Bourdieus Understanding the Power for Social Change

Bourdieu describes habitus as a power of adaptation. It constantly performs an adaptation to the outside world which only exceptionally takes the form of radical conversion (Bourdieu, 1993). Bourdieus concept of habitus enables us to understand women as a complex amalgam of their past and present (Bourdieu, 1990a), but an amalgam that is always in the process of completion. There is no finality or finished identity. At the same time, habitus also includes a set of complex, diverse predispositions. It invokes understandings of identity premised on familial legacy and early childhood socialisation. As such, it is primarily a dynamic concept, a rich interlacing of past and present, interiorised and permeating both body and psyche. Much of the dynamism of habitus is the product of the interconnection of habitus with Bourdieus related concept of field. Field is a set of objective, historical relations between positions anchored in certain forms of power (or capital) (Wacquant in Bourdieu Wacquant, 1992, p. 16). A dialectic relationship exists be- tween the two concepts. In one direction there is a flow of influence from field to habitus that produces a relationship of conditioning in which the field structures the habitus. When Bourdieu refers to , is usually referring to the different types of capitals that one person can acquire. These capitals are economic, linguistic, and cultural (Bourdieu, 1991). Depending of the quantity of each of these capitals, a person isShow MoreRelatedSocial Capital And Cultural Capital1264 Words   |  6 PagesAfter cultural capital and cultural arbitrary, then, comes the third capital, which Bourdieu’s theory terms habitus. Habitus is a term, which is similar to cultural capital because they are transmitted from home: â€Å"Like cultural capital, habitus is transmitted within the home† (Sullivan 149). 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