Muriel Darmon

The Fifth Element: Social Class and the Sociology of Anorexia

Epidemiological research has identified a significant association between upper- or middle-class membership and a womans probability of becoming anorexic, but the extant literature has yet to address the social processes underlying this association. In order to fill this gap, this article frames anorexia as a deviant career that entails the adoption of an anorexic set of practices and orientations that may be recognized as a distinctive type of Bourdieuian habitus. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviews conducted in France, this article argues that the set of practices and orientations acquired through an anorexic career builds upon practices and orientations clearly identified with middle- and upper-class status.

Bourdieu and psychoanalysis: an empirical and textual study of a pas de deux

This paper aims to elucidate some of the similarities between the Bourdieusian and a psychoanalytical approach to understand the individual and the social, and to describe Bourdieus relation to psychoanalysis. The paper begins by reflecting upon the way a research on anorexia was received and perceived by some psychiatrists and psychoanalysts. Such a case study puts into light several analogies between Bourdieus theoretical position, his epistemological style and psychoanalysis. Then, some texts by Bourdieu, especially a discussion with the psychoanalyst and sociologist Jacques Maître, are analysed in order to further explore Bourdieus position vis-à-vis psychoanalysis and to assess the influence of psychoanalysis on his conception of the individual habitus. Finally, the paper discusses the possible contradictions arising between these borrowings and the principles of Bourdieusian epistemology. The paper thus suggests that the Bourdieusian approach is better analysed as a ‘sociologization’ of psychoanalysis rather than as an approach complementing or integrating psychoanalysis.

A people thinning institution: Changing bodies and souls in a commercial weight-loss group

Some institutions use people as the material for their action and have the project of transforming individuals. This article aims to show that a commercial weight-loss group, insofar as its explicit aim is to make members lose weight, is a genuine ‘people changing institution’, or more specifically a ‘people thinning institution’. Based on a 14-month ethnographic study of a commercial weight-loss group, this article analyses how such an organization operates. The article shows that it relies on specific modes of surveillance aimed at controlling the participants’ attitudes and behaviours, and insists on the role played by writing and written materials as key tools in enforcing body discipline. It also argues that the change at issue is class-oriented, and more precisely is one oriented towards the middle and upper regions of the social space. These findings have implications for research on institutions, socialization and individual change.

Drafting the ‘time space’. Attitudes towards time among prep school students

ABSTRACT This article investigates the ‘time space’, defined following Bourdieu as a set of distinct and coexisting attitudes toward time related to individuals’ social positions. Based on an ethnographic study of French ‘prep schools’ (classes préparatoires aux Grandes écoles), it sheds light on the specific temporal culture of these schools (the routinization of urgency and ‘temporal panic’) but shows the existence of different attitudes toward time among students. These variations can then be explained by the volume of capital possessed by students, thus differentiating those who can ‘master time’ and those who ‘suffer’ it. But the article also aims at unveiling ‘timestyles’ which, like lifestyles, would be connected to the compositions of students’ capital (economic versus cultural) and not only to its volume.