Date: Wed, 6 Dec 1995 07:59:04 +1100 (EST)
From: mildrenj-AT-deakin.edu.au (john mildren)
Subject: Re: "BODY"/practice/social agents


>I have real trouble with any discussionwhich attempts to reduce the complexity
>of the realtionship between the practice of the individual and the context of
>that practice to a simple formula ie. P=F+H
Cetainly practice occurs within fields and I agree that habitus is a most
useful way of viewing that which predisposes the individual to a certain
regularity in response and also allows for reproduction but any view of
habitus must allow for it to be continuously modified and developed in
while maintaining the general form which has ben developed within fields
over alifetime.  HAbitus has its own history and is a product of its
history.

If social agents act in relatively predictable, albeit spontaneous ways,
then habitus is that which allows this action and if such consistency of
action is eveident in all fields ( yet the individual actions will be
specifc to that fields because of the constructionof the habitus in that
field) then habitus has the durability to be used in all social contexts.

John








ROBERT LUCIE <robert.lucie-AT-uqam.ca> wrote:
>::Maybe you would like to add to the equation the idea of <l'espace des 
>::possibles>. Jean-Paul Sartre first developped this idea in Questions of 
>
>... and that idea would be what???  
>
>::On Thu, 30 Nov 1995, Diana Ambrozas wrote:
>::> One thing that i dont' understand about this formula (which is from
>::> _Distinction_ no?) 
>::> >Bourdieu's theory. One could even write the equation
>::> >        PRACTICE= FIELD + HABITUS
>::> is where social agency is supposed to fit in.  If bourdieu is indeed trying
>::> to add some sense of agency to structuralist thought, this formulation does
>::> not appear to add anything.  The only way i can make any sense of bourdieu
>::> is to think of habitus as constraining but not determining the social agent
>::> which means you need at least another factor in the equation: 
>::> practice = field + habitus + (emergent?, relatively autonomous?) choice
>
>
>IMO to even construct Bourdieu's approach in such a posivistic manner would be
>abhorant to him.  Concepts for Bourdieu are thinking tools; the means to give
>coherence to the researcher's work.  Granted, the use of symbolic logic is
>useful in some cases to render concepts to a mnomic level,  however, one also
>tends to strip the nuances, the colour, out of the concept.
>
>Habitus, in his own words is, "a socialized subjectivity" (Wacquart, AN
>INVITATION TO REFLEXIVE SOCIOLOGY, 1992: 126), that the "human mind is socially
>bounded, socially structured" (ibid).  Habitus limits choice or at least
>priorizes one's choice.  The person is not the individual devoid of social
>constraint nor is she/he a meaningless 'atom' of a group but somewhere
>inbetween.  Innovation is still open to the agent, habitus aids in explaining
>why certain practices tend to be reproduced.  Time is implicit and importante
>in Bourdieu's work.  For  nothing is static, change is constant, however, it is
>not completely random or unknown.