Intellectuals, culture, and politics put to the test by sociology: an interview with Gisèle Sapiro

Abstract

Interview with the French sociologist Gisèle Sapiro,  which began in February 2025 in Paris and concluded in August of the same year in Campinas.  In the conversation, the sociologist addresses central aspects of her career, such as her relationship with Pierre Bourdieu, as well as her intellectual  production. Sapiro discusses decisive moments in the French intellectual scene, such as the role of the ehess and journals in the intellectual disputes of the European country, or the specificities of Bourdieu’s engagement against neoliberalism in the 1990s. She also addresses the relationships between autonomy  and politicization, between the form of positions taken and the content of intellectuals’ ideas, and,  even more so, the transformations in the links  between fields, particularly between the fields of  cultural production, the field of power, and the dominant economic logic – themes she has analyzed in some of her works. Furthermore, the (unpublished) speech by Pierre Bourdieu at the  ceremony awarding the CNRS bronze medal to Gisèle Sapiro in 2000 is published as an appendix.