Building Bridges between Structure and Agency: Exploring the Theoretical Potential for a Synthesis between the Habitus and Reflexivity. Christian Kemp PhD Essex University Abstract: The aim of this article is to explore the theoretical possibility of synthesizing the roles and causal power of both the habitus and reflexivity within one consolidated theory of social action. Whilst many authors have claimed that the ontological underpinnings of each concept diminish the possibility of bridging the gap between them, this article argues that these concepts can and in fact should be considered in tandem if it is to be possible to understand how social action is stable and consistent, yet open to change and contingency. In order to explain how these concepts may be harmonised this article departs with three central objectives. These include; an exploration how Pierre Bourdieu theorized the habitus, the theoretical obstacles which prevented Bourdieu from truly integrating reflexivity within his theory of practice, and finally how these shortcomings can be overcome in order to invoke a theoretical appreciation of the primacy of both structure and a self-conscious reflexive competency as mutually important causal powers. Theoretical conceptions of the habitus and reflexivity as offered by Pierre Bourdieu and Margaret Archer have come to occupy diametrically opposed positions along the ontological and theoretical continuum that characterises contemporary sociology. Both concepts have a significantly long genealogy, one which can be traced back to early philosophical discourses that sought to explore the efficacy of a self conscious human free will and its relationship with the structuring power of routinised, habitual, normative constraints (Crossley, 2001). Over time, the habitus and reflexivity have been closely associated with the ontological dispute as to whether individuals are structured by a normative framework that exists ‘sui generis’ of individual social actors, or whether society is constructed through the significant meanings actors give to their actions and the emergent properties they possess as individuals. This sharp ontological division has hindered the potential for a theoretical partnership which could consolidate the causal powers of both structure and agency or the habitus and reflexivity, as equally important elements of social action. On this basis, when one discusses the potential reality of combining both reflexivity and the habitus, one is dealing with two separate but intimately related issues; the extent to which both structure and agency have a hand to play in the determination of social action in ontological terms, and how the concepts of habitus and reflexivity can be combined theoretically (Elder-Vass, 2007). 1|Page This article contends that both structure and agency must be considered in the context of any sincere attempt to explain or understand social action, and that there is no inherent ontological fallacy associated with the argument that social structures, both structure, and are inherently structured by individual actors. Through the use of this logic, one can come to comprehend both the relative stability of society and its reproduction whilst accommodating the capacity for individual innovation and social change. Within this process, the habitus and an individual reflexive competency occupy central positions, and it is imperative to consider the continual interplay between both of these causal powers in order to explain human agency. Both reflexivity and the habitus are causally significant, and this essay shall explain how they may be synthesized by pursuing three lines of argumentation. Initially, it is important to address how Pierre Bourdieu theorized the ‘Habitus’, and how it is understood to shape and guide social action within fields. Second, attention shall be focused upon how Bourdieu sought to accommodate reflexivity, but how these attempts were unsuccessful due to a series of theoretical and ontological obstacles that originate within a conflation of structure and agency, and the deterministic causal power Bourdieu ultimately associated with the habitus. The final discussion shall address how these problems may be overcome in order to equally balance the respective importance and power of both the habitus and reflexivity. Pierre Bourdieu uses three central concepts to explain his theory of the logic of practice, these include, the Habitus, Field and Capital (Bourdieu, 1984). The habitus is composed of a set of dispositions, normative schemas, and forms of practical and contextual knowledge (Adams, 2006: 516) that an individual learns during the formative years of primary socialisation. The habitus is learnt through experience, primarily in the context of the family unit and amongst those social groups that are most familiar to the individual as they learn how to act and distill meaning from their engagements in the social world. The habitus is internalised and subsequently shapes and structures the modes of perception, thoughts and actions that an individual undertakes when deciding which ambitions and goals to pursue and how (Crossley, 2001: 85). The habitus ensures that social action is performed in an organised and routinised fashion as it immediately excludes interests and modes of acting which do not harmonise with the cultural and social legacy of the collective to which one belongs (Swartz, 2000:352). As Elder-Vass explains; ‘all those who share a given social position are exposed to similar opportunities and necessities, and they tend to develop a similar habitus’, one that ‘encourages us to behave in ways that reproduce the existing practices and hence the existing structure of society’ (2006: 327). The habitus is very closely linked to the maintenance and reproduction of class cleavages as it delineates the avenues and trajectories which social actors must engage in, if they are to successfully achieve the goals that attract the most value, esteem and prestige within their particular social positions (Adams, 2006). These avenues and trajectories lead actors to engage in what Bourdieu calls ‘fields’, each of which demand a certain practical competency that actors must possess, if they are to be able to participate within a field and occupy a position within it 2|Page (Bourdieu, 1977: 85). Bourdieu integrates the conceptualisation of different forms of ‘capital’, as a means of clarifying the symbolic currencies which actors must possess in order to participate within a given field. If an actor possesses the forms of capital which are required by a field, the field itself imposes an overarching framework of rules, obligations and field positions, that participants are obliged to follow as; ‘fields engender and require certain responses, ‘hailing’ the individual to respond to themselves and their surroundings in specific ways to the point of habituation’ (Adams, 2006: 514). Bourdieu strongly emphasises the reproductive character of the habitus, and critics of Bourdieu’s work, most notably Alexander (1995) and Jenkins (1982), have claimed that Bourdieu fails to avoid structural determinism by endowing the habitus with the causal power to determine social action in the ‘last instant’ (Alexander, 1995: 140). However, Bourdieu actually set out to transcend the objective/subjective, structure/agency divide, after contesting the circular fallacy he had observed within the causal link that Levi-Strauss had assigned to consistent rule following as the producer of all social regularities. As Crossley explains, Bourdieu notes from his own fieldwork how; ‘rules are often bent and perhaps even broken in practice’ and that neat explanations of the domination of agency by structure are ‘often a far cry from the negotiated situation one finds at the ground level where interests, desires, contingencies, and material exigencies all come into play’ (Crossley, 2000: 83). As a means of balancing the realms of both objective and subjective realities, Bourdieu argued that the habitus is characterised by both a ‘generative’ capability and an ‘inventive capacity’ (Bourdieu, 1990a: 13), that define it as a ‘structuring structured structure’ (Swartz, 2000). This implies that the causal relationship between structure and agency is reciprocal and mutually dependent, rather than characterised by the domination of structure and the subordination of agency, or vice versa. For example, actors are socialised and internalise the habitus and the matrix of dispositions it includes, but when they enter the social world and participate in fields, they actively perpetuate the recreation and transmission of the habitus, by virtue of the way the provisions and guidelines of the habitus are followed in practice. As Bourdieu explains, the habitus shapes social action into a; ‘system of circular relations that unite structures and practices, objective structures tend to produce structured subjective dispositions that produce structured actions which, in turn tend to reproduce objective structure’ (Bourdieu, 1977:203). Importantly, the habitus and the field intersect, and place an overarching constraint upon how the individual actor would act in terms of their inherent dispositions and the normative demands entrenched within the field. But, the actor still possesses the autonomy to choose how to act within the choices available within these constraints. As Bourdieu repeatedly stated, there is more than one way to play a game (1984), and using the example of language, one can understand that words and the overarching rules of grammar may frame a particular language, whilst we as actors are endowed with the liberty to choose which sentences we use in a particular situation as long as they lie within this framework (Sweetman, 2003). 3|Page Subsequently, Bourdieu uses the game as a key metaphor to explain the generative nature of the habitus and how actors do have a certain degree of autonomy within its boundaries. However, Bourdieu undermines the potential for this limited autonomy to include reflexivity, as defined as a process of conscious self consideration of one’s action in relation to a particular social context or the social action of others (Archer, 2007). Bourdieu excludes this form of reflexivity, when he discusses the habitus as an implicitly ‘embodied’ form of social structure (Bourdieu, 1987). As Jenkins notes; the ‘cultural commonalities of class become inscribed upon the body to be reproduced in personal deportment in the field’ and thus for Bourdieu; ‘the body is a mnemonic device upon and in which the very basis of culture, the practical tendencies of habitus are imprinted and encoded’ (Jenkins, 1992: 75-76). The problem with this theoretical conclusion is that instead of transcending the objective/subjective divide, Bourdieu conflates structure and agency (Archer, 2006, Elder-Vass, 2007) to come to the conclusion that actors internalise the habitus so entirely, that they become habitus carriers or structural vessels. On this basis, actors behave solely on the basis of learnt habitus dispositions, not on the basis of either recent experience or a conscious reflective, reflexive competency (Elder-Vass, 2007). Thus, Bourdieu discusses ‘the feel for the game’ (1990b), where players in a game do not think, or cognitively strategise, but simply play, because as Bourdieu himself explains; ‘the schemes of the habitus, the primary forms of classification, owe their specific efficacy to the fact that they function below the level of consciousness and language, beyond the reach of introspective scrutiny or control by the will’ (Bourdieu, 1984: 446). This understanding of the habitus fundamentally obstructs the potential of combining both the habitus and reflexivity because action is defined by its spontaneity in practical contexts, where actors are driven by their habitual dispositions to simply act, and not think, about either the consequences of their actions, or their relationships to other actors within the same field. This greatly explains why many of the metaphors that both Bourdieu and his supporters use, directly orbit examples of social games of a physical and corporeal nature. In contexts such as playing a physical sport like football, actors do indeed simply play the game within an overarching framework of strategy that organises each player into their respective roles. If each player were to be overly self-conscious of their role and performance within such a game, then it is possible that the flow and fluidity of the game itself would be compromised and stagnated. As Crossley explains; ‘both the strategic and the “traditional” orientations of the player’s actions are achieved without reflection. The player does not think about the game. There is no time. They must act spontaneously and pre-reflectively, seeing and acting in accordance with the logic of the game, but without thinking that or about how they are doing so’ (2000: 89). However, the performance of such a ‘physical social game’ and the social physics that define ordinary everyday social action are not so easily comparable and as such it is inadequate to generalise the same limited reflexive competency that characterises the quality of physical games to all forms of social interaction. For example, as Archer illustrates, it is hard to imagine that activities such as computer programming, or exchanging and bargaining within the global 4|Page stock exchange, can be defined as the product of habitual dispositions, that are ultimately devoid of reflexive thought and self conscious reasoning (2000). These actions are performed with an implicit self consciousness that defines the very essence of ordinary social action in response to objective realities that are characterised by inconsistency, contingency and change. One must appreciate that Bourdieu is discussing a very specific and narrow form of reflexivity defined as ‘the systematic exploration of the un-thought categories of thought that delimit the thinkable and predetermine the thought’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 40). Bourdieu defines reflexivity as the ability to know those things which were once taken as given, and to understand not only ones role within the perpetuation and reproduction of a field, but also to develop a transcendental appreciation of the mechanisms that underpin social engagements; to see behind the curtain. This is clearly a highly theoretical and transcendental form of reflexivity, and as a result Bourdieu explains that academics, intellectuals, and sociologists are really the only agents capable of developing such a competency (Bourdieu, 1992:40). However, even in these contexts, Bourdieu emphasises that it is not an entirely free or liberated form of reflexivity, but it simply becomes another form of cultural capital, demanded by certain fields as the entry requirement for participation within different academic disciplines. As a result, reflexivity; ‘paradoxically is itself a form of habitus, a constituent of a particular field. Reflexivity becomes, in a sense the very ‘feel for the game’ that it is initially defined in opposition to’ (Adams, 2006: 51). As a result, the narrow definition that Bourdieu attaches to reflexivity predetermines that only a select minority are likely to develop it with any consistency, whilst the vast majority of social actors will not become reflexive to the same extent unless one of two events occurs; a crisis, or a lack of synchrony between the demands of a field and a person’s habitual dispositions (1984). In order to reconcile the habitus and reflexivity within a balanced account of the causal powers of both structure and agency, the limitations of Bourdieu’s theoretical perspective must be overcome through an adoption of the following four steps. Initially, one must broaden Bourdieu’s definition of reflexivity. Second, it is important to appreciate how the role of the habitus has changed within contemporary society to be less determining of social roles and positions. Third, one must de-conflate both structure and agency, and locate the mediums which bridge the two, namely; ‘beliefs’ (Elder-Vass, 2007) and reflexivity (Archer, 2006). Finally, one must extend Bourdieu’s theory of practice to accommodate an appreciation of the ‘interactional’ and ‘figurational’ inter-relations, between actors within a field, and how these interactions are coloured by a distinctly reflexive competency (Mouzellis, 2007). The narrow definition of reflexivity that Bourdieu employs within his theory of practice must be dethroned from its exclusive possession amongst an academic elite, to become more inclusive of ordinary everyday social action. It is a fallacy to assume that normal social actors reflect upon their daily lives in the same theoretical fashion as a researcher who enters the field with a view 5|Page towards deconstructing and reconstructing the meanings of a particular social reality. As Margaret Archer insists, reflexivity is an inherent ability that all social actors possess and it takes place within and throughout the internal dialogues that social actors have with themselves, when they consider their own social position, identities, action and thoughts in relation to other social actors (Archer, 2006). There has never been a time when the social order was so stable, or the structuring power of the habitus so complete, that social actors did not have to face, and reflexively overcome, unforeseen contingencies within their social lives. Unforeseen contingencies, or an ‘ontological insecurity’ (Giddens, 1991) are very much an intrinsic aspect of ordinary social life within today’s global cities that are host to newly heightened levels of social diversification, individualism, and multiculturalism. These deep rooted changes predetermine that the forms of social crisis that Bourdieu discusses, will inherently occur on a frequent basis, preceding the genesis of a widespread diffused form of reflexivity (Sweetman, 2003). Similarly, by considering how social actors move fluidly into and out of completely new social fields, the potential for subjective expectations and objective conditions to fall out of synchrony is incredibly high. Within contemporary society, the causal power of the habitus to determine, structure and shape the social realities of social actors, is not as absolute as Bourdieu advocated; or as may have been the case in the two decades following the Second World War. It is increasingly the case that global forces, and the processes of change which accompany modernity, lead to the fragmentation and individualisation of the social order, undermining the prevalence of one homogenous body of cultural dispositions and habituations, that are passed on to children, who mature and then slot into the class positions that their habitus dispositions delineate for them. Children still ‘learn’ a matrix of cultural dispositions, but these dispositions are far broader in scope, far less determining over which social positions a person will adopt, and far less influential than they were during the middle of the 20th century (Beck, 2002). In contemporary society, the habitus still structures certain forms of social action, especially the corporeal forms that Bourdieu discusses, but in other more complex social realms it is far more malleable, and open to experiential adaption. Children now live in a reality where they must come to learn knowledge that their parents could not have known, and undertake professions of which their parents have no experience (Archer, 2006). In such contexts the determining power of the habitus is dramatically undermined by the speed at which the social world changes from one generation to another. This deprives the habitus of the same structuring power it may once have possessed within more stable and orderly societies of the past. As a result social action in modern contexts inherently demands a greater reflexive competency amongst social actors, who must contend with a greater degree of uncertainty and discontinuity between what they subjectively perceive, and what they objectively face when actually engaging with other members of society. In this sense, the reproductive emphasis that Bourdieu places upon the habitus, would be best 6|Page applicable amongst societies that are ‘morpho-static’, meaning that change and innovation are relatively limited. Whereas today’s societies are inherently ‘morpho-genetic’ as change and contingency are prolific agents of modernity (Archer, 1982). On this basis, social actors have a greater control over the course and trajectory of their own destinies, and whilst the structuring power of the habitus is still important, reflexivity has become increasingly important as a mediator between the habitus and contemporary social realities. Bourdieu’s conflation of both structure and agency prevents the differentiation of the objective and subjective influences which impress upon the performance of social action. As Bourdieu advocates that the habitus is ‘internalised’ and ‘embodied’ within the actor, it is implied that agents are ultimately reducible to social structures. Thus, the actor and structure are conflated, but Bourdieu also conflates many other important elements and aspects of social action within the term habitus that should not be so easily combined. For example, Bourdieu describes the habitus as though it were a nexus of one’s social, cultural, dispositional, and corporeal class identifiers, in addition to forming the locus and source of one’s identity, beliefs and sense of self. If all of these elements are contained within the anatomy of the habitus, then it is very difficult to conceive how individual agency and reflexivity have any consequential power, as every potential source of motivation which could drive an action finds its origins outside of the actor. In order to overcome this problem, it is important to de-conflate structure and agency by using a critical realist perspective to appreciate not the ‘duality of structure’ (Giddens, 1991), but the ‘analytical dualism of structure’ (Archer, 1982), and the distinct and separate existence of structure from the actor. Both structure and agency have their own causal powers, and though both are inter-dependent one is not reducible to other. Rather, by borrowing from Archer’s morpho-genetic approach, it is possible to view social reality as stratified between several different levels in order to analytically distinguish structure from agency, whilst also distinguishing the different elements that exist within both structure and the mental constitution of the actor. For example, Archer lists the human subject, the psychic realm, the self, and the social and cultural dimensions, each of which exist separately along a continuum between objective and subjective realities (2003). Each level should be considered analytically distinct if it is to be possible to understand the respective influence of each and its interrelationship with other levels. The habitus and the causal powers of structure are still critically important, but the engagement between structure and agency is not viewed as an a priori inevitability, as the two are not one and the same; there must be a mediator, or bridge, that facilitates the engagement between the two. Reflexivity acts as this bridge between structure and agency effectively; ‘mediating deliberatively between the objective and structural opportunities confronted by different groups and the nature of people’s objectively defined concerns’ (Archer, 2007: 61). If one considers the hypothetical manner in which actors engage with the habitus and the field via an analytical dualist perspective, it becomes possible to appreciate how reflexivity must act 7|Page as a mediator between the individual, social structures, and a plurality of other social actors. For example, the individual actor is not simply a vessel within which the habitus is transported and reproduced in practice, but the individual comes to form a unique, distinct, ‘self’, in the sense that G H Mead discussed. The self is part of the mental schema of the actor, and contains elements that can be learnt from a hypothetical habitus, like for example, different social roles, and the expectations that each role entails. Yet, the self also contains elements that are explicitly formed through experience and subjective conscious reflection, like for example ones identity, system of beliefs, and experiential knowledge. The individual actor learns from both objective structures, whilst also developing a subjective self, that is distinct and separate from the habitus and structure. Reflexivity and self conscious consideration bridge the engagement between the self and the habitus and the broader structural and institutional contexts within which actors engage and interact. For example, when actors interact within different fields which are each characterised by their own positional and dispositional expectations, actors may face demands which contradict what they had learnt to expect during socialisation. In such a circumstance, actors learn from the inconsistency by using a reflexive competency to develop an ever broadening mastery of a greater array of social roles and normative and cultural expectations. Reflexivity thus enables the actor to learn from an experience and update their subjective expectations of external objective realities. The habitus is not compromised by this process, but reflexivity is the element which allows an actor’s habitus to evolve in synergy with rapidly changing surrounding objective social contexts. On the other hand, interactions within different fields may lead to experiences which encourage the individual actor to question the value of their beliefs, or the appropriateness of their aims and aspirations. In such contexts, the reflexive consideration of experience leads to the development of aspects of the self which are deeply subjective, by virtue of ‘internal conversations’ (Archer, 2007) that allow social actors to realign and re-prioritise the aspects in their lives which they as individuals value and believe with greatest passion. Reflexivity has causal power in both contexts, because as it mediates between structure and agency and the evolving qualities of both the self and ones habitus, it actively contributes to a change in either ones perception of the expectations of objective structures, or the growth and development in one’s subjective identity or system of beliefs. In each case the use of reflexivity influences the choices that actors make and the actions they perform, without denying that structure continues to have emergent properties and causal powers of its own. As Nicos Mouzellis vividly illustrates, reflexivity is a human quality that not only mediates between the individual actor and the ‘dispositional’ demands of the habitus, or the ‘positional’ expectations of the field, but it also plays a central role within the ‘interactional’ or ‘figurative’ dimension of engagements between actors within the field (2007). The irreducibility of action to the dispositional and positional demands of the habitus and field is self evident, when one considers how the actions that take place in fields often deviate from the neat expectations of 8|Page the habitus or the field. This is because actors do not act as habitus representatives, but as the beholders of identities formed by both objective and subjective factors. On this basis, the interaction between actors within fields, and the contingencies and unpredicted outcomes of their relationships are forged through the perpetual human tendency to try and make sense of the meanings that drive the actions of others using a reflexive competency as they do so. In conclusion, as the preceding discussions have sought to illustrate, it is imperative that both the habitus and reflexivity are considered and harmonised, within any attempt to explain the roots and causes of social action. Bourdieu understood the importance of self conscious reflection, and though he only allowed space for a narrow and restricted form of reflexivity, it is important to appreciate that Bourdieu modeled his theory of practice upon societies and situations of interaction that were perhaps more structured and organised than those within the contemporary social world. De-traditionalisation and the fracturing of a definitive set of social norms and values results in the pluralisation and individualization of identities, lessening the power of structures such as the habitus to determine social action as they once might have done. Contingency and rapid social change force the individual to contend with a plethora of unexpected events, inherently allowing the individual actor a greater power to determine their own responses and strategies as they make their way through the social world. Despite the fact that structure and the habitus may be less determining over social action, it is important to appreciate that routine habitual action is still fundamentally important and integral to the maintenance of the social order and the reproduction of a stable and consistent matrix of fields of action where individuals can engage. It is during times of turbulent social change that actors seek out the stability and consistency of social structures with renewed enthusiasm, in order to once again restore balance and order to their lives. This is most clearly illustrated by the recently renewed surge of nationalisms and national movements that have ascended in reaction against the globalisation of local communities and the rise of multiculturalism. Just as it is an inherent human characteristic to reason and reflexively overcome contingency; the desire for stability and a sense of certainty is an equally strong part of human nature. As a consequence, the mutual importance of both the habitus and reflexivity must not be overlooked. As this essay has sought to illustrate, reflexivity is the essence that allows the individual social actor to oscillate between the stability of habitual and positional structures, and the contingencies that surface within rapidly changing contemporary social realities. By synthesizing each of these causal powers within one theory of social action, it becomes possible to appreciate the complex interplay between both structure and agency, change yet stability, and appreciate the complimentary co-dependence of the habitus and reflexivity as two equally important causal powers. 9|Page Bibliography Adams, M. (2006). Hybridizing Habitus and Reflexivity. Sociology , 511‐28. Alexander, J. (1995). Fin de Siecle Social Theory. London: Verso. Archer, M. (2000). Being Human: The Problem of Agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Archer, M. (2007). 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