In News
- Habitus was recently seen in the news .
About Habitus
- The concept of Habitus was made popular by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in his book Outline of a Theory of Practice (1977).
- He used the concept to address the sociological conundrum between structure and agency
- He explained that habitus was shaped by structural position, but also generated action.
- According to him, when people exhibit agency they unconsciously refer to social structures, thus reflecting on and reproducing them.
- Individual actions are thus reflected by the socialisation and habitus of the individual.
- The concept of habitus was first known to be used by Aristotle, it was Pierre Bourdieu who transformed it into a vital concept in social theory.
- The term habitus refers to a collective entity by and into which dominant social and cultural conditions of a society are established and reproduced.
- What one considers, ‘natural’, ‘taboo’, ‘neutral’ and ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is constructed by one’s habitus.
- It is a subjective and yet not an individual system of structures, concepts, schemes of perception, actions and norms that are internalised by individuals in the same group.
- Habitus helps instil a sense of the world in individuals by attributing cultural value to material or immaterial objects.
- Even at a very intimate level, habitus postulates specific properties.
Source:TH
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