About the Lecture

In this paper I will explore Bourdieu’s concept of illusio and examine various moment where I found it helpful in thinking my ethnographic material with it. The examples will highlight the various potentialities and meanings of this analytical concept. I aim to exhibit the way theory can be deployed to illuminate ethnographic material but also the importance of theoretical flexibility and the way theoretical concepts are transformed and expanded in contact with ethnography.

About the Speaker

Ghassan Hage is professor of anthropology and social theory at the University of Melbourne. His research and writing is on the anthropology of nationalism, racism and multiculturalism, on the anthropology of transnational Lebanese migration, and on critical anthropological theory, with a particular interest in the work of Pierre Bourdieu. His most recent works are Alter-Politics: Critical Anthropological Thought and the Radical Imagination (2015) and Is Racism an Environmental Threat? (2017).

Presented by

School of Archaeology & Anthropology
College of Arts & Social Sciences

School of Culture, History and Language
College of Asia and the Pacific