Relational trust: Outline of a Bourdieusian theory of interpersonal trust

Abstract

While the cognitive, behavioural and emotional aspects of trust are widely investigated within trust research, the relational character of trust remains underdeveloped. Nonetheless, many social scientific theories of trust underscore that trust is fundamentally a relational phenomenon. This article presents a theoretical investigation of the relational characteristics of interpersonal trust within Pierre Bourdieu's relational social theory. The analysis pursues the constitution of interpersonal trust within the dual temporal dynamics of the social. ‘Habitus’, linked to diachronous time, describes the development of familiarity and the experience with justifications for trust. ‘The practical sense’, linked to synchronous time, describes the situated constitution of perception and understanding from which trust emerges as the aligning of interaction and meaning. Together, these constitute the process of trusting as an anticipation of forthcoming events which is linked both to experience and to potentials inscribed in the situation. By introducing the Bourdieusian framework in the analysis of interpersonal trust, important conceptual linkages emerge between aspects of trust otherwise treated separately in trust research.

Keywords:

• interpersonal trust
• Pierre Bourdieu
• familiarity
• process
• relational theory
• temporality

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their concise and helpful comments and criticism. He would also like to thank Guido Möllering for making his translation of the Lindner diary available.

Notes on contributor

Morten Frederiksen, Ph.D. (Sociology, Copenhagen), is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, Aalborg University. His main areas of research are trust, values and evaluations, welfare attitudes and cultures, and mixed methods methodology.