Ancient Individuals and Bourdieu in Context: A Historical Anthropological Response

Abstract This brief response article aims at addressing some of the themes covered in the main articles of this special issue of the Journal of Ancient History , “Social Biographies of the Ancient World,” from the perspective of historical anthropology. The emphasis is on the relevance of cultural variability for understanding historical situations, especially those coming from ancient contexts, and considering also the kind of textual and epigraphic sources we dispose of. The Bourdieuian approach to ancient historical contexts is understood within the contributions that the discipline of anthropology has made to historiography, particularly during the 1960 s and 1970 s and with regard to microhistorical approaches and other anthropologically influenced perspectives in history-writing.