Bourdieusian conception of the state, migrants and radical democracy in the reflexive sociology of Abdelmalek Sayad

Abstract

Abdelmalek Sayad’s sociology of migration can be interpreted as an eminent form of reflexive political sociology and has more than one connection with Bourdieu’s conception of the state as state thought and the sociological-political approach outlined by the French sociologist. Firstly, by placing migrants as the unthought limit of the state, Sayad questions and challenges the classifications of state thought that present it as a homogeneous reality almost ontologically linked to the nation. On the other hand, it will be shown how the restructuring of national political fields around the national/non-national opposition, already noted by Bourdieu in the 1990s, reintroduces the theme of reformulation, in contrast to the current trend, of a radical-democratic approach. Finally, the latter should be able to deconstruct the non-essential link between state and nation from a juridical point of view (as Hans Kelsen pointed out) and thus render the discriminatory prerogatives imprinted in traditional national sovereignty unfounded.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2026 · DOI ↗