Hybridizing Habitus and Reflexivity: Towards an Understanding of Contemporary Identity?

“Critics argue that restraints on agency persist in contemporary societies and that reflexivity tears away subjects from lifeworld contexts (Adams 2006).”

“Crucially, part of this ‘selfsurveillance’ (see Adams 2006) is facilitated via social media like Instagram.”

“Similarly, Bourdieu’s concept of reflexivity has been developed to account for change in deep-seated gender norms (McNay, 1999; Adkins, 2004b; Adams, 2006; see Aarseth et al., this issue).”

“Additional references to the unconscious aspects of habitus can be found in the work of Adams (2006, p. 514), Adkins (2003, p. 24), King (2002), Jenkins (2002) and Elder-Vass (2007). While the pre-conscious is implicated in how habitus functions, other critics have argued that the pre-conscious elements of habitus red…”

“Therefore, the need for the hybridisation of these positions, where structure and agency both contribute to a social conceptualisation of identity is needed (Adams 2006).”

“For those lacking choices, reflexivity produces feelings and emotions of frustration—‘painful awareness’ of the lack of choices (Adams, 2006, p. 525), which comprise ‘psychic landscape of social class’ (Reay, 2005).”

“For young service-users, lacking in cultural and social capital derived from family, culturally defined assets and social networks (Adams, 2006; Bourdieu, 1986) efficacy and power was particularly restricted.”

“Habitus can be transformed, but its transformation is bound by past experiences and the particular constitution of students’ habitus (Adams 2006).”

“Adams (2006) proposed that though habitus transformation is limited by habitus, it is essentially an identity-forming process in which ‘people want to turn to their own resources to decide what they value, to organize their priorities and to make sense of their lives’ (Heelas, 1996, p. 5).”

“…change and social mobility, but is also consistent with continuous reflection on socio-cultural developments by intuitive agents (see, for example, Adams, 2006; Sweetman, 2003) – or even that it describes a pliable world subject to negotiation via the constructing of world-visions, such that…”

“In light of this contemporary social reality, we need to combine an analysis of habitus and reflexivity – a stance that is also advocated by Adams (2006) and Sayer (2010) – to make sense of how highly mobile individuals such as affluent international students navigate transnational contexts.”

“It has been shown that particular embeddedness within a certain field referring to wealth, education or gender stratification significantly influences someone’s ability to escape such positions (Adkins 2003; Bottero 2004; Adams 2006).”

“There are other theorists who believe that both habitus and reflexivity are necessary for a comprehensive formulation and who have made attempts to reconcile or hybridize them (Adams, 2006; Caetano, 2015; Elder-Vass, 2007; Mouzelis, 2007).”

“…agent – especially in contexts of frequent radical change, such as modern ones (on the relation between habitus and reflexivity, see, among others, Kögler, 1997; Aboulafia, 1999; Crossley, 2001; Sweetman, 2003; Sayer, 2005; Adams, 2006; Archer, 2007, 2010; Fleetwood, 2008; Mouzelis, 2008: 131–41).”

“There is, of course, a well-documented critique of Bourdieu’s over-emphasis on social reality as objective and on social forces which shape not only the actual but also the possible (Atkinson, 2010; Alexander, 1994; Halle, 1993; Lamont, 1992; Widick, 2003; Adams, 2006; Kogler, 1997).”

“Years of physical separation from one’s original home and exposure to a society with very different sets of rules can be considered to be a situation of ‘crisis’ as Bourdieu calls it (Adams 2006).”

“…work of Beck, Giddens, and Lash’s (1994) notion of reflexive modernisation and perhaps some later day articulations of Bourdieu’s reflexive habitus (Adams 2006) these studies appear to provide richer and more nuanced theoretical thinking tools than those that are predominately structuralist in…”

“It is not the student doing what he or she wants to do, rather he or she is acting according to the level or order of habitus possessed which in itself is a perpetuated and repeated structure inherited or developed from the past and internalised from the objective conditions (Adams 2006).”

“It is the embodiment of structural relations—that is, accepted traditions (Adams, 2006)—of risk.”

“habitus (Adams 2006) because they are aware of their own agency in society and”

“‘Habitus’ is the collective term he uses to denote an array of fixed dispositions (Adams, 2006).”

“Although habitus has been criticized for being overly deterministic and reducing the potential for individual agency (Adams, 2006), habitus is an internalized, sensemaking practice that expresses individual belonging, norms, and values (Adler & Adler, 2015; Lugosi et al., 2020).”

“Adams (2006), for example, claims that we should distinguish between agents’ capacity for reflection and their agential impact on and relative autonomy from structures of resources that still play a significant constraining role: self-reflection, for certain groups, ‘in this context does not bring…”

“There have been numerous attempts at conceptual hybridization of reflexivity with habitus (e.g. Sweetman 2003; Adams 2006; Elder-Vass 2007).”

“…that alternative forms of capital must be acknowledged and legitimised by senior players in positions of relative power within the field, and that even when mentees are able to think reflexively, they may not have the power or resources necessary to effect change by themselves (Adams, 2006).”

“Participating in the Leeuwin II tall ship adventure, when understood as a disruption to the continuity of everyday life, means that rather than perpetuating established dispositions as the basis for trainees’ identities (Adams, 2006), there was certain change.”

“McNay and Sweetman (2003) and Adams (2006) argued that the habitus is still prereflexive, but “the reflexive process, paradoxically, is itself a form of habitus, a required constituent of a particular field” (Adams 2006, 515).”

“The agency that is present in their work is one that is one that reflects “an embedded, embodied and contradictory reflexivity” (Adams, 2006: p.521) that is intimately and inextricably bounded to that of others.”

“They argued that life planning is connected to the problems of living in an environment characterized by a heightened awareness of risks and widespread reflexivity and individualization regarding self-identity in late-modern societies (cf. Adams, 2006).”

“…structuration theory (Giddens 1984), reflexive modernisation (Beck, Giddens, and Lash 1994), some latter-day articulations of reflexive habitus (Adams 2006), social cognitive theories (e.g. Bandura 1986), relational subject perspectives (Donati and Archer 2015), and ecological approaches…”

“Both Nentwich et al. (2015) and Adams (2006) however argue that from Bourdieu’s perspective social change is unlikely to be accomplished without some organized collective effort to legitimize subversive performances and challenges to the doxa of the field.”

“Instead of concluding from the determinism debate that habitus is a theoretical impasse, several scholars have made fruitful attempts to hybridise or reconcile the concept of reflexivity and the habitus (Sweetman, 2003; Adams, 2006; Elder-Vass, 2007; Mouzelis, 2007). With somewhat different aims, the main ambition amo…”

“However, the concept of habitus has been criticised for the hegemony of structure in shaping the actors’ behaviour and for its failure to acknowledge the conscious decision-making through their agency(9), thereby leaving limited room for social change (Adams, 2006; Elder-Vass, 2007; Giddens, 1984; King, 2000; Long, 20…”

“As Adams (2006) suggests, even if reflexivity in principle can raise awareness of conditionings and propel the habitus in new directions, the subject remains conditioned by inherited social dispositions that set concrete limitations on available choices.”

“Through their habitus, or ‘disposition to act’, people have learned from their life experiences the ‘right thing to do’ (Bourdieu 1998:8), thus habitus becomes embodied through the practices of everyday lives (Adams 2006:514–16; Lau 2004:374–6; Thompson 1992:12–17).”

“By integrating these perspectives, Holland et al. address the longstanding tension between volun-tarism and determinism, acknowledging the role of both self-reflexivity and habitus in understanding identity (Adams 2006).”

“Bourdieu’s approach has been repeatedly criticised for exaggerating objec-tive social structures at the expense of agency and reflexivity (e.g., Adams 2006; Frohlich et al. 2001; Archer 2005).”

“Previously scholars have looked at ways to reconcile their positions (e.g. Adams, 2006; Sayer, 2010).”

“Despite Bourdieu’s concept of the habitus being heavily criticised for its reproductive nature preventing social change (Adams, 2006; Garnham & Williams, 1980), this research agrees with the conclusions of Thorpe (2009) who suggests that the entrenched and dominant views of embodied gender which…”

“process Bourdieu has often been criticised for his emphasis on the class basis of habitus, which suggests the rigidity and deterministic nature of habitus and which appears to rule out the possibility of social mobility and change (Adams, 2006; Reay, 2004).”

“…abraça agendas comprometidas com uma visão mercadológica do Estado, com a ordem capitalista industrial e com o sistema econômico que lhe é correspondente, buscando proteger esse sistema e essa ordem da acusação de promoverem consequências nefastas para a preservação da sociedade (ADAMS, 2006).”

“In particular, his concept of habitus suggests that identity may be less prone to refl exive alteration than theorists such as Giddens have proposed (Sweetman, 2003; Adams, 2006; Skeggs, 2004; Adkins, 2004; McNay, 1999 and 2000; Lovell, 2000; Evans, 2003).”

“Yet, as seen here, the ‘post-reflexive’ (Adams, 2006) choice most of my respondents (had to) make is not necessarily liberating, but still bound with structural inequalities.”

“References: Adams, M. (2006). Hybridizing habitus and reflexivity: Towards an understanding of contemporary identity? Sociology, 40(3), 511–528. Anderson, E. (1999). Code of the street. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Artiles, A. J., Kozleski, E. B., Trent, S. C., Osher, D., & Ortiz, A. (2010). Justifying and explai…”

“…of unbridled reflexivity in late modernity has been criticized for ignoring continuities in life experiences in late modernity and processes of re-traditionalization (Duncan, 2011) as well as the cultural and structural factors that shape ability to fashion the self (Tucker cited in Adams, 2006).”

“…highlighted the problems of being free from structural constrained agency and, on the other hand, too focused on deterministic and structuralist reading in explaining rapid social changes (see Adams, 2006; Coffey and Farrugia, 2014; Kelly, 2016; Sweetman, 2003; Threadgold, 2011; Woodman, 2009).”

“…dispositions, reflexive deliberations, or their interaction, a conceptualization which corresponds with others suggesting individual reflexivity does not necessarily diminish and can actually reinforce the influence of social belonging on individual actions (Adams, 2006; Adkins, 2003; McNay, 1999).”

“According to Bourdieu, reflexivity helps practitioners adjust to the field (Adams 2006).”

“…of practice and memory, Archer is criticised for her emphasis on reflexivity (Akram, 2012; Mutch, 2004); for her emphasis on the conscious, deliberate assuming of identities (Piirionen, 2014); and for her claim that agency can be seen as analytically separate from context (Adams, 2006).”

“Even a heavily qualified reflexivity can only tell a partial story of contemporary identity (Adams, 2006).”

“Reflexivity is therefore accepted in the habitus of youth at the lower rungs of social structure; they, however, lose out ‘in relation to reflexivity’, because they are marginalised by a social structure which empowers reflexivity in others (Adams 2006, p. 523).”

“It does not ‘equate with the ability to transform one’s situation’ or enable choices (Adams, 2006: 552).”

“…with the dominant group’s values and standards defined in Bourdieu’s theory, but they also ignored what people can achieve in their practice of reflexivity (Adams 2006; Sayer 2010), that is, my resistance to a dominant rule ( doxa ): the self-awareness of a critical distance from the social world.”

“Reflexivity is a widely discussed concept and a contentious issue in the field of youth studies (e.g. Farrugia, 2013, 2018; Farrugia & Woodman, 2015; Threadgold, 2018) and sociology more broadly (e.g. Adams, 2006; Nico & Caetano, 2017; Sweetman, 2003).”