The Reflexive Habitus: Bridging the Gap between Critical Realist and Bourdieusian Social Action

• In Event: 267 - Regular Session. Habitus

Abstract

Despite claims that Bourdieu’s conception of habitus cannot account for reflexive action, this paper reworks his theory of habitus by suggesting that social selves are always situated at the intersection of multiple and competing social locations (or field positions), which yields the embodied self the capacity for reflexivity and social change. To make this argument, the paper draws insight from the field of critical realism. The critical realist and Bourdieusian conceptions of action fundamentally disagree on a number of fronts: the social nature of the self/body; the synthetic versus dualistic relationship between structure and agency; the link between morphogenesis and reflexivity. Despite these differences, the author argues that re-reading Bourdieu’s theories with attention to some of the core tenets of critical realism can provide insights on how the habitus is capable of reflexive, strategic action and can even produce social change.

Author

• Claire Laurier Decoteau, University of Illinois-Chicago