Theory of Practice - Structure and Habitus

Pierre Bourdieu, one of the foremost social philosophers of the 20^th century, in his book Outline of a Theory of Practice examined the social conditions that make objective knowledge. Bourdieu delineates a three-tiered framework of theoretical knowledge. The first element of this framework is ‘primary experience’ or what Bourdieu also calls the ‘phenomenological’ level. This level is known to all researchers in the field because it is the source of their basic descriptive data about the familiar either of their own society or another. The second level, almost as familiar, is the ‘model’ or ‘objectivist’ knowledge. Here, knowledge ‘constructs the objective relations (eg. economic or linguistic) which structure practice and representations of practice.’ In the third level, Bourdieu outlines the theory of practice. Bourdieu proposes that a theory of objectivist knowledge will be a more rigorous and illuminating theory of practice. He claims that a truly rigorous theory of practice is accomplished by taking up the position of the realism of practice. Practice can be understood solely in terms of individual decision-making. Structure and habitus are part of Bourdieu’s theory of practice as the articulation of disposition in social space.

The key concept of Bourdieu’s formulation of a theory of practice is ‘habitus’. He defines habitus as a deep structure generative of all thought and behavior, one that orients practice without producing it. In the Outline of the Theory of Practice, he defines habitus as composed of systems of durable, transposable dispositions, “an acquired system of generative schemes objectively adjusted to the particular conditions in which it is constituted; the habitus engenders all the thoughts, all the perceptions, and all the actions consistent with those conditions, and no others.” Bourdieu emphasizes the unconscious nature of such schemes, which are subjective but not individual. Rather, the cultural schemes installed by the habitus are laid down in the earliest stages of life as basic dispositions, or orientations, and operate equally as bodily dispositions and mental operations that function, according to his metaphor, as “maps” of the individual’s social worlds, generating thoughts, perceptions, expressions, and actions limited by the historically and socially existing conditions under which they are produced

‘Habitus’ is derived from 16^th century Latin, where it means ‘a way of being’. Bourdieu considered habitus as a structured notion related to the way individuals and classes inhabit the world. Habitus is a product of history, and produces the ‘collective practices and hence, in accordance with schemes engendered by that history’. Habitus is almost like a kind of ‘practice – generating grammar’ – a grammar that includes psychological disposition. Through habitus, one internalizes the legitimacy of one’s inclusion or exclusion from privileges. Acquiring habitus is perhaps like acquiring a first language; no one can choose in the matter. With a given habitus, there is a wide range of possibilities, just as grammar enables a wide range of possibilities in a natural language. Habitus, then, is a kind of grammar of actions that serves to differentiate one class (eg. dominant) from another (eg. the dominated) in the social field. The boundaries between one habitus and another are always contested because of its fluid nature. A habitus allows for a certain degree of spontaneity, initiative and improvisation. Hence, habitus makes social action and interactions possible without making them predictable.

Habitus is connected, then to Bourdieu’s view (or empirical discovery) that modern capitalist societies are societies of inequality. Class conflict means that certain people receive a disproportionate share of cultural, economic, and symbolic capital. Privileges thus exist, and privileges generate privileges. Here, privilege should be grasped as being manifest not only at the level of economic capital (level of wealth) but also at the level of the symbolic (eg. education, language, acquisition, aesthetic appreciation).

If habitus exists beyond the consciousness of the individual, access to it can be gained only by collecting a wide range of statistical and other data relating to the social life of the individual. A specific habitus becomes evident when a range of variables (occupation, education, income, taste in food, artistic performance etc.) are shown, statistically to correlate with each other. Studies of parents’ occupation and educational attainment demonstrate that privilege is passed on (children of doctors and highly professionals also tend to get into the medical field). Studies of taste tend to suggest that privilege and the dominant paradigms of taste are connected. Studies of academic institutions suggest that, in the humanities and social sciences, a particular faculty with language relates again to economic and social privilege. In effect, Bourdieu’s claim is that once the objective data have been gathered across the board, it is possible to construct a map of social privilege. A habitus is connected to a lifestyle to the extent that it enables this lifestyle to be reproduced (which means: enabling the same inequalities to be reproduced). Habitus, then, consists of the transposable dispositions (transferable to a range of contexts), perceptions and appreciation an individual acquires through being a member of a given class, as this is articulated in a given set of material circumstances.

Structures constitute a particular type of environment (eg. the material conditions of existence characteristic of a class condition produce habitus, system durable, transposable dispositions. Structured structures are predisposed to function as structuring structures. It is necessary to abandon all theories which explicitly or implicitly treat conditions and are entirely reducible to the mechanical functionary of pre-established assemblies, ‘model’ or ‘roles’. Bourdieu argues that ‘power’ is imbricated throughout society’s institutions and practices and reproduced by these very institutions and practices.

The importance of Bourdieu’s project lies in his attempt to construct a theoretical model of social practice. To him, all social life is essentially practical. Practice is located in space and more significantly in time. Practice, according to Bourdieu is not consciously or not wholly consciously organised and orchestrated. He metaphorically considered social life as a game. All games have rules, the same is true of social life. Games are learned through explicit teaching as well as experientially in practice, the same is social competence. Social life cannot be understood as simply the aggregate of individual behaviour.

Oral History - Theoretical and Methodological Issues

“All history was at first oral”, says Samuel Johnson. Memory is the core of oral history, from which meaning can be extracted and preserved. Oral history collects memories and personal commentaries of historical significance through recorded interviews. As distinct from oral traditions (stories that societies passed along spoken from generation to generation) oral history interviewing has been occurring since history was first recorded. Oral history relates both personal stories and memories that people tell other people about the past and the formal collection or account of such stories and memories by oral historians and researchers.

The Oral History Association of Australia provides a two-part definition regarding oral history: as a practice or method for recording, processing and conserving oral accounts of the past. It highlights the importance of the background knowledge or preparedness of the interviewer and an interviewer that has direct experience and knowledge of the interview topic. As well, it covers the functional aspect and states oral history is a ‘tape-recorded interview in question and answer format … on the subject of historical interest … which is made accessible to the other researchers.” An interview becomes an oral history only when it has been recorded, processed in some way, made available in an archive, library, or reproduced in written form for publication.

Oral history is a history built around the people. It thrusts life into history itself and it widens its scope. It allows heroes not just from the leaders, but from the unknown majority of the people. Oral history offers a challenge to the accepted myths of history, to the authoritarian judgment inherent in its tradition. It provides a means for a radical transformation of the social meaning. (Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past: Oral History). The general acceptance that oral history is critical to our understanding and appreciation of landscapes and places is located to broader trends in history.

Worldwide political and social changes during the last decades of the 20^th century confronted historians with the inadequacy of archival documentation which often reflected a discredited government rather than the resistance against it. Newly emerging nations in Asia and Africa found that the written documents reflect the view of former colonial masters and used oral history to revive buried national identities. Hence, oral history became an alternative source.

There are a number of theoretical and methodological issues and misunderstandings regarding oral history projects. There are questions on objectivity, reliability, multi-disciplinarily, the role of the interviewer, the role of interviewed, further interpretation of oral history, and so on.

Elite Historicism Vs Non-elite Historicism

Oral historians project the merits of the elite vs non-elite interviewing as it widens the understanding of historical phenomena. It is argued that the written histories project the views of the elite class written by the elite historian and written about the elite category of people in which the lives of non-elite masses were neglected. It is generally accepted that oral history clears this vacuum in historical narration. At the same time, this may lead to clashes of views on particular historical events.

The Question of Multi-disciplinarily

Oral history is always been multi-disciplinary. While many professional historians conduct oral history, a degree in history has been a prerequisite for entering the field. This has been questioned by traditional historians. To them, this will lead to the distortion of history.

The Question of Reliability

Ranke and the turn of history from a literary form into an academic discipline depended on the rigorous use of evidence. Ranke’s followers deemed oral evidence too subjective; shoddy memories told from a biased point of view. Many critics of oral history are skeptical about the accuracy of human memory and question the reliability of oral history sources. It is generally considered that archival and other written documents provide objective evidence. It can be said that oral history is as reliable or unreliable as other research sources.

Questions about the Role of the Interviewer

There are questions about the role of the interviewer in taking oral history interviews. Allan Nevins, who pioneered the oral history project at Colombia University, argued that the interviewer was envisioned as a neutral, objective collector of other people’s reminiscences. This will lead to the elimination of questions in taking interviews. Another view is that the interviewer should act as an active agent in the process of interviewing. This may lead to over-intervention of the interviewer. The more methodologically oriented oral historians criticized the uncritical acceptance of oral testimony and called for more thorough research and higher standards in conducting interviews.

Skepticism about the Accuracy of Human Memory

The critics of oral history argue that human memory is dependent on individuals and his/her memory power. Hence, oral history may lap the whole historical development of the discussed event. Further, the lack of accurate memory will lead to questions of objectivity, reliability, and authenticity.

Further Interpretation of Oral History

As the historian interprets the available written document to reconstruct a historical event, the recorded oral histories are also to be interpreted. While interpreting oral history, one should be aware of the time, context, space, and attitude of the interviewees. It should also be noted that it is the view of an individual about his surroundings and his experience with the past. 

Rumours Vs Memory

In some cases, the oral history may be mixed with rumors and hearsay. It should be clearly identified and analysed before taking it as a valid source. Most the individual memory is filled with exciting fascinating stories mixed with rumors.

Conclusion

Oral history emerged as a paradigm shift in the course of historical writings. It brings the histories of marginalized people to the centre of historical events and tries to give a counter-hegemonic historical understanding. It brought the clashes of objective evidence (archival or other documents) with Individual Testimony (Oral History) and thereby brought new ways of historical analysis. In the handling of oral histories and its interpretation, historians should be aware of its methodological and theoretical issues.

Every Man His Own Historian

The idea ‘Every Man His Own Historian’ was first proposed by Carl L. Becker, the President of the American Historical Association, 1931, who is often listed among the proponents of the “New History”. The idea was first presented at a lecture delivered in an annual address of the President of the American Historical Association, in Minneapolis on December 29, 1931. Later it was published in the American Historical Review (Vol.37, No. 2, p. 221–36). Becker’s presidential address is frequently cited by his successors to encourage a better connection to history and the public.

“History is the memory of things said and done”

Through the idea of ‘Every Man His Own Historian’, Becker tried to reduce history to its lowest terms. For this purpose, he gave a very simple definition of history – “History is the memory of things said and done.” This is a definition that reduces history to its lowest terms, and yet includes everything that is essential to understanding what it really is. He considered ‘memory’ memory to be fundamental: without memory, there is no knowledge. The memory of things said and done is essential to the performance of the simplest acts of daily life. Historical knowledge basically comes from the memory of the people.

Everyman’s Memory as History

If the essence of history is the memory of things said and done, then it is obvious that every normal person, Becker calls “Mr. Everyman”, knows some history. Since we are concerned with history in its lowest terms, we will suppose that Mr. Everyman is not a professor of history, but just an ordinary citizen without excess knowledge. History in this sense cannot be reduced to a verifiable set of statistics or formulated in terms of universally valid mathematical formulas or in terms of theories. It is rather an imaginative creation and a personal possession. Mr. Everyman, fashions out of his individual experience, adapts to his practical or emotional needs, and with his aesthetic tastes creates his own history.

Historical Activity at Mr. Everyman’s Mind

Daily and hourly, Mr. Everyman’s mind is lodged in a mass of unrelated and related information and misinformation, of impressions and images. From a thousand un-noted sources in his mind, he somehow manages, un-deliberately for the most part, to fashion history, a patterned picture of remembered things said and done in past times and distant places. It is not possible, it is not essential, that this picture should be complete or completely true. It is essential that it should be useful to Mr. Everyman. It may be useful to him that he will hold it in memory. Only those things, which can be related with some reasonable degree of relevance and harmony to his idea of himself and of what he is doing in the world and what he hopes to do. 

Professional Historian and Mr. Everyman

Although each of the professional historians is Mr. Everyman, each is something more than his own historian. Mr. Everyman, being but an informal historian is under no bond to remember what is irrelevant to his personal affairs. But the historians by profession, less intimately bound up with the practical activities, is to be directly concerned with the ideal series of events that is only of casual or occasional import to others. Professional historians consider that it is our business in life to be ever preoccupied with that far-flung pattern of artificial memories that encloses and completes the central pattern of individual experience. Professional historians are Mr. Everybody’s historian as well as our own since their histories serve the double purpose of keeping alive the recollection of memorable men and events. The history written by historians, like the history informally fashioned by Mr. Everyman, is thus a convenient blend of truth and fancy, of what we commonly distinguish as “fact” and “interpretation.”

The Concept(s) of Culture

The term culture in its early use in English was associated with cultivation and also with religious worship, hence the word ‘cult’. From the 16^th to the 19^th century, the term was widely applied to the improvement of the individual human mind and personal manners through learning. The term was then also used to denote the development of society as a whole. Edward Burnet Tylor in his Primitive Culture defined “Culture … is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and other capabilities and habits acquired by ma as a member of society.” This implies the complexity of the term. It was further attested by Raymond Williams when he wrote “Culture as one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.” He held that culture projects the whole way of life. In the last quarter of the 19^th century as a discipline “Cultural Studies” emerged with Richard Hoggard, the founder of the Birmingham Centre of Contemporary Cultural Studies.

WILLIAM H SEWELL JR. AND HIS ANALYSIS ON 
THE CONCEPT(S) OF CULTURE

William H Sewell Jr. in his book Logics of History, Chapter five entitled ‘The Concept(s) of Culture’, made a detailed analysis of concepts of culture in contemporary academic discourse. Sewell argued that in one meaning, culture is a theoretically defined category or aspect of social life that must be abstracted out from the complex reality of human existence. Culture in this sense is always contrasted to some other equally abstract aspect or category of social life that is not culture, such as economy, politics, or biology. Culture in this sense-as an abstract analytical category-only takes the singular. Whenever we speak of "cultures," we have moved to the second fundamental meaning. In that second meaning, culture stands for a concrete and bounded world of beliefs and practices. Culture in this sense is commonly assumed to belong to or to be isomorphic with a "society" or with some dearly identifiable sub-societal group, eg., Indian Culture or middle-class culture. The contrast in this usage is not between culture and not-culture but between one culture and another culture.

Culture as a Category of Social Life

Culture as a category of social life has itself been conceptualized in a number of different ways. Sewell presented these concepts as follows:

Culture as learned behaviour: Culture in this sense is the whole body of practices, beliefs, institutions, customs, habits, myths, and so on built up by humans and passed on from generation to generation. In this usage, culture is contrasted to nature: its possession is what distinguishes LIS from other animals.

Culture as all institutional sphere devoted to the making of meaning: This conception of culture is based on the assumption that social formations are composed of clusters of institutions devoted to specialized activities. Culture is the sphere devoted specifically to the production, circulation, and use of meanings. The cultural sphere may in turn be broken down into the sub-spheres of which it is composed: say, of art, music, theatre, fashion, literature, religion, media, and education. The study of culture, if culture is defined in this way, is the study of the activities that take place within these institutionally defined spheres and of the meanings produced in them. This conception of culture is particularly prominent in the discourses of sociology and cultural studies.

Culture as creativity or agency: This usage of culture has emerged with the Marxist materialistic determinism. The scholars working within these traditions have carved out a conception of culture as a realm of creativity that escapes from the otherwise pervasive determination of social action by economic or social structures.

Culture as a system of symbols and meanings: This has been the dominant concept of culture in American anthropology since the 1960s. It was made famous above all by Clifford Geertz, who used the term "cultural system" and elaborated by David Schneider.  It was contrasted to the "social system," which was a system of norms and institutions. Geertz and Schneider distinguished the cultural system from the social system. Culture as a system of symbols and meanings further created the studies like semiotics, structuralism and postmodernism.

Culture as practice: This concept is developed as a reaction against the culture as a system of symbols and meanings. This idea viewed “culture as a tool kit”. Here, culture is a sphere of practical activity shot through by wilful action, power relations, struggle, contradiction and change.

Culture as System and Practice

This concept considers culture as a dialectic of system and practice. System and practice are complementary concepts. To engage in cultural practice means to utilize existing cultural symbols. To the employment of a symbol can make a practice. Hence, practice implies a system. System and practice contribute to an indissoluble duality or dialectic.

The Autonomy of Culture

The cultural dimension of practice is autonomous from other dimensions of practice in two senses. First, culture has a semiotic structuring principle that is different from the political, economic, or geographical structuring principles that also inform practice. Second, the cultural dimension is also autonomous in the sense that the meanings that make it are shaped and reshaped by a multitude of other contexts.

Cultures as Distinct Worlds of Meaning

Cultures are contradictory: Cultural worlds are commonly beset with internal contradictions.

Cultures are loosely integrated: Societies are composed of verities of cultural activities. Hence, the Integration of cultures was a difficult task and it depends on its nature.

Cultures are contested: The conflicts of race, class, gender, etc. are frequent in the cultural sphere. Thus it is a sphere of conflict and resistance.

Cultures are subject to constant change: In complex and dynamic societies, cultures are quite changeable.

Cultures are weakly bounded: Cultural transactions between societies are a common feature. Thus the boundaries of cultures are weakly organised.

Conclusion

According to Sewell, many cultural practices are concentrated in and around powerful institutions like religion, media, state, etc. Cultures give the impressions of identity, struggle, resistance, and movements. Cultures are used as instruments for societal development.