Pierre Bourdieu on the Study of Religion: Field, Habitus, and Symbolic Capital Introduction: Sociology as Social Topography Pierre Bourdieu's (1930-2002) approach to the study of religion is not a separate "sociology of religion" in the classical sense. It is the application of his universal analytical tool — the theory of practices and concepts of field, habitus, and capitals — to the religious phenomenon. For Bourdieu, religion is not just a system of beliefs or an answer to existential questions, but a specific social space ("field") in which the struggle for monopoly over the production and distribution of religious goods (salvation, meaning, legitimacy) unfolds. His analysis lifts the veil of sanctity from religion, revealing it as a field of competitive struggle for symbolic power. Key Concepts: Field, Habitus, Capital To understand religion in a Bourdieuian way, it is necessary to clarify his general theory. Religious field is a relatively autonomous space of social relations, where various agents (priests, prophets, church hierarchs, lay activists, sectarians) occupy different positions and compete with each other. The struggle is for monopoly over the legitimate exercise of power over the sacred, that is, the right to determine what is "correct" faith, ritual, morality. This field is structured around the opposition of official salvation specialists (church hierarchy) vs. profanes (laypeople), and within the church itself — between orthodoxy and heresy, conservatives and reformers. Religious habitus is a system of dispositions (stable schemes of perception, thinking, and action) incorporated (built into the body and psyche) by an individual through long-term participation in religious practice. This is not conscious knowledge of dogmas, but "religious intuition," "practical feeling" of the believer: how to behave in a temple, how to pray, how to distinguish "theirs" from "ours," what to consider a sin. Habitus produces practices that, in turn, reprodu ... Read more