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Che Guevara: A Sociological Analysis of a Life

Robin West

Abstract. Since his death in 1967, Che Guevara has become an iconic symbol

representing the passion driven revolutionary who single-mindedly fights imperialism

in the name of universal socialism. Myth has come to replace the man in many

respects, with fabrications of his life emerging from the mechanisms of Cuban

propaganda and from western idealisations of his exploits in Cuba, Africa, and

mainland Latin America. This paper adopts a hermeneutical approach to examine the

construction of Guevaras character and its affects on his course of action by drawing

on contemporary sociological theory. I consider the cultural background from which

Guevara emerged in terms of Bourdieus concept of habitus. Although embodied

cultural dispositions can, to a degree, explain subsequent actions on the part of the

individual, I illustrate both the generative and constraining roles played by subsequent

cognitive and emotional encounters that supplement and transcend internalisedstructures. Thus, certain situations encourage critical reflexivity and produce traits of

character that in themselves bear a significant agental power. I suggest, through a

discussion of key events in Guevaras life, that without taking into account wider

cultural and historical contexts, and by adhering to the amor fati resulting from

habitus, he is often led to a misinterpretation of vital situations. Accordingly, he fails

to recognise the extent to which his own actions are limited by his habitual

understanding of prevailing circumstances.

Keywords: structure, agency, habitus, doxa, cultural fields

Introduction

If the world of action is nothing other than [the] universe of interchangeable

possibilities, entirely dependent on the decrees of the consciousness that

creates it and hence totally devoid of objectivity, if it is moving because the

subject chooses to be moved, revolting because he chooses to be revolted, then

emotions, passions, and actions are merely games of bad faith, sad farces in

which one is both bad actor and good audience. (Bourdieu, 1977: 74).

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Whether we choose to regard Ernesto Che Guevara as the tragic Hegelian world-

individual whose passions are exploited and exhausted in the dialectic of change, or

as an individual who finds the odds against him in his attempt to implement

widespread ideological change, focus primarily falls on the actions of the historical

Guevara in the context of voluntarism. Yet, as Bourdieu (1977) points out, passions

and emotions become mere escapes into the transcendental layer of the self when thelocus of agency is seen purely in terms of the subjective and the agental

determinisms of the objective world, toward which these passions are directed, is

denied. Alternatively, to treat the actions of an individual as directly determined by

prevailing conditions, external influences, or predetermined roles, is to exclude the

reflective and agental capabilities of the knowledgeable actor. This paper focuses on

significant events in Guevaras life by aligning influential factors with contemporary

theories of structure and agency.1

Following an introduction to the composition of his

early years, Part One will consider Guevaras youthful travels in Latin America and

will draw mainly on the formation of his character by considering emotional

responses as emergent properties ofhabitus. In Part Two, by examining the events of

Ches penultimate (and disastrous) escapade in post-colonial Congo, I suggest thatdominant residues of the habitus may have affected his powers of judgement and

agency when faced with multi-dimensional external structures.

I. The development of an egalitarian character: habitus and the

experience of doxa

Youth and the accumulation of dispositions

Ernesto Guevara was born in 1928 into a blue-blooded line of Argentinian

aristocracy. His father was of Spanish-Irish descent whilst his mother, Celia, came

from a distinguished and landed lineage. Ernestos grandmother had been prominent

socially as a liberal and iconoclast and was a significant figure in his life. Although

Celia was educated in Catholicism, any leanings in this direction were tempered by

the influence of her elder sister a card-carrying communist and she eventually

emerged as a socialist, anti-clerical feminist. Prior to Guevaras meeting with Fidel

Castro, Celia was to be the major intellectual and political figure in his life. At the

time of his birth, Argentina was a prosperous, fledgling democracy that aspired to join

the ranks of first world nations. By the late 1930s the effects of the Depression had

transformed it into a shadow of its former self: the economy collapsed, right-wing

pressure groups were formed; the middle-class became disillusioned and eventually

democracy was replaced by military rule. All this led to ideological polarisation and

great cultural changes for the nation. During this time, Ernesto attended publicschool, giving rise to some curious paradoxes in his early life. Prior to the

Depression, Argentina had been a fairly homogenous society that aimed at improving

equality hence Ernesto studied alongside pupils from destitute neighbourhoods and

social elites alike. However, the economic troughs of the Thirties saw the emergence

of a new working class compounded from the now redundant agricultural sector.

Thus, on the one hand, Ernesto had early intellectual experience of social diversity

and, on the other, he was spatially separated by his social position as a scion of the

Argentine elite: a position that gave him a cultural and self-enhancing advantage.

Through this sketch of the cultural background of Guevara, a sense of the initial

factors that combined to furnish a particular socially conditioned disposition isrevealed. We can see the nascent forms of the intellectual and cultural capital that

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will affect his sense of reflexive judgement in relation to external structures in later

life.2

Bourdieu has defined the notion of a socialised subjectivity as the habitus

(Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992:126): that is to say that it is the sum of the acquired

patterns of thought, behaviour, and aestheticism that provides the initial bridge

between the subject as agent and the determinism of objective social structures.

Habitus can therefore be considered as the internalised storehouse of cultural capitalfrom which we draw according to the relevant situation, and which will reflect the

social constitution of our generalised worldview as a system of cognitive and

motivating structures (Bourdieu, 1977:76). In much the same manner in which

Giddens considers structures as rules and resources existing as memory traces and as

the organic basis of human knowledgeability (1984:377), habitus defines the

normative conditions of the cultural lifeworld that are drawn on as a pre-reflexive

source in the individuals phenomenological activity. An example can be taken from

an experience in Ernestos early life. The street in which he lived bordered a

shantytown district of dispossessed workers wherein a character known as the man of

dogs (as a legless cripple, he was pulled around on a small chariot by a brace of

hounds) resided. One day the local children took to taunting and molesting him.Ernestos reaction was to attempt to intervene and plead with the children to stop

yet he was met with mockery not from the children, but from the cripple he had tried

to defend, whose eyes were filled with an ageless, irreparable class hatred. This

incident perhaps illustrates Ernestos disposition towards injustice embedded in his

habitus and reflects the normative structures underlying bourgeois family life. It also

reveals the taken-for-granted distinction, not so much between class divisions, but

with regard to the fact that his actions could somehow be separated from his elite

social positioning. Bourdieu points to the element of conservatism at play in the way

that we pre-reflexively accept uncontested accounts of our social world (Bourdieu and

Wacquant, 1992:73-74): hence pre-reflexive appraisals are defined as the doxic realm

in which categorisations (such as class) conform to the established order (Bourdieu,

1977:164). Guevaras position during this encounter can be considered as the doxa of

the bourgeois socialist lifeworld in the sense that the intellectualisation of

egalitarianism effectively serves to reify class divisions. Consequentially, the

contempt directed towards the cripples saviour reveals the fact that the status of

enemy was conferred not on the attackers, but on the rich child trying to defend

him.

In Guevaras middle-class lifeworld the naturalisation of a class society presupposes

any discourse on equality the latter relying on the recognition of a heterodox

account of antagonistic social positions. It is in this context that Mouzelis (1991:100)separates the paradigmatic from the syntagmatic play of exchanges in social

interaction.3

That Guevara consciously acts on his own ethical standpoint in the

above incident does not obscure the sociological observation that he uncritically

imposes the virtual morality of his habitus onto an actual world built on diverse

experiences. The consequence is the instigation of an interactional dualism in which

his sense of agency is restricted. The clash of different lifeworlds, typically in the

form of culturally instilled ethical agency versus antagonistic embedded structures, is

a theme that re-occurs throughout his life. The following account of his travels in

Latin America will draw on this premise through a hermeneutical interpretation of the

intellectual challenges faced during this time and, by arguing that the modification of

consciousness enriches the scope of habitus, explain how this period may have beeninstrumental in the intended, and unintended, outcomes of future actions.

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My underlying argument is twofold: first, I suggest that Ernestos habitus emerges

from this standpoint and is initially drawn upon in practice as the unreflexive

enactment of internalised rule-games. Second, I consider the possibilities for atypical

action that result from reflexive evaluations of situations. That these may fall beyond

the scope of a priori experience does not conflict with Bourdieus emphasis on thedurable and transposable nature of habitus (1977:95). Certainly, habitus should be

considered as orienting the individual toward a predisposition for particular forms of

practical action (Burkitt, 2002:225), however, as new objective structures are

encountered, then new modes of habitus arise in response to emergent realities (cf.

King, 2000:428). This, of course, suggests that actors do not enter into new situations

with tabula rasa minds given the anterior determinism of their personal and culturally

nuanced ideas and memories (Stones, 1996:48). However, whilst Bourdieus sense of

habitus appears to bear a quality that transcends the objectivist-subjectivist divide,

without due modification, it retains an overly deterministic character through its

emphasis on culturally inherited dispositions (in the last instance). In terms of the

individual qua personality, Bourdieu suggests that each individual system ofdispositions should be considered merely as a structural variant of the wider group

habitus and as the expression of the difference between subjective life courses both

inside and outside of the group (1977:86). We will notice, however, that in stating

this Bourdieu does not adequately consider the developmental role of subsequent

experience that may occur beyond the scope of culturally instilled dispositions. By

this I imply those experiences that may serve to substantiate a specific trait of

character4

through either emotional or evaluative ratifications. Thus, and as Mouzelis

(1991) elaborates, we must allow for the experiential trajectory that removes the actor

from the limitations of pre-reflexive habitus in the form of the dispositional dimension

of attitudes, skills and norms, that do not derive from a specific role, but from the

actors wider experience of life vis--vis new situations. To understand actions it is

necessary to look for the situational dimension of social life that reveals an order of

interaction between participants and their respective lifeworlds (cf. Mouzelis,

1991:198).

It is at this juncture that we must seek the phenomenological dimension of the actor

that selectively (if not unconsciously) draws on, or rejects, the stock of cultural

knowledge in conjunction to the experiences that are faced in unique interactions. It

is then perhaps best to think of dispositional attributes as existing on a continuum that

flows between the objective and subjective worlds.5

My overall aim is to highlight

the conflicts that arise in this modification of habitus but, nonetheless, to stress theresilience of early formulations of belief and strategies. Therefore, in the subsequent

accounts of events in Guevaras life, I intend to illustrate the intransitive and

transitive6

content of habitus rooted in both cultural conditioning and common-sense

relational understandings respectively. With reference to the unintended and

intended outcomes of his actions, I am suggesting that habitus necessarily retains a

sense of ontological dualism within the agent due to the co-existence of deeply

embedded dispositions and the capacity for effective (or erroneous) reflexivity. In

short, habitus simultaneously displays qualities of inertia and dynamism (cf. Noble

and Watkins, 2003:524).7

In this sense, there is a constant tension between the

generative possibilities of habitus and those restrictions emerging from attempts to

synthesise the motivations inherent to diverse cultural beliefs.

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The conjunctural development of habitus

Between 1951 and 1954, Guevara travelled extensively through Latin America. With

the above suggestions in mind, we can think of Ernestos trips in terms of both an

initiation rite to the wider culture of the continents lifeworld and as a political

epiphany that increases the scope of habitus. There are a number of interactions

during this period that can be considered as revealing the relevance of habitus aseither constricting or enabling or, as Bourdieu (1984; 1993a; 1993b) sets out,

disclosing the existence of cultural fields that consist of the objective relations

between culturally positioned actors that enable or prevent the activation of a

particular type of cultural capital. Initially he travelled, with a companion, from Chile

through to Venezuela. I will focus on one instance that gave a broader vision of the

order of things and the conditions that underlay the social and political status quo

that perpetuated a distinct sense of caste and inequality outside of his native

Argentina.

We must take as an entry point the hybridity of socialism and an emotional interest

(cf. James, 1884) in native culture that lay at the core of Ernestos personality: bothcan be attributed to the educational capital underlying bourgeois habitus, thus

enabling later evaluations. Perhaps it is Guevaras fascination for the exotic that

becomes fused with a nostalgic sense of primitive communism and fervent anti-

imperialism that stands out in his account of this time. We find here the nascent

interpretations of the reality of social divisions and the attribution of a meaning to

national and class struggle. As I hope to show in the final section, the effects that this

modification of habitus has in subsequent situations have both intended and

unintended outcomes on agental conduct in terms of reflexivity, motivation, and the

prioritisation of concerns.

One episode in particular represents the overall point that I am trying to make. In his

journey through Latin America, Guevara, apparently for the first time, engaged with

the industrial proletariat and was immediately attracted both by their difference and

the limitations of authentic contact. Whilst in transit through Chile, the pair planned a

visit to the Chuquicamata copper mine and, waiting for official permission, spent the

night with a working couple who were ardent communists. Ernesto was acutely

aware of the differences between himself and these individuals who had suffered at

the hands of the authorities for their political beliefs. His diary entry is worth

reproducing so as to catch the essence of the phenomenological conception that

bridges his inner-world as habitus and the alien exterior world:

The couple, numb with cold, huddling together in the desert night, were a living

symbol of the proletariat the world over. They didnt have a single blanket to sleep

under [] it was one of the coldest nights Ive ever spent; but also one which made

me feel a little closer to this strange, for me anyway, human species []. Although

by now we could barely make out the couple in the distance, the mans singularly

determined face stayed with us and we remembered his simple invitation: Come,

comrades, come and eat with us. Im a vagrant too, which showed he basically

despised our aimless travelling as parasitical. (Guevara, 1996:59-60. My emphasis.)

Here we seem to find echoes of the incident with the Argentinian cripple in the sense

that Guevara bases his perceptual evaluation on the uncontested ethics of bourgeoismentality hence he is unnerved by the critical rationality of his host. In terms of the

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distinction of habituses, there is a gulf between the shared understandings of either

party the middle-class adventurer who nonetheless proffers an ethical reflection of

the situation falls short of the reality of the lived experience with which he is faced.

This perhaps is not surprising given that each party in the interaction inhabit a field

that does not allow for the mutual synthesis of dispositions. Despite the element of

human connectedness in the situation, it falters due to the collision of antagonisticcultural positions. Ernesto and his companion are culturally competent in their own

field, yet they cannot cash in their capital for their hosts are oblivious to the cultural

rationale behind the desire to acquire knowledge through travelling. Guevaras

interpretation of the plight of the couple reveals an innocent ethical stance that takes

in the tragedy of the moment but remains politically nave; hence he declares that

what had burgeoned in the communist worker was merely the natural desire for a

better life, a protest against persistent hunger transformed into a love for this strange

doctrine, whose real meaning he could never grasp but when translated as bread for

the poor became something that the worker could understand (ibid:60). In this sense,

it is an almost poetic interpretation of a political affiliation that demeans the agency of

the worker through its adherence to dispositional beliefs, but one, nonetheless, thatprompts Guevara to engage in a level of reflection that will propel him towards a

closer affiliation with the working class. This reflexivity is enabled via the

occurrence of a unique situational dimension (cf. Mouzelis, 1991:198).

This youthful simplicity vis--vis the actual conditions of the proletariat and the wider

political context becomes blurred with his interpretation of indigenous culture that is

formed by the access to, and conditions of, his educational background. Thus habitus

ensures an intellectual knowledge of the indigenous position, yet is impoverished by a

lack of intimate contact with the real world of events. Guevara was fascinated by

the tropics with their mulatto and black exoticism that was so starkly different from

his white, middle-class Buenos Aires. He was enraptured by the richness of

indigenous culture and the mysteries that were buried in the ruins of Indian

architecture such cultural remnants signifying the last border of resistance against

Spanish imperialism. What I intend to argue here is that Ernestos critical reflections

on situations he encounters have a considerable outcome on his sense of agency.

Through the newly acquired knowledge of social settings and positions, he is able, as

Mouzelis outlines, to make sense of micro-situations by constructing abstract

typifications of the social world (1991:89). This seems to be consolidated into a new

worldview (based increasingly on the idea of mutual Latin-Americanism) through the

process of associating concrete perceptions with his (limited) understanding of

ideological issues and ethical position. In the case of Guevara, Mouzelis seems quite

right when he suggests that these typifications are often erroneously perceived asactual macro-structures that subsume, control or generate micro-situations (ibid.), for

the simplistic associations belie both the structural reality and the actual ordering of

concerns of other individuals.8

The practice of ideology

Following the trip, Guevara eventually found himself in Guatemala. His distaste of

foreign intervention in Latin America had increased and he made his first substantial

contact with communist organisations challenging American hegemony. A politically

mature Guevara rapidly emerged and in 1955 he was introduced to Castro. The

following year he took part in the invasion of Cuba, integrating his increasing

knowledge of Marxist literature with revolutionary guerrilla warfare tactics. Togetherwith Castro, Guevara declared that agricultural workers were to be the new

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proletariat. Subsequent ideological conflicts within the communist world caused

Castro and Guevara to move in different political directions concerning economic

positions although still close personally to Castro, Guevara experienced political

isolation. In 1965 he decided to leave for the Congo and re-engage directly in the

revolutionary struggle. The following section will attempt to describe how the events

of this period can be explained from both the analysis of the actor by referring to theenabling nature of bourgeois habitus and the paradoxical affect on the interpretation

of external structures both within the African context and those that were at play in

the broader historical arena.

II. The Congo: tensions and consequences of habitus and doxa

Emotions, structure, and practice

In 1960, the Congo gained independence from Belgium and fell under the control of a

proto-nationalist government. Chaos ensued following provincial secessions, military

coups and counter-revolts. The superpowers became involved and the situation

developed ostensibly into a struggle between socialism and imperialism. I haveargued that a sense of emotional reflexivity is emergent from, and generates, habitus.

As we have seen, significant interactional situations appear to have provided the

opportunity for the elaboration of character along these lines and have led to

emotional motivation in the formulation of strategies. The situation in the Congo

illustrates this well with reports suggesting that Guevara was profoundly moved

by the combination of poverty, backwardness, and oppression structuring the

potentiality of the situation. In what follows, I draw attention to the latent tensions

between what can be considered as the dynamism of emotional reflexivity (such

reflection propelled Guevara toward a dispositional passion for Marxist

guerrillaism) and the transmutation of emotions into the structural character of

dispositions that form emotive constraints in the field of action (cf. Lizardo,

2004:376).

The composition of Ernestos character, as we have analysed it, is one that retains the

original import of his middle-class socialisation process. His belief premises

concerning the spread of communism have been incorporated into this character

through ideological elaboration and direct encounters with the proletariat. These

factors have been accompanied by an early admiration for indigenous culture.

Undoubtedly, Guevaras success in Cuba would have ratified his ideological position

and produced an unquestioning faith in his own policies. It is this habitual package

that Ernesto carries with him to the Congo without adequate knowledge of the widersocial forces with which he must contend for control of the situation. The event we

are concerned with takes place in the field of revolutionary struggle in which a

network of actors and collectivities share a certain number of fundamental interests

(Bourdieu, 1993b:73). We must think of this network in terms of position-practices

which, from a structural perspective, sees the actors set in an institutionalised

framework of relations: in this case the military/political organisation (cf. Cohen,

1989:208). Occupying the field at one level, we have the government forces opposed

to the revolt we can align this aspect with the wider historical ideological conflict

through the support of the U.S. who feared a communist Africa. I will not discuss

this aspect of the field further, but will concentrate on the position-practices of

Guevara and his allies. Cohen suggests that position practices must be understoodby analysing the actors varying claims to legitimate identity in the field and the

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practices through which claims to prerogatives are foregrounded. These then

interplay with the contingent situations and often erroneous strategies that contest the

performance of institutionalised reciprocities (and that can produce a struggle for

control of the situation). As Cohen makes clear, the motivation behind strategic

forbearance from acting must also be considered (1989:210). It would be fair to say

that revolt in the Congo failed predominantly due to the international context however, having established our picture of Guevaras dispositional traits as modified

on a continuum, that is as emergent from the cultural background and subsequently

modified through cognitive and emotional encounters, it will be useful to analyse their

effect on the relational field in which he became embedded.

I want to argue that, for Guevara, Marxist and guerrilla ideology, merged with his

perception of indigenous culture as primitive communism, form an internal structure

that comes close to the status of personal doxa. In this sense, the invigorating

dualism between habitus and the capacity for renewed reflexive modification seems to

have fallen into stagnation. Guevara had adopted an unquestioning perspective that

championed the advent of the New Man orientated by moral motivation andconstructed on a new base that rose above material incentives. As Bourdieu states, in

each of us [] there is a part of yesterdays man (1977:79) the events of

Guevaras life had culminated in his belief that he was the agent that would produce

this phenomenon through the ideological guidance of the agricultural proletariat. It is

clear that world events played the key role in preventing the emergence of the New

Man in the Congo. However, the failings of Guevara can be tentatively explained in

part through the cognitive implications of habitus. Stones (2001) points out that

agents draw on significatory structures that condition action alongside knowledge of

the situation arising from practical consciousness. Such significatory structures can

in no sense be direct representations of the exterior world. Guevaras perspective of

the world is in part constituted by the imagined symbolism of indigenous

collectivity and moral universalism that have been accepted and stored in habitus as

emotional residues. However, as shall be seen, the world is perceived from multiple

ideological and traditional perspectives and the actual chance of homogeneity within

any situation becomes slim (Stones, 2001:186).

The dialectic of control

That Guevara did not meet with success in the Congo can be attributed to the

combination of emergent structural and personal properties that are set in the wider

historical framework (see Archer, 1995, 2000), that is the international political field

and the more immediate field of interaction. Guevara bemoaned the motivation anddiscipline of the Congolese troops he commanded. The latter refused to carry

supplies, ran away at the first sign of conflict and were, more-than-often, drunk.

Guevara responded by drawing on his stock of knowledge of guerrilla warfare and

imposed harsh disciplinary measures. More worryingly, the Africans relied heavily

on dawa, a magical incantation delivered by sorcerers, to protect them in the field of

battle. Guevara became concerned that any defeats would be attributed to the

Cubans lack of faith in this respect. He also attempted to ridicule the Congolese into

discipline by suggesting that they should be made to wear skirts and carry vegetables

in a basket an insult that would have mortified Hispanic mentality, but was met with

hysterical laughter from the Congolese. In each of these situations Guevara fails to

assimilate his dispositional strategy with the normative structures prevailing in theCongo and thus underestimates the potential power bases that may oppose attempts to

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establish order. Just as events in his early life failed to appreciate the actuality of

situations by applying an idealisation of the overall situation (i.e. the cripple and the

mine-workers), so his willingness to believe that his romanticised indigenous fighters

would embrace his strategy is challenged. Consequentially, the increasing restoration

of dawa and the general lack of deference can be seen as the struggle for power that

emerges from the clash between the combined emotional and ideological motivationof Guevara and the doxic institutionalised ritual of the Congolese. As we shall

discuss in the next section, this results in a dialectic of control (Giddens, 1984:16;

288, Stones, 1996:93) that allows the Congolese to reassert their sense of autonomy.

Giddens (1984) argues that social relations must be examined through the analysis of

how individuals draw upon structural properties in their strategic conduct. Hence,

contextual boundaries (in our case, the delineation of traditional practices and

guerrilla tactics) are revealed by giving attention to the expression of both discursive

and practical consciousness (Giddens, 1984:288). Less powerful agents possess and

perform a knowledgeability of the social situation and manage the resources that are

available to them in a way that enables them to exert control over authoritative figures(ibid:373). Thus, a dialectic of control is established that affects the balance of

power and can lead ultimately to the loss of one of the partys agency (Stones,

1996:93-94). The situation in the Congo reached such a height that Guevara was

forced to concede to the traditional practices he had idealised and abandoned any

hope of effective control. This confrontational interaction must be defined in the

synthesis of relevant contexts that is Guevaras rigid doxic appraisal of the situation

as was covered above, the dispositional behaviour of the Congolese, and finally the

abstract agency emerging from the historical circumstances.

Historical contexts

To explain how this dialectic of control is substantiated in the overall context we must

briefly look at the prevailing conditions in the Congo, conditions that I feel were

partially concealed by the myopic reflexivity resulting from Guevaras romantic

idealism and emotionally driven cognition. Whereas Guevara seemed to rely on

national unity as a precondition of universal socialism, in effect ethnic division split

the country with any form of nationalism only present as a vague ideological

cohesion (Davidson, 1981). The actual rising against neo-imperialism could not

truly be seen as such as it was the re-activated residue of much older tribal conflicts

and intentions (ibid.).9

Any modernising ideology had always come in the guise of

colonial repression, therefore the attempt to create a new social structure in a

liberated Congo was counteracted by a reversion to traditionalism, hence thedogmatic adherence to dawa. Guevaras sentimental idealisation of indigenous

culture as revolutionary vanguard seems at odds with the social reality, in this case as

the Congolese recruits, without substantive political guidance, were susceptible to the

structural authority of traditional magic.

Guevara, a key agent in the conflict, relates to this structure at the level of the

combination of his passionate beliefs and established rules, thus acting on the basis of

a synthesis of his position, disposition, and subsequent interaction in the paradigmatic

sense outlined above. Conversely, the Congolese relate to socialist strategy in the

context of their particular relevant position (i.e. the desire to escape any form of

imperialism). The levels of knowledge to which they have access alienate them froman intimate understanding of the guerrilla rulebook by which Guevara abides.

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a mould of the personality or, character (Burkitt, 2002:220).5

By this I mean that we must consider habitus as the constantly modified result of the

negotiation of phenomenological experience, memory traces, and doxa.6

In this formulation of habitus, I draw on Laus (2004) account that attempts a

critical realist development of Bourdieus theory. The intransitive nature ofhabitus

(in my account) refers to the pre-reflexive and therefore not directly accessible

element that is encountered only as the locus of corporeal memory (in Bourdieus

sense of the bodily hexis (1977:82)). For Lau, habitus is considered as a practical

sense emergent from experience and thus escapes suggestions of purely cultural

reductionism. However, my argument attempts to place the onus of responsibility for

action on the agents successful negotiation of cultural conditioning and the capacity

for the innovative rationalisation of situations.7

Lizardo (2004:394), however, contends that habitus should be regarded in terms of a

duality of structures (i.e. historical and developmental) that intersect and overlap.8

Castaeda suggests that the great tragedy of Guevaras life was the fact that he

constantly generalised the overall situation. Guevaras hope for a unified Latin-

Americanism is based on his admiration for the indigenous peasant hence at one

stage he claims that he would rather be an illiterate Indian than an Americanmillionaire. His misconception of the situation blinds him to the fact that in reality,

most Indian peasants would rather be American millionaires.9As Davidson tells us in his history of the Congo conflict, volunteers might receive a

revolutionary teaching; but with them, and more powerful, came also the beliefs of

their own rural culture. Theirs, increasingly, was a messianic fiction of a golden age

when the ancestors should govern once more, the goods of the Europeans should pass

automatically to the Africans, and power would once again reside in spiritual shrines

these therefore took precedence over ideas of capitalism, exploitation, class conflict

and the rest (1981: 111).

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Rob Stones for inspiration and initial comments on an earlydraft of this paper. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewer for

pointing out clear ambiguities and tensions in the original submission.

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