Habitus

Concept Background

A variety of philosophers, anthropologists, and sociologists have drawn upon the idea of the habitus to explain action and identity. Habitus is a Latin translation of the Greek term hexus. In the moral philosophy of Aristotle, the concept was used to describe a positive quality of being that came through training and repetition in various arts and practices. It was not an innate characteristic of all humans (such as the capacity for language and reason); nor was it was a temporary condition (such as being hot or cold). Rather, a habitus was considered to be an acquired, durable disposition that could be considered one's “second nature.”

This idea of the habitus was mentioned in the work of such thinkers as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Edmund Husserl, and Marcel Mauss. Its recent resurgence as a key social scientific idea is due to its use by Bourdieu. Trained as a philosopher, Bourdieu later became a sociologist and conducted empirical research on a variety of subjects, including the peasant people of Algeria, the system of education in France, and the social foundations of art. He would latch upon habitus to explain a puzzle that repeatedly arose during his research projects. On one hand, he noticed that people tend to think of themselves as independent and autonomous beings. We feel that we make reasoned choices and are in control of our destinies. On the other hand, social scientists repeatedly demonstrate that people tend to behave in patterned, predictable waves. Surveys, censuses, and other quantitative data show that our actions are not as random or as freely chosen as we commonly suppose. Bourdieu labeled this puzzle a conflict between subjectivist and objectivist ways of knowing. It is in fact a long-standing dilemma in the social and human sciences. Repeatedly throughout history, thinkers have wondered whether we humans exercise free will or are determined by forces beyond our control.

Habitus provided Bourdieu with a way to transcend this ancient debate, by linking individual agency and social structure in a novel way. He [Page 322]argued that the habitus, as a disposition, is both structured and structuring. It is structured in that it is shaped by the material conditions of the world in which it is formed. Though we may feel like the authors of our own lives, we are in fact influenced by variety of forces beyond our control. But our habitus is also structuring, which is to say that it allows us to be creative, inventive, and strategic. The underlying contours of the habitus may be socially determined, but the various ways in which it may manifest itself in practice can never be entirely predicted in advance.

...