Amín Pérez 
Bourdieu and Sayad Against Empire 
Forging Sociology in Anticolonial Struggle

Pierre Bourdieu and Abdelmalek Sayad met in their twenties in the midst of the Algerian war of independence. From their first meeting, a strong intellectual friendship was born between the French philosopher and the activist from the colony, nourished by the same desire to understand the world in order to change it.

The work of both men was driven by the necessity of putting knowledge to use, whether by unveiling the relations of domination that structured life in Algeria or by opening emancipatory perspectives for the Algerian people. Colonies were, of course, a customary site of ethnographic work, but Bourdieu and Sayad refused to sacrifice scientific rigor to political expediency, even as Algeria descended deeper into war. Indeed, the act of understanding as a political commitment to the transformation of society lay at the heart of their project.

Based on extensive interviews and deep archival work, Amín Pérez rediscovers the anticolonial origins of the pathbreaking social thought of these brilliant thinkers. Bourdieu and Sayad, he argues, forged another way of doing politics, laying the foundations of a revolutionary pedagogy, not just for anticolonial liberation but for true social emancipation.

Table of Content

Part One: Sociology as Emancipation

Chapter 1: The Origins of Subversive Knowledge

Chapter 2: Resisting in War-torn Algeria

Chapter 3: A Sociology of the Colonial Order

Part Two: Liberation through Knowledge

Chapter 4: Listening, Observing, and Testifying in Times of War

Chapter 5: Renewing the Social Sciences out of Political Necessity

Chapter 6: From Colonial Liberation to Social Emancipation

Conclusion

About the author

Amín Pérez is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Université du Québec à Montréal.