Norbert Elias and the civilized prison

This paper employs an Eliasian perspective to provide an historical overview to the contemporary crisis in British prisons. It argues that some of the roots of this crisis lie within the very attempts to bring prison development in line with the cultural values of modern society.     

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.     

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.     

A habitus of instability: youth homelessness and instability

This research introduces the concept of a habitus of insecurity to account for the lives of homeless young people. It outlines how conditions of existence are internalised and how homeless young people come to expect and in turn recreate instability in their lives. This research addresses the internalisation and naturalisation of experiences of instability, insecurity and marginalisation and how people can come to subjectively aspire to what they are socialised to see as objectively probable or ‘for the likes of them'. The research draws on ethnographic research and participant observation to examine the complex lives of homeless young people and how they are shaped by instability and insecurity inculcated before, during and after experiences of homelessness. This research highlights that people should not be defined merely by their experiences of homelessness of housing status, but by the complex array of conditions that shape their lives.     

Capital,distinction, and racialized habitus: immigrant youth in the educational field

Chinese Canadian youth are usually represented as a model minority and are therefore rendered invisible in identity debates. Drawing on Bourdieu's concepts of capital, field, habitus, and distinction, this paper examines how racism affects the identity construction of Chinese youth in different school fields. Particularly, I raise and discuss a theoretical concept, racialized habitus, which is manifested as both intergroup exclusion and intragroup distinction. This theorization is grounded in interview data with 36 first- and second-generation Chinese Canadian youth in Alberta, Canada. This study indicates the continuing significance of research on racism. It calls for challenging racism as an act of distinction, habitus, and action, as well as a discursive practice of discourse.     

Class habitus and perception of the future: recession,employment insecurity and temporality

This paper examines the consequences of the recent economic downturn and UK government spending cuts, as exacerbations of prevailing trends in neoliberal employment policy, on temporal perception, specifically as it relates to the adaptation of subjective anticipations of and projections into the future to objective prospects of unemployment by class. Grounded in a phenomenologically‐minded Bourdieusian conceptualization of class and time and contextualized by statistics on chances of job loss, it draws on qualitative research with 57 individuals from across the class structure to chart differing dispositions toward the future. In particular, it distinguishes three orientations – the future as controllable, the future as uncontrollable and the future as reasonably controllable – which appear to correspond with resources possessed.     

Queer habitus: bodily performance and queer ethnography in Lebanon

Based on ethnographic and theoretical material, this article focuses on the interaction of queer bodies within particular urban spaces in Beirut. By highlighting bodily performances that challenge normative behaviour in contemporary Lebanon, the article makes a case for the production of a queer habitus, which finds itself expressed in different ways that all emphasise the importance of bodily and mental dispositions of queer individuals in forming their own gender and class identities.     

Symbolic violence and the neighbourhood: the educational aspirations of 7-8 year old working-class girls

This article focuses on the experiences of 7-8 year old working-class girls in Belfast, Northern Ireland and their attitudes towards education. It shows how their emerging identities tend to emphasize relationships, marriage and motherhood at the expense of a concern with education and future careers. The article suggests that one important factor that can help explain this is the influence of the local neighbourhood. In drawing upon Bourdieu's concepts of symbolic violence and habitus and Elias' notion of figuration, the article shows how the local neighbourhood represents the parameters of the girls' social worlds. It provides the context within which the girls tend to focus on social relations within their community and particularly on family relationships, marriage and children. It also provides the context within which the girls tend to develop strong interdependent relationships with their mothers that also tend to encourage and reinforce the girls' particular gendered identities. The article concludes by arguing that there is a need for more research on working-class girls and education to look beyond the school to incorporate, more fully, an understanding of the influence of the family and local neighbourhood on their attitudes towards education and their future career aspirations.     

Ilya Neustadt, Norbert Elias, and the Leicester Department: personal correspondence and the history of sociology in Britain

The central aims of this paper are: (1) to explore the utility of using personal correspondence as a source of data for sociological investigations into the history of sociology in the UK; (2) in relation to this undertaking, to advance the beginnings of a figurational analysis of epistolary forms; and (3), to provide an empirically-grounded discussion of the historical significance of the Department of Sociology at the University of Leicester (a University largely ignored in 'standard histories' of the subject) at a formative phase in the development of the discipline within the UK. The correspondence drawn upon in the paper is between Norbert Elias and Ilya Neustadt between 1962 and 1964 when Elias was Professor of Sociology at the University of Ghana and Ilya Neustadt was Professor of Sociology and Head of the Sociology Department at the University of Leicester. From an analysis of this correspondence, we elucidate an emergent dynamic to the relationship between Neustadt and Elias, one which, we argue, undergirds the development of sociology at Leicester and the distinctive character of the intellectual climate that prevailed there during the 1960s. The paper concludes with a consideration of whether it was a collapse of this dynamic that led to a total breakdown in the relationship between Neustadt and Elias, and by extension, an important phase in the expansion of sociology at Leicester.     

Dual language contexts in social work practice: the Gaelic in the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar region (Outer Hebrides,Scotland) and Spanish in the Southwestern United States

This paper addresses the complex historical/political scenarios of Spanish-speaking people in the Southwestern USA and of Gaelic speakers in the Outer Hebrides. It examines (1) the historical background and current status of Spanish in the Southwestern USA and Gaelic in the Outer Hebrides; (2) comparative issues in relation to the use of dual languages; and (3) the challenges that communication in more than one prevalent language present to social work service providers. It is based on field research in the Southwestern USA (primarily Arizona) and the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar region (Outer Hebrides, Scotland). While these two areas might appear totally different, the commonalities created by English as the default but not always the primary language of clients in both settings make the comparisons intriguing.     

Reflexive habits: dating and rationalized conduct in New York and Berlin

This paper builds on the work of Norbert Elias to examine how conduct varies across cultural contexts. We compare courtship practices in New York and Berlin and ask how people act during the course of ‘getting together’ with a sexual or romantic partner. Drawing on interviews in both contexts, we find that conduct associated with the practice of ‘dating’ among New York respondents is more rationalized as indicated by a greater awareness of timing, a greater degree of intentionality and planning and a greater tendency to psychologize self and others. Berlin respondents report observations of themselves and others in less detail and tend to describe themselves as passive objects of the impersonal forces of love. Whereas conduct associated with dating is more reflexive in some ways, these forms of reflexive conduct are not themselves fully conscious or the object of reflection but have in turn become taken for granted and habitual. These findings challenge us to conceptualize habitus in a manner that does not reproduce the opposition between habit and reflexivity but allows us to use the concept as a tool to capture variations in how self‐monitoring and habit are combined in modes of conduct.     

Fish, field, habitus and madness: the first wave mental health users movement in Great Britain

This paper traces and explains the emergence of the mental health users movement in Great Britain, focusing specifically upon the formation of the Mental Patients Union in the early 1970s. The analysis presented in the paper draws, to some extent, from conventional movement theory. In addition, however, it draws from the work of Pierre Bourdieu. This represents an innovation in movement analysis and the necessity of this innovation is argued for in an early section of the paper.     

Between martyrology and historiography: Elias Tcherikower and the making of a pogrom historian

This article examines the dialectical relationship between martyrology and historiography, religion and secularism in the works of the Russian‐Jewish historian and communal activist, Elias Tcherikower. Tcherikower, although a disciple of Shimon Dubnov, who maintained a commitment to a positive portrayal of Jewish life in the Diaspora, championed what Salo Baron called “the lachrymose conception of Jewish history,” the view that understood Jewish history as consisting primarily of a series of persecutions. From World War One onward, Tcherikower romanticised Jewish martyrs and argued that religious and cultural renaissance followed on the heels of persecution and martyrdom. This preoccupation with the relationship between Jewish martyrdom and cultural creativity inspired Tcherikower first in his role as an historian of the pogroms of the Russian Civil War and then as a leader of YIVO. Until the eve of World War Two, Tcherikower believed that modern Yiddish scholarship served the same transcendent purpose as had Torah study in the past and that Jewish historiography could inspire the Jewish people in the same manner as had pre‐modern martyrology. Tcherikower’s work thus provides a fascinating case study of the persistence of traditional religious conceptions in twentieth‐century East European nationalist Jewish historiography.     

Identity,accent aim,and motivation in second language users: New Scottish Gaelic speakers’ use of phonetic variation

This paper examines the use of phonetic variation in word‐final rhotics among nineteen adult new speakers of Scottish Gaelic, i.e. speakers who did not acquire the language through intergenerational transmission. Our speakers learned Gaelic as adults and are now highly advanced users of the language. We consider variation in their rhotic productions compared to the productions of six older, traditional speakers. Previous approaches to variation in second language users have either focussed on how variable production will eventually result in native‐like ‘target’ forms (Type 1 study), or have investigated the extent to which second language users reproduce patterns of variation similar to ‘native speakers’ (Type 2 study). We additionally draw on sociocultural approaches to Second Language Acquisition and apply notions of accent aim, identity construction, and learning motivation in order to fully explore the data. In doing so, we advocate a ‘Type 3’ approach to variation in second language users.     

The History and Status of Social Workers in the American Psychoanalytic Association

Historic changes within the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) in the 1980s eventually allowed social workers and other non-medical professionals to train in clinical psychoanalysis as regular “candidates”. The steps to work through organizational resistance to this change are traced. The present level of activity of those analysts who began as social workers is discussed, with numeric data showing expansion of involvement in training and organizational life. Analysts with a background in social work are beginning to make significant positive contributions to APsaA. There is a more rapid pace of inclusion of analysts from social work in the governance side of APsaA than the educational. The ultimate impact on the organization is difficult to anticipate.

The barbarism of civilization: cultural genocide and the 'stolen generations'

Norbert Elias suggested that 'civilization' involves the transformation of human habitus so that violence of all sorts is gradually subjected to greater and more sophisticated forms of management and control, whereas 'decivilization' encompasses processes which produce an increase in violence and a breakdown in the stability and consistency of on-going social relations. What remains unexplored is the extent to which 'civilizing offensives', the self-conscious attempts to bring about 'civilization', have revolved around essentially violent policies and practices. This paper examines the systematic removal of indigenous Australian children from their families, largely for the social engineering purpose of the gradual and systematic annihilation of Aboriginal cultural identity. At the time, these policies and practices were constructed by most observers as contributing to the 'welfare' of Australian Aborigines, and this intersection of welfare and violence raises the possibility that civilization and decivilization, rather than being different processes which may or may not run alongside each other, interpenetrate each other so that, under certain circumstances, societies are 'barbaric' precisely in their movement towards increasing civilization. It may also be possible to describe the move away from the systematic removal of Aboriginal children since the 1970s as itself part of a civilizing process, an increasing recognition of the human rights of Australian Aborigines and of the inhumanity of those policies and practices. The paper concludes by addressing the implications for theories of civilization and decivilization, as well as more generally for our contemporary understanding of what it means to be a 'civilized' modern citizen.     

Professionalising social work in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan: processes and implications

This paper critically discusses the development of social work in Jordan. It introduces a range of social, cultural and political circumstances in Jordan, and the consequent strategies adopted in the process towards the professionalisation of social work and the growth of social work interventions with individuals, families and communities. The paper also considers lessons learned and some of the implications of professionalising social work that are also relevant for other human services engaged in international development.     

Social workers and social action: a case study of the Australian Association of Social Workers' Victorian branch

Professional social work associations have long espoused at least a rhetorical commitment to promoting more equitable social policy outcomes. Yet too often the actions have failed to live up to the rhetoric. This article explores the social action history of the Victorian state branch of the Australian Association of Social Workers. Attention is drawn both to the highlights and lowlights of the branch's social policy interventions. The problematic nature of social action is attributed to a number of factors including deficits in skills, resources, and education. Practical suggestions are made as to how the AASW might establish a more effective social policy network in the future.     

Exaggerated femininity and tortured masculinity: embodying gender in the horseracing industry

Most of the young people enrolling on modern apprenticeships in the horse racing industry are women and many hope to become jockeys. The majority of those who realise these ambitions are, however, men. This paper explores this process of attrition, focussing on gendered embodiment and its relation to the development of the bodily hexis and habitus characteristic of the racing field. We argue that women engage in the bodily labour of engenderment in a context of hostility and harassment and that they develop a contradictorily gendered habitus which brings together attributes which are culturally associated with both masculinity and femininity. In order to achieve this they subject themselves to a disciplining and punishing of the body which creates a ‘tortured’ masculinity. Female bodies are, however, ‘imprisoned’ by the workings of the habitus and, within the racing field, their bodies are read as weak, not fit for hard work and as more suited to an office (or home) than a race horse. These embodied processes and practices place them at a severe disadvantage and result in women being a very small minority of jockeys.