
The stake of these struggles is the construction of spatially based homogeneous groupings, that is, segregation that is both cause and effect of the exclusive usage of a space. The structure of the spatial distribution of powers records the balance of social struggles over the profits of space, which are waged individually (as indicated by mobility) and collectively (through political contests over housing policy, for instance). There is no space that does not express social hierarchies and distances in a more or less distorted fashion, especially through the effect of naturalization associated with the durable inscription of social realities in the physical world. The structure of social space manifests itself, in the most diverse contexts, in the form of spatial oppositions, appropriated physical space functioning as a spontaneous metaphor for the social order. 1996) and Pascalian Meditations (1997, trans.


1988), The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Artistic Field (1992, trans. 1977), Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (1979, trans. 1977), Outline of a Theory of Practice (1972, trans. Among them are Reproduction in Education, Society, and Culture (1970, trans. He is the author of numerous classics of social science. Pierre Bourdieu held the Chair of Sociology at the Collège de France, where he directed the Center for European Sociology, the journal Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, and the publishing house Raisons d'Agir Éditions until his passing in 2002.


It was originally prepared for presentation at the Russell Sage/Maison des Sciences de l'Homme conference on ‘Poverty, Immigration and Urban Marginality in Advanced Societies’, Maison des Science de l'Homme, Maison Suger, Paris, 10–, under the title ‘Social space, symbolic space and appropriated physical space’. This 1991 essay was translated and edited by Loïc Wacquant.
