Rethinking Social Emancipation through Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu

Abstract

This article analyses the conceptions of power, knowledge, and social emancipation in Michael Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu, with the aim of identifying intellectual tools useful for overcoming situations of inequality and domination. For Foucault, social reality is an effect of scientific discourse, which tends to be linked to political and hegemonic interests. He reveals the historically contingent nature of established truths and pretends to give voice to the dominated. In contrast, Bourdieu envisions a social science ruled by its own internal principles, free from political and economic interests. In this way, science can unmask the mechanisms through which dominant groups present their interests as the general interest. Both authors, however, highlight the interrelation between social practices and knowledge, and advocate for alternative cognitive constructions that denaturalise existing social classifications.