Unity and fragmentation of the habitus

This paper examines a unitary notion of the habitus present in Bourdieu's early works and its transformation along his sociological career, to later conceptions of a fragmented habitus concept to examine contemporary relationality and social change. The career of the concept of habitus in Bourdieu shows that interplays of habitus and fields are seen to demand increasing labour of integration from individuals as social life becomes more differentiated. The paper claims the need for sociology to engage with field analyses to advance explorations of the habitus and to acknowledge the potential pliability of the concept. It is suggested that sociology may adopt the psychoanalytic notion of ‘standing in spaces’ (and associated notions of ‘liminality’ and experiences in interstitial positons) for a productive development of the notion of fragmented habitus, and to enhance proposals that view the social with a history that is made available to humans to change.     

Ethno-Religious Identity and Urban Malays in Malaysia

This article explores the forging of ethnic identity by urban Malays in Malaysia around a dialectic between being Islamic and being Malay. I introduce Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus and Anthony Giddens's notion of reflexivity to argue that the Islamic subject in Malaysia engages in different types of interaction which demand varying degrees of reflexivity. While Bourdieu's concept of habitus importantly reveals the actor to be a cultural agent, it denies the individual the meaningful agency that the increasing reflexivity of modernity demands. I suggest that Bourdieu's assertion that the dispositions of habitus are less than conscious does not hold true in a highly reflexive modernity. In this context, the individual is sufficiently conscious of his/her identity to be able to construct it in ways that allow it to be employed as a political weapon.     

A concise genealogy and anatomy of habitus

Retracing the philosophical origins and initial usage of habitus by Bourdieu to account for the historical disjuncture wrought by the Algerian war of national liberation and the postwar modernization of the French countryside allows us to clear up four recurrent misunderstandings about the concept: (1) habitus is never the replica of a single social structure but a dynamic, multiscalar, and multilayered set of schemata subject to ‘permanent revision’ in practice; (2) habitus is not necessarily coherent and unified but displays varying degrees of integration and tension; (3) because it is not always congruent with the cosmos in which it evolves, habitus is suited to analysing crisis and change no less than cohesion and perpetuation; but (4) it is not a self‐sufficient mechanism for the generation of action: the dissection of dispositions must always proceed in close connection with the mapping of the system of positions that alternately excite, suppress, or redirect the socially constituted capacities and inclinations of the agent. Crucially, in Bourdieu's hands, habitus is not an abstract concept issued from and aimed at theoretical disquisition, but a stenographic manner of designating a research posture that puts the genetic mode of thinking at the heart of social analysis.     

Homology and isomorphism: Bourdieu in conversation with New Institutionalism

Bourdieusian Field Theory (BFT) provided decisive inspiration for the early conceptual formulation of New Institutionalism (NI). This paper attempts to reinvigorate the stalled intellectual dialogue between NI and BFT by comparing NI's concept of isomorphism with BFT's notion of homology. I argue that Bourdieu's understanding of domination‐oriented social action, transposable habitus, and a non‐linear causality, embodied in his neglected concept of homology, provides an alternative theorization of field‐level convergence to New Institutionalism's central idea of institutional isomorphism. To showcase how BFT can be useful for organizational research, I postulate a habitus‐informed and field‐conditioned theory of transference to enrich NI's spin‐off thesis of ‘diffusion’. I propose that while NI can benefit from BFT's potential of bringing social structure back into organizational research, BFT can enrich its social analysis by borrowing from NI's elaboration of the symbolic system of organizations.     

Interpersonal trust and voluntary associations: examining three approaches

The relationship between interpersonal trust and membership in voluntary associations is a persistent research finding in sociology. What is more, the notion of trust has become a central issue in current social science theorizing covering such diverse approaches as transaction costs economics or cognitive sociology. In different ways and for different purposes, these approaches address the role of voluntary organizations, although, as this paper argues, much of this thinking remains sketchy and underdeveloped. Against an empirical portrait of this relationship, the purpose of this paper is to assess such theorizing. We first set out to explicate major approaches to trust in economics, sociology and political science, using the non-profit or voluntary organization as a focal point. We then examine the various approaches in terms of their strengths and weaknesses, and, finally, identify key areas for theoretical development. In particular, we point to the social movement literature, the social psychology of trust, and recent thinking about civil society.     

Elias and habitus: explaining bureaucratisation processes in the Gaelic Athletic Association

Based on a case study of the Gaelic Athletic Association in Ireland, this paper examines how bureaucratisation advanced and the specific structure it took. Drawing on Elias's concept of habitus, and the wider theoretical framework that informs it, the paper explains how an ambivalent attitude amongst the organisation's administrators towards volunteerism emerged and became deeply sedimented within the habitus of administrators. Over time, the habitus of administrators also became more self-steering. This more self-restrained habitus facilitated a capacity for greater calculation, foresight and coordination, a necessary precondition for more expansive bureaucratisation. As such, the main contribution of this paper is to expand existing theoretical explanations of bureaucratisation by connecting shifting inter- and intra-organisational interdependencies at different planes of integration with habitus change.     

Inventing the axial age: the origins and uses of a historical concept

The concept of the axial age, initially proposed by the philosopher Karl Jaspers to refer to a period in the first millennium BCE that saw the rise of major religious and philosophical figures and ideas throughout Eurasia, has gained an established position in a number of fields, including historical sociology, cultural sociology, and the sociology of religion. We explore whether the notion of an “axial age” has historical and intellectual cogency, or whether the authors who use the label of a more free-floating “axiality” to connote varied “breakthroughs” in human experience may have a more compelling case. Throughout, we draw attention to ways in which uses of the axial age concept in contemporary social science vary in these and other respects. In the conclusion, we reflect on the value of the concept and its current uses and their utility in making sense of human experience.     

Habitus,social elevation,and the channel of shame‐fear: The decision to expand Guinness advertising

This article explains the relationship between social habitus, social mobility and shame feelings using Elias's theoretical frame of figurational sociology. Much work to date has centred on Bourdieu's theoretical formulations and while there are clear parallels with Elias, significant differences exist. Elias identified how shame functions as a key channel for the transmission of social tensions generated by the structure of social relations into the social habitus of individuals. We explain how apparently rational decision‐making in organisations obscures the emotional dynamics of shame and fear connected with processes of social elevation, habitus change and shifting power relations between social classes. Our empirical case concerns the brewer Arthur Guinness & Sons Ltd and the decision in 1927 to sanction a direct advertising campaign in Britain for the first time.     

Caregiving, ethical and informal: emerging challenges in the sociology of health and illness

The concept of care, integral to medical sociology and to the sociology of health and illness, suggests new challenges in two key areas of this field: 1) within professional socialization, an examination of socialization to ethical thinking, behavior, and identity among professional caregivers, building on the substantial literature already accumulated; 2) in the arena of hidden or informal care providers, an analysis of male and female informal providers and the productive work, other than care, done by these individuals. In both analyses, as well as in all medical sociology and sociology of health and illness, gender, race, and class require more attention. Both analytic endeavors influence the substance and the contours of the field.     

The strength of weak programs in cultural sociology: A critique of Alexander’s critique of Bourdieu

Jeffrey Alexander’s recent book on cultural sociology argues that sociologists must grant the realm of ideas autonomy to determine behavior, unencumbered by interference from instrumental or material factors. He criticizes the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu as “weak” for failing to give autonomy to culture by reducing it to self-interested behavior that immediately reflects class position. However, Alexander’s arguments seriously distort and misstate Bourdieu’s theory, which provides for the relative autonomy of culture through the concepts of habitus and field. Because habitus is a set of durable dispositions conditioned by past structures, it may contradict the changed structures of the present. Further, the influence of the habitus is always mediated by the structure and strategies of the field of contest in which it is deployed, so that the same habitus may motivate different actions in different circumstances. However, Alexander is correct to argue that in Bourdieu’s theory culture generally serves to reproduce, not contradict social structures. Yet Bourdieu addresses this and other problems in his later work, in which he argues for the existence of certain cultural universals transcending particular structures.

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Conflicts in the habitus: the emotional work of becoming modern

This article argues that Bourdieu's concept of habitus, and, in particular, the way habitus is transmitted intergenerationally, can be enhanced by considering conflictual conscious and unconscious processes that emerge in relationships. We suggest that Christopher Bollas's discussions of the ‘unthought known’ and of ‘transformational objects’ add relational depth to the concept of habitus and thus contribute to developing a more psycho‐social understanding of the relation between agency and change. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with a socially mobile chain of a middle‐class grandmother, mother and daughter in a period of rapid change, we describe how conflicts in the habitus are produced relationally and can either impede or motivate desires for change. Relational and object relational psychoanalytic theories offer a way to move beyond what we consider a problem in Bourdieu's theory of habitus that derives from his assumption of a subject who either consciously opts for change in habitus when faced with new social demands or non‐consciously and unconflictually reproduces habitus.     

SO,HOW DID BOURDIEU LEARN TO PLAY TENNIS? HABITUS,CONSCIOUSNESS AND HABITUATION

Bourdieu's development of the notion of ‘habitus’ has proved a rich vein for cultural theory. Habitus has been useful, with the growing interest in processes of embodiment, in countering the cognitive and representational bias in much cultural analysis, and in providing a basis for avoiding the dualisms - of mind and body, structure and agency - that trouble social theory. However, in stressing the unconscious nature of embodiment, and refusing to engage with the question of consciousness, an implicit form of mechanistic determinism has crept into Bourdieu"s implementation of habitus. By returning to the Spinozan monism that informs Bourdieu's work, this paper elaborates a productive conceptualization of habitus that attends to the various intensities of consciousness, the relations between multiple mind-bodies and processes of habituation through a focus on the literature of sports training.     

Ecological embeddedness: An interrogation and refinement of the concept within the context of alternative food networks in the UK

Among their many ‘alternative’ characteristics, food networks that seek to reconfigure the relationship between producers and consumers are understood as having the potential to be beneficial for the rural environment and landscape. One of the ways in which this characteristic has been conceptualised is through the notion of ‘ecological embeddedness’. Although the roots of this concept lie in economic sociology, where the social embeddedness of economic relations has been the focus of interest, agro-food researchers have extended its meaning to suggest that alternative or ‘quality’ food production can also be seen as increasingly embedded in ‘natural’ or ecological processes. However, this paper argues that until now the notion of ecological embeddedness has lacked conceptual clarity. As such, the aim is to interrogate and refine the concept of embeddedness, specifically as it pertains to ecologies within the context of food production on-farm. Ecological embeddedness, it is argued, must encompass more than just recognition of the general influence of the natural environment on economic activity. Specifically, it must reflect a change in the relations between economic actors and the natural environment that produces a benefit to both. The paper also establishes how the concept of ecological embeddedness might be operationalised in research practice as a means of exploring the ecological dimensions of alternative food networks. An illustration of this empirical application is provided. The paper concludes by asserting the value of ecological embeddedness as a concept, in spite of the observed limitations of embeddedness in other contexts and the challenges that are associated with its ecological application.     

Relational sociology and culture: a preliminary framework

In this paper I outline a framework for a relational sociology of culture. I begin by briefly defining relational sociology and contrasting it with both individualistic and holistic alternatives. Culture, I suggest, is an inherently relational concept and needs to be theorised and analysed as such. This argument is briefly elaborated through a discussion of the generation and diffusion of culture by way of interaction and social networks. The respective contributions of Tarde, Durkheim, Merleau-Ponty, and Wittgenstein are given particular attention. In the final part of the paper I introduce and discuss Howard Becker's notion of ‘art worlds’, drawing out and elaborating upon its relational foundations whilst also further developing it through a more sustained reflection upon both the facilitative potential of social networks and their shaping, as hypothesised by Peter Blau (and developed by Miller McPherson and Noah Mark), by way of homophilic attraction in ‘social space’. The paper covers a lot of ground and is intended as a sketch which subsequent work will fill out.     

Why the Sociology of Morality Needs Bourdieu's Habitus*

Though Pierre Bourdieu has been criticized for ignoring the moral dimensions of social judgments, I suggest that his habitus concept can provide a useful theoretical foundation for a sociological analysis of morality. If the habitus is revised in a way that recognizes the embodied nature of cognition, it can be treated as a foundation for moral judgments of the self and of others. A revised habitus concept can account for two processes by which moral judgments are shaped by social settings: (1) cultural influences on feelings and expressions of emotion; and (2) the ways moral metaphors are structured by embodied cognitive schemas. In both processes, universal bodily operations are employed in different configurations across cultural settings. I argue that a modified habitus concept that can account for these phenomena has significant implications for the sociological analysis of lay morality.     

THE SOCIAL REALITY OF PERSPECTIVES: ON G.H. MEAD'S POTENTIAL RELEVANCE FOR THE ANALYSIS OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIETIES

Mead's rarely explored notion of an “objective reality of perspectives” serves as a point of departure for a discussion of the implications of his work for general sociological theory and the analysis of contemporary societies. The epistemological background is explored to the point where sociology can be viewed as pragmatist mode of response to the inevitable relativity of knowledge. Mead's well known theory of identity formation plays an essential role in this context. The concept of perspective may serve as bridge for a generalization of the notion of identity in order to demonstrate the genuine sociological character of Mead's work. Illustrations are provided of the potential inherent in Mead's thought for research and to the study of contemporary societies. Finally sociology itself is conceived as a special kind of perspective, concerned with the inevitable perspectivity of human behavior.     

Abandoned not: media sociology as a networked transfield

ABSTRACT

The relationship between the disciplines of communication and sociology has been primarily described as being abandoned by sociologists. This article historicizes the alleged sociological abandonment of communication and media research and centers on media sociology as the key manifestation of an ongoing vibrant relationship between the two disciplines. It has two goals. First, I examine the contours of the abandonment notion since Berelson vs. Schramm, Riesman, and Bauer in Public Opinion Quarterly in 1959. I demonstrate the diversity and the depth of media sociology and argue that an US-centric positivist understanding of media sociology has led to the exaggerated and misleading notion of abandonment, which homogenizes theoretical discourse and discounts scholarly contributions from outside of the US. Personal and collective memories have also documented institutional and organizational growth of media sociology. Second, I propose to conceptualize media sociology as a networked transfield driven by questions transcending disciplinary little boxes. Rather than returning to the Lazarsfeldian media effect paradigm, media sociology as a networked transfield driven by questions will allows scholars take advantage of structural holes for synthesis and innovation.     

Everyday shame

This article explores aspects of the everyday through a consideration of shame. Drawing on and extending Bourdieu’s notion of the habitus, notably in relationship to Silvan Tomkins’ affect theory, and to Bourdieu’s predecessor Marcel Mauss, the paper argues for the positivity of everyday shame. The very different although complementary privileging of the physiological in Tomkins and in Mauss allows for a radical rearticulation and understanding of the habitus and of everyday life. In this article, their understandings serve to provide a model that more fully comprehends the productive nature of shame within postcolonial societies.