Elias and habitus: explaining bureaucratisation processes in the Gaelic Athletic Association

Abstract

Based on a case study of the Gaelic Athletic Association in Ireland, this paper examines how bureaucratisation advanced and the specific structure it took. Drawing on Elias's concept of habitus, and the wider theoretical framework that informs it, the paper explains how an ambivalent attitude amongst the organisation's administrators towards volunteerism emerged and became deeply sedimented within the habitus of administrators. Over time, the habitus of administrators also became more self-steering. This more self-restrained habitus facilitated a capacity for greater calculation, foresight and coordination, a necessary precondition for more expansive bureaucratisation. As such, the main contribution of this paper is to expand existing theoretical explanations of bureaucratisation by connecting shifting inter- and intra-organisational interdependencies at different planes of integration with habitus change.

Keywords:

• Elias
• habitus
• bureaucratisation
• Gaelic Athletic Association
• figuration

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Jo Brewis and the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. I also wish to thank staff at the Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich Library and Archive and at the GAA archive in Croke Park for their assistance.

Notes

1. Interestingly, Emirbayer and Johnson (2008) contend that Bourdieu's concept of habitus has received ‘almost total inattention’ amongst organisational researchers.

2. The work of Elias and Foucault has been subject to significant comparison (see Dolan 2010, 11, for a comprehensive list).

3. Gaelic games is the collective term for the sports of Gaelic football, hurling and Gaelic handball in Ireland.

4. Others were involved but these seven have been identified by historians as central figures.

5. The function of secretary was the most senior administrative position. It later became known as general secretary. Similarly, in lower tier and regional GAA units the position of secretary was also the most senior administrative functionary.

6. CLG refers to Cumann Lúthchleas Gael, which is the Irish language translation of Gaelic Athletic Association. In some publications, CLG is the corporate author.

7. Elias developed the concept of the We-I balance to illustrate how people on the one hand retain not only multiple ‘group’ identifications – family, nation, etc. – but also an individual identity. These layers of identity are processual and the weighting attached – the depth of feeling – to either can change. Indeed, Elias argued that the general direction has been towards the I-identity of people (See Elias [1991] 2001).

8. A truce in hostilities in the War of Independence to allow for negotiations between representatives of the ‘provisional’ government of Ireland and the British government led to the signing of a treaty on 6 December 1920. As a result of this treaty, Ireland was partitioned. A 26-county Free State (which became the Republic of Ireland in 1949) was established with the remaining six counties (Northern Ireland) under the jurisdiction of Britain. Some on the Irish side rejected the treaty and this eventually led to a civil war between what were known as the pro- and anti-treaty forces (see Lee 1989).

9. The adjective ‘partial’ is used because the initial drive for independence was for a 32-county independent Ireland. The GAA is a 32-county body and its constitution still retains the objective of a 32-county united Ireland. This remains a political objective to the present day for various groups in Ireland.