Well-founded social fictions: a defence of the concepts of institutional and familial habitus

Abstract

This article engages with Atkinson’s recent criticisms of concepts of collective habitus, such as ‘institutional’ and ‘familial’ habitus, in order to defend their conceptual utility and theoretical coherence. In so doing we promote a flexible understanding of habitus as both an individual and a collective concept. By retaining this flexibility (which we argue is in keeping with the spirit of Bourdieuian philosophy) we allow for a consideration of the ways in which the individual habitus relates to the collective. We argue that, through recognition of the complexity of the interrelated habitus of individuals, collective notions go beyond individualist accounts that perceive only the relational aspects of the individual with the social field. Our approach allows us to consider social actors in relation to each other and as constitutive of fields rather than as mere individuals plotted in social space. These arguments will be woven through our responses to what Atkinson calls the three fatal flaws of institutional and familial habitus: namely, homogenisation, anthropomorphism, and substantialism.

Keywords:

• habitus
• institutional habitus
• familial habitus
• collective habitus

Notes

1. At this point we draw attention to the way in which Bourdieu organised the Centre de Sociologie Européenne and his conscious organisation of sociological research as a collective and coordinated enterprise (Lenoir 2006), the case in point being Weight of the World (Bourdieu et al. 1999). Whilst it is reflexively essential that we recognise our own sociological habitus, further recognition of the collective habitus of a research team, which is not merely the summation of its parts, may facilitate a deeper reflexive analysis of, say, Bourdieu’s Centre de Sociologie Européenne, the Chicago School and our own team-based research practices.

2. For an exploration of Bourdieu and lay/professional common-sense, see Holton (1997).

3. At this point we draw attention to our comments, below, regarding the ‘fuzzy logic’ of society and the implications this has for sociology and its theories.

4. For a discussion of how sociological practices can realise this interpenetrative relationship, see Burke (2011).

5. Of course we appreciate the (variable) conventional pressures on the presentation, style and format that construct and constrain one’s written work if it is to be considered a ‘research article’ and suitable for publication in an academic fora.

6. Tools, sociological or otherwise, are of course social phenomena.

7. See, for example, Waytz and Young (2011). However, their analysis, and their research participants, fails to sufficiently ‘distinguish between the powers and tendencies of social entities and those of individuals’ (Nash 2008, 54) as they appear, somewhat simplistically, to think that the metaphorical ‘mind’ of the group in some sense substitutes for that of the individual.

8. If the reader encounters resistance when thinking of habitus as having a metaphorical nature, as implied by our suggestion that it animates Bourdieu’s social theory, we would advise reflection on the metaphor of ‘the field’ (or ‘social space’) and, indeed, the various forms of capital. If one accepts that the habitus is conceptually intertwined with the field and that the field is essentially a metaphorical concept then the habitus cannot but have an element of metaphor about it. We argue that, if accounts of the social world are to remain ‘Bourdieuian’, they cannot fully escape the relationalism of habitus with field and, therefore, cannot fully escape metaphor.

9. At this point we leave the question of whether habitus requires the brute fact of a biological or psychological individual as a ‘life-support’ or ‘ecology’. As critiques of habitus show, many appear to be tempted to adopt this line. We would, however, note that if the habitus is indeed a ‘psychological black box’ (Boudon 1998, 175), then there is no question of the sociologist fully responding to this question; the only possible response is interdisciplinary. The habitus cannot merely be, as Bloch suggests it is, ‘a kind of private psychology for the use of social scientists’ (2005, 11). Although we are unsure whether Atkinson is in fact proposing the biological or psychological individual as the necessary ground of habitus, if he is he must face these charges and the difficulties they bring. If, as we suspect, Atkinson (2010) considers the phenomenological life-world to be the ground of habitus, then we would, at this point, simply note that whilst his account draws heavily on Schutz’s phenomenology he has yet to demonstrate an appreciation for intersubjectivity, a major aspect of that phenomenology. Intersubjectivity is an important part of lived experience and the class of collective activity that concerns us here.

10. Here we might note Sfard’s view that development does ‘not mean a transformation in people but rather in forms of human doing’ (2010, 80); that is, in forms of practice.