bourdieu’s system.