This is the user page for ianb3019. I live in the UK.
I began editing Wikipedia around 2007 after finding that the article for Pierre Bourdieu was limited and seemed to need building up. I have made some additions to that page and the discussion regarding it.
I am not an academic although I first became interested in Bourdieu in an academic context, at ULU's Queen Mary and Westfield University in the mid-90s, under the tuition of an archaeologist called John Wilkins.
I have studied Bourdieu since then in an amateur capacity. As a teacher - I teach at a primary school in England - I also have a professional interest in Bourdieu's work on education.
The following quotation, which defines Bourdieu's use of the word 'habitus', has caused some debate. I wrote this to clarify my own thinking but since I've also written about the contested passage on the discussion page for the wikipedia article on Bourdieu, I thought I'd post it here for want of a better place, for the use of any interested party.
"Habitus can be defined as a system of dispositions (lasting, acquired schemes of perception, thought and action). The individual agent develops these dispositions in response to the objective conditions they encounter. In this way Bourdieu theorizes the inculcation of objective social structures into the subjective, mental experience of agents. For the objective social field places requirements on its participants for membership, so to speak, within the field. Having thereby absorbed objective social structure into a personal set of cognitive and somatic dispositions, and the subjective structures of action of the agent then being commensurate with the objective structures and extant exigencies of the social field, a doxic relationship emerges."
http://www.answers.com/topic/pierre-bourdieu
I found a source for this passage at the above web address. It seemed to me quite a sensible attempt at defining the Bourdieuian concept of ‘habitus’. If it is not a direct quote from Bourdieu or a commentator on Bourdieu, then it has been well researched. I would like to clarify the language in this passage for those readers who have found it obscure. It is my belief that Bourdieu is, in fact, not so much obscure as extremely careful.
The first thing to say is that the passage builds from the most basic definition, expanding into a more complex one for those who choose to keep reading. If, therefore, the reader finds words like ‘cognitive’, ‘somatic’ or ‘doxic’ to be unfamiliar, they would be well advised to read as far as ‘habitus can be defined as a system of dispositions’ and leave it there. That definition will serve you well.
The following parenthesis explains the sociological usage of the word ‘dispositions’. Here a considerable digression is required – apologies. Bourdieu, like many other sociologists, used the word ‘dispositions’ to avoid getting bogged down in long-standing arguments within sociology. The arguments tended to swing between, on the one hand, those who saw individuals as free agents (related concepts: free-will, agency, Sartre) and, on the other, those who saw individuals as ‘prisoners’ of social structures (related concepts: determinism, structure, Althusser). This is often known as the ‘structure/agency’ problem. Bourdieu sought a middle path that reconciled these ideas. By talking of individuals as being ‘disposed’ to one course of action or another, Bourdieu found a form of words that enabled him to achieve this goal. Here’s how the argument runs: take the sentence, ‘I read a lot’. Sartre might say ‘I choose to read a lot’ – he would thus show his belief that individuals construct their own character. Althusser might argue that ‘I am conditioned to read a lot’ – he would thus show his belief that character is imposed on the individual by social constraint. Bourdieu would say ‘I am disposed to read a lot’. The word is intended to imply that although he makes a choice to read, it is not an entirely free choice. Instead, the choice is influenced by his background, social position, etc. The influence is not a controlling one, but it is sufficient to make the choice a sociologically predictable one, within accepted margins of error. Bourdieu thereby takes the position that sociology can predict the choices of individuals without being obliged to argue that their social origins absolutely determine their decisions.
I should point out that Bourdieu thereby tried to find a Wittgensteinian solution to a sociological problem; in other words, he tried to simplify the existing sociological arguments by the use of precise language. He is trying to clarify, to dispel the fog of prior argument. He is trying not to drag you through the arguments between Sartre et al and Althusser et al – very, very jargonised ones, you may be assured. Bourdieu’s writing certainly can seem jargonised and difficult, but there are few heavyweights that tackle these problems who are clearer and many who are more opaque.
In speaking of a ‘system of dispositions’, Bourdieu is emphasising that dispositions are not a random bundle of oddments, picked up here and there with no rhyme or reason. They have a logic, a pattern. He is arguing that they can be analysed scientifically, predictions made, tested, etc. (I think that the word ‘schemes’ – basically a synonym for ‘systems’ - is sometimes preferred to ‘systems’ simply because it adds the apt connotation that this system may exist within the mind.)
I should also explain the author’s description of dispositions as ‘lasting, acquired.' The individual is always encountering changing pressures which necessitate the development, growth, acquisition of new dispositions. So long as the world does not change, however, the dispositions are ‘lasting’; once we’re set in our ways, it’s hard to get us to change. ‘Lasting, acquired dispositions’ are rather like Newtonian motion – objects are at rest unless acted on by force; dispositions are lasting (sometimes ‘durable’) unless impelled to alter by a changing social environment. It follows that dispositions don’t change randomly; where a dispositional change is observed, we may deduce the action of a social force.
That is the groundwork. The rest of the passage passes from defining habitus to describing its workings. This part of the passage ultimately adds depth to the reader’s understanding of ‘habitus’ and ties the concept more firmly into sociological theory but should not obscure its basic purpose: to resolve the persistent structure/agency dispute within sociology. Bourdieu begins his solution to that problem with dispositions and their scientific systematisation in the concept of ‘habitus’.
Now I’ll take the rest of the passage a chunk at a time and attempt to rephrase it. I will attempt not to do violence to the thoughts expressed, but I caution the reader that Bourdieu and scholars of Bourdieu generally choose their words with much greater care than I do, and always for very good reasons. Usually those reasons have to do with more or less obscure battles within the sociological field. My ignorance of those battles may lead me to paraphrase poorly – apologies again.
‘The individual agent develops these dispositions in response to the objective conditions they encounter.’ Translation: when people run up against social facts, they change their dispositions.
An example: if in the UK you want a job as a teacher, you need certain qualifications. That’s a social fact. If you are disposed to want such a job, then to succeed you need also to be disposed to acquire such qualifications. If you are disposed not to acquire them, you must shed one disposition or the other. Some people may find a way to hold onto both, but their numbers are statistically insignificant and it is very difficult and unlikely.
‘In this way Bourdieu theorizes the inculcation of objective social structures into the subjective, mental experience of agents.’ Translation: this is how Bourdieu’s theory describes the way people take on the beliefs, assumptions, etc that are customary in their part of the social world.
For example, lawyers generally (as a rule, with statistical predictability - not always, inevitably) speak, dress, think, behave like lawyers. Same goes for teachers, builders, the unemployed… Whichever parts of the social world we inhabit, we tend to show it. It shows up in our habits, customs, behaviour – dispositions. Some might call this ‘indoctrination.’ Bourdieu is not as Marxist as that. But any halfway decent social theory should account for this mirroring of the individual’s social environment (their ‘field’, governed by ‘objective social structures’) within the individual’s personality (or ‘subjective, mental experience’). In Bourdieuian sociology, you need to understand ‘habitus’ before you can see how he accounts for this.
Note, incidentally, the nearly paradoxical interplay of the opposed terms subjective and objective. This is not some comic turn. It is not Derridean wordplay. Here again is Bourdieu trying to weave together a theory capable of binding sociology’s most obvious wound: the entrenched hostility between objectivists (structure) and subjectivists (agency).
‘For the objective social field places requirements on its participants for membership, so to speak, within the field.’ Translation: to be admitted to a part of the social world, you need to do certain things or you will be denied entry.
The word ‘objective’ is the most obviously difficult. The word is used to indicate that in Bourdieu, the word ‘field’ should not be read naively. A social field is not just a part, piece, bit of society. It is a statistical construct that has been built up through the work of sociologists. It is a product of sociology and should not be understood without reference to those sociological works which created it. The interested reader might look about for work on, for example ‘field theory.’
The next sentence is indisputably thorny, but armed with an understanding of the foregoing and with a dictionary at the ready, it is quite comprehensible. I’ll break it into bits. Here goes.
“Having thereby absorbed objective social structure into a personal set of cognitive and somatic dispositions …” Translation: once the individual has acquired the mental (cognitive) and bodily (somatic) dispositions demanded, as conditions of entry, by the field they wish to join…
This is the mirroring I referred to earlier. The individual takes on the attributes of their social environment - at least they do if they wish to remain within it. Teachers generally become pedantic – the field demands it. Pedantry, we might say, is an objective property of the teaching profession (though sociologists – and teachers - would doubtless prefer a more neutral word than ‘pedantry’). Prospective teachers must therefore absorb it. Bureaucrats generally become officious – the field requires it. Executives generally dress smartly – likewise. Dancers generally watch their weight; soldiers cultivate machismo; artists project eccentricity… The various parts of society require conformity of thought and action from prospective entrants. Of course there are many examples of individuals who break some of these guidelines, but the general outline usually remains. There are even occasional ‘maverick’ individuals who are tolerated within fields despite breaking most of the guidelines, but these are few and far between.
“…and the subjective structures of action of the agent then being commensurate with the objective structures and extant exigencies of the social field..,” Translation: …and given that we may now expect the individual’s dispositions to be in harmony with the demands of their field..,
In other words, once the other members of the field have been satisfied that the prospective entrant will, in most instances, automatically agree with them and defend the strictures promoted by them…
“…a doxic relationship emerges.” Translation: …the individual comes to believe in the rightness of their field and the field welcomes the individual fully.
Since the individual’s dispositions now mirror those of their chosen field, the individual has now completed their journey by becoming a true believer, a defender of their field. They are allowed into it because they have allowed it into them; in their ‘heart and mind’, their beliefs and values. The individual and the field now believe each other to be good and true. This is a ‘doxic relationship.’