Transnational habitus at the time of retirement

ABSTRACT

International mobility requires the shifting of bodies across places, through life courses and stages, creating individual and collective experiences that become taken for granted. They are habitus, which is the durable deployment of an individual’s body in the world, as well as a scheme of perception, thought and action that is present throughout life, including retirement. This study asks what kind of transnational habitus is visible in the narratives of interviewed older adults at the time of retirement. The answer is sought by analysing life stories of mobility from older adults who live or have lived abroad for several years. The multilocal transnational habitus of interviewees rests on their desire to maintain their mobility when retired. However, both their physical and mental international mobility are at risk when faced with an ailing body and mind, and policies allow and restrict the transferability of benefits and accessibility to services.     

Habitus and social movements: how militarism affects organizational repertoires

2010–2012 were years of global protests. This wave of mobilization has been celebrated for its horizontal, leaderless, and participatory character. But this was not the case in all countries. In Israel, which saw the largest social contention in its history, the protest was marked by a dominant and centralized leadership and by cooperation with institutional actors and corporate media. Based on the study of the Israeli case, this research seeks to contribute to explanations of how movements’ organizational forms develop. Social movement scholars have shown that activists’ forms of organization are limited to a familiar repertoire of action. Building on previous scholarship, I argue that activists’ organizational repertoires are shaped by a habitus that familiarizes and routinizes certain practices. But while existing scholarship focuses on how organizational habitus develops within the field of activism, I expand the applicability of habitus and show how movement repertoires are also influenced by habit in fields unrelated and even antagonistic to activism. Based on participant observations and interviews, I show how in the Israeli case, militarism formed part of activists’ organizational habitus and contributed to the 2011 protests’ centralized and hierarchical character.     

‘Exercise is medicine’: Understanding the exercise beliefs and practices of older Chinese women immigrants in British Columbia, Canada

In this paper we examine how Western biomedical beliefs around exercise and related health practices compare and contrast with traditional Chinese medicine's (TCM) conceptions of health and exercise in a globalizing society, and how these narratives about health and physical activity are understood and taken up by 15 aging Chinese immigrant women (aged 65+) living in the multicultural city of Vancouver. Drawing upon theoretical work around the body and society to guide our analysis (including the ideas of Bourdieu and Foucault), we outline how the participants in our project take a pragmatic approach to their use of medicine, combining TCM with Western biomedicine in creative ways. However, understandings of the body are underpinned, we argue, by Eastern narratives of the ‘oneness’ of mind-body and the need for ‘balance’ in order to achieve health. Towards this end, we found that many of the participants view (and use) traditional Chinese body practices as an extension of TCM, a technique to help them achieve balance. We conclude that the neoliberal narrative of personal responsibility for health does not fuel the exercise practices of many of the participants, but rather that they perceive exercise as a pleasurable activity that improves their levels of happiness (and balance) and enhances their lives.     

Bourdieu,Technique And Technology

This paper examines the place of technology in Pierre Bourdieu's social theory, and argues for the relevance of Bourdieu's thought to the study of technology. In moving from an examination of the status of technology in Bourdieu's work through to his broad approach to social practice and his widely cited concept of habitus, it is argued that technologies are crystalliz­ations of socially organized action. As such, they should be considered not as exceptional or special phenomena in a social theory, but rather as very much like other kinds of social practices that recur over time. Ultimately, through the use of Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, field, and capital, we are able to overcome the binary divisions such as technology/society and subject/object that have plagued technology studies.     

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.     

“惯习”与社会工作实践的再思考

通过阐释布迪厄的实践意义与惯习理论的价值,对社会工作的实践进行具体分析,充分解读。提倡社会工作者的意识与思想形态及工作方法要秉承布迪厄的实践逻辑与惯习的优秀品质,随着时期的更替、目标的不同、要求的求新而不断地改变。并从中挖掘社会工作者的潜质,即采用优势视角来给予社会工作者以认可,从而调动社会工作者的积极性,提高社会工作者的工作质量,提升社会工作者的思想信念。     

作为惯习的潜规则——潜规则盛行的文化心理学分析框架

潜规则在静态意义上可以界定为未被察觉或不具备正当性的规则,它同时还指不按明文规则或违背公认、应然理念的行为或行为倾向,其后果是造成社会多元规则的并存与名实分离的出现.潜规则的产生是一个普遍现象,但潜规则的盛行却是一个特殊的文化现象,与民族的文化心理与行动惯习息息相关.传统文化的深层气质塑造了中国人的行动惯习,使得严格依照一元规则行事的方式难以成为社会的常态秩序形态.现代性的深度入侵虽使传统规则迅速失去正当性,但仍无法短时间内改变民族心理结构中的行动惯习.传统惯习与现代规则体系间的互不协调与搓揉震荡,是造成当下社会潜规则盛行的重要文化心理根源.     

Habitus,Practice and Agency of Young East Timorese Asylum Seekers in Australia

This article explores the process of agency and empowerment through a case study of a group of young East Timorese asylum seekers who arrived in Australia during the 1990s. Using Bourdieu's concept of habitus and his theory of practice, the article considers how the asylum seekers dealt with the challenges of exile and adjusted to Australian society. In addition to the difficulties asylum seekers normally face in exile, such as limited financial and social support and coping with trauma and loss, the East Timorese who arrived during the 1990s faced particular challenges due to the Australian Government's treatment of their cases. The article argues that, despite their vulnerable and liminal position, the asylum seekers were not just passive victims. On the contrary, they were active agents who through practice, consciously or unconsciously, dealt with their liminal situation. Their power to act was positively affected by their young age upon arrival.     

“诚信”在电子商务场域中的形塑——以淘宝网为例

文章借用布迪厄的“实践理论”，对淘宝网话语文本进行分析，透视其评价机制对诚信交易的重要意义，以说明诚信惯习在电子商务场域中的形塑过程与方式。由互联网自身透明、快捷、共享等属性决定的电子商务场域中，监督评价机制得以有效运行，“消费者-卖家”权力关系重建，进而决定了诚信成为电子商务交易中行动者共同遵守的惯习。     

Repertoires of Contention and Tactical Diversity in the UK Psychiatric Survivors Movement: The question of appropriation

This paper seeks to advance our understanding of the processes whereby particular techniques of protest are selected from societal 'repertoires of contention'. Empirically, it focuses upon data which have been gathered on activists within mental health movements in the UK. Theoretically, it seeks to make a case for use of the work of Pierre Bourdieu, specifically his concepts of 'habitus', 'capital' and 'field'. The paper is exploratory, and acknowledged to be such. It is argued, however, that the evidence from the mental health movements is sufficiently persuasive to merit further investigation of the usefulness of Bourdieu's approach for analysing processes of repertoire selection.