sweetman 2003 reflexive habitus

Twenty-first century dis-ease? Habitualreflexivity or the reflexive habitus

Paul Sweetman

Abstract

While certain theorists have suggested that identity is increasingly reflexive, suchaccounts are arguably problematised by Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, which – inpointing to the ‘embeddedness’ of our dispositions and tastes – suggests that iden-tity may be less susceptible to reflexive intervention than theorists such as Giddenshave implied. This paper does not dispute this so much as suggest that, for increas-ing numbers of contemporary individuals, reflexivity itself may have become habitual, and that for those possessing a flexible or reflexive habitus, processes ofself-refashioning may be ‘second nature’ rather than difficult to achieve. The paperconcludes by examining some of the wider implications of this argument, in rela-tion not only to identity projects, but also to fashion and consumption, patterns ofexclusion, and forms of alienation or estrangement, the latter part of this sectionsuggesting that those displaying a reflexive habitus, whilst at a potential advantagein certain respects, may also face considerable difficulties simply ‘being themselves’.

‘I noticed how people played at being executives while actually holding exec-utive positions. Did I do this myself? You maintain a shifting distancebetween yourself and your job. There’s a self-conscious space, a sense offormal play that is a sort of arrested panic, and maybe you show it in a forcedgesture or a ritual clearing of the throat. Something out of childhood whis-tles through this space, a sense of games and half-made selves, but it’s notthat you’re pretending to be someone else. You’re pretending to be exactlywho you are. That’s the curious thing.’ (DeLillo, 1997: 103)

Introduction

Various theorists have suggested that identity is increasingly reflexive, andthat contemporary individuals now have ‘no choice but to choose’ (Giddens,1991: 81) – to actively construct a coherent and viable sense of self-identityfrom the various means at their disposal. Whilst in simple- or organised-modernity identities were relatively secure, and closely tied to core sociolog-ical variables such as gender, ethnicity and class, this is no longer the case, andthe increasing fragility and ambiguity of standardised, ‘ideological identities’(Maffesoli, 1991: 15) means that it is now up to contemporary individuals to

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construct a sense of identity for themselves. Consumer practices, which oncereflected already existing social identities, are now one of the key ways inwhich people go about constructing their identities, making choices on a day-to-day basis about who they are and how they want to represent them-selves. Driving a particular car, or engaging in a particular lifestyle, no longerreflects our already existing status as members of a particular class, forexample, but says something about who we – as individuals – have decidedwe want to be.

Whilst this position has gained considerable currency amongst contempo-rary social theorists, however, it is arguably problematised by Pierre Bour-dieu’s concept of habitus, which, in pointing to the ‘embeddedness’ of ourdispositions and tastes – and suggesting that these are closely related to ourmaterial circumstances or class – suggests that lifestyle and identity may con-tinue to reflect such structural characteristics, and be less susceptible to reflex-ive intervention than those such as Anthony Giddens have implied. Indeedfor writers such as Richard Jenkins (1992, 2000), Bourdieu’s theory is overlydeterministic, and allows little room for agency or reflexivity, instead sug-gesting that individuals unwittingly go about their lives mechanically repro-ducing the wider structures of which they form a part.

While less critical in her approach to Bourdieu’s work, and keen to stressthat the concept of habitus allows for a considerable degree of agency ratherthan simply the mechanical reproduction of social structure, Lois McNay(1999) also suggests that the durability of habitus may render identity lessamenable to self-refashioning than theorists of reflexive modernity imply. Itis not the intention of this paper to disagree with this, so much as to suggestthat, not only does the concept of habitus not, in and of itself, preclude reflex-ive engagement with the self, but also that certain forms of habitus may beinherently reflexive, and that the flexible or reflexive habitus may be bothincreasingly common and increasingly significant due to various social and cultural shifts.

Having outlined approaches to identity in late-, high-, or reflexive-modernity, then, the paper moves on to discuss Bourdieu’s concept of habitusand the extent to which this may be regarded, firstly, as deterministic, and secondly as implying that there are limits to the sorts of reflexive self-transformation that Giddens and others have identified. The paper then out-lines some of the reasons why it may now be plausible to refer to a flexibleor reflexive habitus, which, far from limiting contemporary projects of iden-tity construction, instead suggests that these may be ‘second nature’ for some.In the concluding section of the paper I then address some of the wider impli-cations of this argument, in relation not only to identity projects, but also tofashion and consumption, patterns of exclusion, and forms of alienation orestrangement, the latter part of this section suggesting that those displayinga reflexive habitus, whilst at a potential advantage in economic and/or socialterms, may also pay a considerable price in terms of the difficulties they facesimply ‘being themselves’.1

Twenty-first century dis-ease?

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Reflexivity and identity

Much recent sociological theory has stressed the reflexive nature of contem-porary identities, or the way in which individual identities can no longer beassumed, but have to be actively constructed from a range of available options(Beck, 1992, 1994; Giddens, 1991, 1994). In pre-modern social contexts iden-tity was taken as given, and even in simple- or organised-modernity identitywas relatively stable – a fairly unambiguous reflection of factors such as occu-pation or familial status. In late-, high- or reflexive-modernity, however, iden-tity is increasingly ambiguous, and has to be individually worked at in thecontext of more or less freely chosen possibilities.

Accounts differ, but the essential argument is that in simple- or organ-ised-modernity, identities were ‘comparatively stable’, because they were‘firmly bound into coherent and integrative social practices’ (Wagner, 1994:170):

You were German and a white-collar employee, or English and a worker,but whatever you were it was not by your own choice. Ambivalences hadbeen eliminated by comprehensive classificatory orders and the enforcingof these orders in practice. (Wagner, 1994: 159)

In this sense, simple or organised modernity was ‘only partly modern’ (Lash,1993: 5) because identity remained largely ascriptive – one’s ‘place’ may havebeen less fixed than in pre-modern social contexts, but one still knew who onewas according to the position one occupied in familial, occupational, ornationalistic terms.

With the continued ‘decline of traditional ties’ (Warde, 1994: 881), however,and the rise of individualised patterns of consumption, identity has increas-ingly become a matter of choice. ‘De-traditionalization’ means that ‘the mon-itoring by the other of traditional conventions’ has been ‘replaced by thenecessary self-monitoring, or reflexivity’ of late- or high-modernity (Lash,1993: 5) and individuals must now choose their identities from the range ofpossibilities on offer. Self-identity has become ‘a reflexively organised endeav-our’ (Giddens, 1991: 5) and ‘individuals must [now] produce, stage and cobbletogether their biographies themselves’ (Beck, 1994: 13)

As has already been indicated, one of the key ways in which this is achievedis through consumption. ‘The break-up of organized modernity’ has involveda ‘shift from socialised to privatised modes of consumption’, which in turnoffers ‘far greater choice in consumer practices and greater diversity and vari-ability in defining and creating one’s social identity’ (Wagner, 1994: 165).Consumption is increasingly divorced from factors such as class, and individ-uals increasingly ‘consume in ways which articulate to themselves and toothers a sense of identity which may be autonomous from [their membershipof] traditional status groups’ (Bocock, 1992: 145):

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Rather than unreflexively adopting a lifestyle, through tradition or habit,the new heroes of consumer culture make lifestyle a life project and displaytheir individuality and sense of style in the particularity of the assemblagesof goods, clothes, practices, experiences, appearance and bodily disposi-tions they design together into a lifestyle. (Featherstone, 1991a: 86)

As this last quotation indicates, such practices are also, increasingly, centredaround the body. In late-, high-, or reflexive modernity, the body is regarded‘less and less [as] an extrinsic ‘given’’, but has itself become ‘reflexively mobi-lized . . . [through] the pursuit of specific bodily regimes’ (Giddens, 1991: 7).No longer ‘‘accepted’, fed and adorned according to traditional ritual’, thebody has become ‘a core part of the reflexive project of self-identity’ (Giddens,1991: 178; see also Shilling, 1993). Appearance, which once ‘designated’ one’s‘social . . . rather than personal identity’ (Giddens, 1991: 99) now acts as ‘ameans of symbolic display, a way of giving external form to narratives of self-identity’ (Giddens, 1991: 62), and we have no choice but to become involved:

although modes of deployment of the body have to be developed from adiversity of lifestyle options, deciding between alternatives is not itself an option but an inherent element of the construction of self-identity.Life-planning in respect of the body is . . . a normal part of post-traditionalsocial environments. (Giddens, 1991: 178)

All of this involves an element of risk because consumers now have far greaterchoice, and as they are ‘deemed to have chosen their self-images . . . they can[now] be held to account for the end-result’ (Warde, 1994: 883). At the sametime, however, consumption also offers a certain degree of security in thisrespect. For Giddens at least, the adoption of a chosen lifestyle can ‘give mate-rial form to a particular narrative of self-identity’ (1991: 81), and thus stabiliseone’s chosen narrative through the confirmation of ‘self-image’ (Warde, 1994:882).

According to the ‘reflexive modernisation thesis’, then, identity is now bothincreasingly flexible and individualised, and must be reflexively constructedfrom the various image-sets that are available. Whilst associated with writerswho stress the continuities between simple- or organised-modernity and whatis variously termed late-, high- or reflexive-modernity, this analysis shares considerable affinities with work on identity in post-modernity. While certaintheorists of post- rather than late-, high-, or reflexive-modernity have adopteda rather pessimistic tone, however – questioning the possibility of stable orontologically secure identities forged through consumption (Angus, 1989) –and others have been more ambivalent (Kellner, 1992) – certain postmoderntheorists have been more optimistic, stressing the playful and creative free-doms that such a situation of flexibility might be said to afford (see, forexample, McRobbie, 1994).



Aside from differences in terminology then, perhaps the key differencebetween proponents of the ‘reflexive-modernisation thesis’ and their post-modern counterparts lies in their respective interpretations of the conse-quences and effects of the flexibility and ambiguity that both identify. For thelatter group this may be seen as cause for celebration, and the implication isthat at least some individuals revel in the creative and/or resistant opportu-nities afforded by the new-found freedoms on offer. While proponents ofreflexive modernisation also emphasise the choices and potential freedomsavailable to contemporary individuals, however, these are also seen to entailnew risks and responsibilities. The implication here is that consumer practicesare less geared towards creative play, and more towards an attempt to groundone’s identity in a coherent lifestyle that accords with the reflexive narrativeone has chosen to adopt. In either case, however, such accounts are arguablyproblematised by Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, which, as has already beenindicated, suggests that identities may be less amenable to reflexive interven-tion than numerous other contemporary theorists imply.

Habitus

In the broadest terms, habitus refers to our overall orientation to or way ofbeing in the world; our predisposed ways of thinking, acting and moving inand through the social environment that encompasses posture, demeanour,outlook, expectations and tastes. Informing both the smallest and largest ofactions and gestures, habitus also encompasses bodily hexis; the way we walk,talk, sit and blow our nose (Bourdieu, 1984: 466). Whilst it may appear natural,habitus is a product of our upbringing, and more particularly of our class. Itis class-culture embodied; an adaptation to objective circumstances that makesa ‘virtue of necessity’ through encouraging our tastes, wants and desires to bebroadly matched to what we are realistically able to achieve (Bourdieu, 1984:175). In this sense, habitus at least partially reproduces social structure; as theembodiment of social arrangements and material circumstance it ensures –broadly speaking – that we fulfil our destiny as members of a particular class.That said, habitus is also intended to dissolve the structure/agency dichotomy:as the embodiment of social structure, habitus allows us to act, to participateeffectively in the various social fields in which we play a part. As a ‘system ofdurable, transposable dispositions’ (Bourdieu, 1977: 72, original emphasis),and the ‘generative principle of regulated improvisations’ (Bourdieu, 1990a:57), habitus grants us a certain freedom of movement, albeit subject to variouslimitations and constraints.

Habitus is predominantly or wholly pre-reflexive, however; a form ofsecond-nature, that is both durable and largely unconscious, and which is disproportionately weighted towards the past (Bourdieu, in Bourdieu andWacquant, 1992: 133). We don’t wake up each morning deciding how we are

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going to walk or talk, or what our food preferences are, and as these stronglyreflect our upbringing and the objective circumstances of our class – whilstmaterially affecting our life chances in the present – our waking moments arespent unintentionally reproducing – to at least some degree – the structuralarrangements of which we form a part.

Habitus operates – or ‘realizes itself’ (Bourdieu, 1990b: 116) – in relationto field, each field representing a relatively distinct social space – occupational,institutional, cultural – in which more or less specific norms, values, rules, andinterests apply. Different forms of habitus are suited to more or less distinctpositions within particular fields, with individuals most able to operate effec-tively (and ‘be themselves’), when there is a clear affinity between their dis-positional conduct and their position within the field. Different forms ofhabitus have different ‘values’ in different fields, and individuals have strongattachments to – or ‘interests’ in – particular positions within particular fields.Place someone in a different position within the field, or in a different fieldaltogether, and they will behave differently – and will be more or less com-fortable or ill at ease – depending upon their ‘feel for the game’ (Bourdieu,1990b: 61).

Determinism, reflexivity and habitus

In spite of Bourdieu’s intentions, all of this may appear rather deterministic,and indeed Richard Jenkins, amongst others, has argued that Bourdieu’smodel is something of a closed loop: ‘Structures produce the habitus, whichgenerates practice, which reproduces the structures, and so on’ (2000: 152).According to Jenkins, ‘It is difficult to know where to place conscious delib-eration and awareness in Bourdieu’s scheme of things’ (1992: 77), and ‘sucha model constitutes no more than another form of determination in the lastinstance’ (2000: 151).

Others have argued against a deterministic reading, however. RichardHarker, for example, suggests that the habitus should be regarded as ‘a medi-ating construct, not a determinate one’, and that ‘the habitus . . . is no more‘fixed’ than the practices which it helps to structure’ (2000: 168). Similar argu-ments are advanced by writers such as Craig Calhoun (1993), David CouzensHoy (1999), and James Ostrow (2000), with Ostrow, for example, pointing out that habitus should be seen not as the determinant of action, but as itsunderlying base:

There is no clear path from dispositions to conduct. What does exist is aprotensional field, or perspective, that contextualizes all situations, settingthe pre-objective framework for practice, without any express rules orcodes that automatically and mechanically ‘tell’ us what to do. (Ostrow,2000: 318)



Conjuring up images of ‘the lads’ in Paul Willis’ Learning to Labour (1977),Nick Crossley, in addition, points out that even if habitus leads to reproduc-tion of social structure in line with people’s understandings of both their mate-rial circumstances and prospective life-chances, ‘The agent is wholly activehere in constructing an inductive picture of the world, even if their construc-tion is relatively fatalistic. There is no determinism in any meaningful senseof the word, just pragmatic adaptation and realism’ (2001a: 112).

Bourdieu himself is rather impatient with – or at least exasperated by –those who accuse him of determinism, stressing ‘the generative capacities ofdispositions’ (1990b: 13, original emphasis), and arguing that ‘Through thehabitus, the structure of which it is the product governs practice, not along thepaths of a mechanical determinism, but within the constraints and limits ini-tially set on its inventions’; ‘the habitus, like every ‘art of inventing’, is whatmakes it possible to produce an infinite number of practices that are relativelyunpredictable’ even if they are also ‘limited in their diversity’ (1990a: 55, myemphasis). Such limits stem from both the checks upon action imposed byone’s prior experience, and from the structure of the field as it is encountered.As a ‘feel for the game’ (Bourdieu, 1990b: 61) habitus both allows for anddemands ‘invention and improvisation’ (Bourdieu, 1990b: 63), however, whilstsimultaneously respecting the ‘rules’ of the game. Habitus allows one torespond to the current state of play, whilst simultaneously limiting one’sresponses, and as habitus operates in relation to field, also ensures thatremoval from the field – or entry into a new game – will generate a differentset of responses dependent upon one’s ‘feel’ for the game with which one isnow confronted.

For Bourdieu, then, ‘the conditioned and conditional freedom’ provided bythe habitus is antithetical both to ‘unpredictable novelty’ and ‘simple mechan-ical reproduction’ (1990a: 55), and indeed the concept is explicitly intendedas a rebuttal of both subjectivism and objectivism, or – as Bourdieu puts it –a way of ‘escap[ing] from . . . the philosophy of the subject without doing awaywith the agent’ (in Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 121). There are times whenBourdieu’s framework does appear rather deterministic, as, for example,when he states that ‘the effect of the habitus is that agents who are equippedwith it will behave in a certain way in certain circumstances’ (1990b: 77), orwhen he notes that ‘the habitus, the product of history, produces individualand collective practices, and hence history, in accordance with the schemesengendered by history’ (1977: 82; see also Margolis, 1999: 75). This is clearlynot his intention, however, and taken overall, I would agree with McNay’spoint that those who accuse Bourdieu of determinism:

fail to recognize . . . the force of [his] insistence that habitus is not to beconceived of as a principle of determination but as a generative structure.Within certain objective limits . . . it engenders a potentially infinitenumber of patterns of behaviour, thought and expression that are both ‘relatively unpredictable’ but also ‘limited in their diversity’. (1999: 100)

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That habitus not only allows for invention and improvisation, but alsodemands it is noted by Bourdieu when he points out that while ‘The goodplayer . . . does at every moment what the game requires’, this ‘presupposes apermanent capacity for invention [which is] indispensable if one is to be ableto adapt to infinitely varied and never completely identical situations’ (1990b:63): the feel for the game ‘is what enables an infinite number of ‘moves’ to bemade, adapted to the infinite number of possible situations which no rule,however complex, can foresee’ (1990b: 9; see also Bouveresse, 1999: 55).

Whilst allowing for or demanding a certain degree of freedom and impro-visation, however, habitus still limits reflexivity in at least two ways. In thefirst place, the habitus itself is not amenable to reflexive intervention: ‘Theprinciples em-bodied in this way are placed beyond the grasp of conscious-ness, and hence cannot be touched by voluntary, deliberate transformation,cannot even be made explicit’ (Bourdieu, 1977: 94; see also Bourdieu, 1984:466). Second, whilst ‘durable but not eternal’, there is, nonetheless, ‘a relativeirreversibility to this process . . . an inevitable priority of originary experiencesand consequently a relative closure of the system of dispositions that consti-tute habitus’ (Bourdieu, in Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 133, originalemphasis). Habitus thus guides our action and limits what is even considered– certain practices are automatically excluded ‘as unthinkable’ (Bourdieu,1990a: 54) – and even actions which appear strategic may in fact be guided by the habitus, and thus should not properly be regarded as such (Bourdieu,1977: 73; 1990a: 53; 1990b: 10–11).

Where Giddens (1991) and others regard contemporary lifestyles as bothmanifestations of, and scaffolding to, reflexive projects of the self, for Bourdieu lifestyle is a product of habitus, a reflection of taste – or the embod-iment of ‘class culture’ – ‘which governs all forms of incorporation, choosingand modifying everything that the body ingests . . . digests and assimilates,physiologically and psychologically’ (1984: 190). The various practices that goto make up a particular lifestyle owe their ‘stylistic affinity . . . to the fact thatthey are the products of transfers of the same schemes of action from onefield to another’, and ‘sytematicity’ in the various ‘properties . . . with whichindividuals and groups surround themselves, houses, furniture, paintings,books, cars’ – as well as in ‘the practices in which they manifest their distinc-tion, sports, games, entertainments’ – is derived from ‘the synthetic unity ofthe habitus, the unifying, generative principle of all practices’ (Bourdieu, 1984:173, my emphasis). In ‘choosing’ to engage in particular sporting activities –or what Giddens (1991) and Chris Shilling (1993) would regard as ‘bodyregimes’ or ‘body projects’ – for example, ‘agents only have to follow the lean-ings of their habitus in order to take over, unwittingly, the intention imma-nent in the corresponding practices, [and] to find an activity which is entirely‘them’ and, with it, kindred spirits’ (Bourdieu, 1984: 223).

Reflexivity is not entirely ruled out by Bourdieu: ‘Times of crisis, in whichthe routine adjustment of subjective and objective structures is brutally dis-rupted, constitute a class of circumstances when . . . ‘rational choice’ may take



over, at least among those agents who are in a position to be rational’ (inBourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 131). As this quotation also illustrates,however, reflexivity only emerges ‘in situations of crisis which disrupt theimmediate adjustment of habitus to field’ (Bourdieu, 1990b: 108), and ‘ratio-nal choice’, for example, is not necessarily open to all: ‘the art of estimatingand seizing chances, the capacity to anticipate the future by a kind of practi-cal induction or even to take a calculated gamble . . . are dispositions that canonly be acquired in certain social conditions’, and which are ‘defined by pos-session of the economic and cultural capital required in order to seize the‘potential opportunities’ theoretically available to all’ (Bourdieu, 1990a: 64).For Bourdieu, then, ‘consciousness and reflexivity are both cause andsymptom of the failure of immediate adaptation to the situation’ (1990b: 11),and are limited, for the most part, to periods of crisis, which engender a temporary disjunction between habitus and field. That said, Bourdieu does hint that – for some – such failure of adaptation may be more or lessroutine:

the petit-bourgeois experience of the world starts out from timidity, theembarrassment of someone who is uneasy in his body and his language and who, instead of being ‘as one body with them’, observes them fromoutside, through other people’s eyes, watching, checking, correctinghimself. (1984: 207)

There are clear problems with Bourdieu’s account. While he argues that ‘Theprinciples em-bodied in this way are placed beyond the grasp of conscious-ness, and hence cannot be touched by voluntary, deliberate transformation’(1977: 94), for instance, this is surely an overstatement. While we may notthink about such things most of the time, it is possible to change the way wewalk and talk, for example, as Bourdieu himself acknowledges in his brief dis-cussion of ‘charm schools’ (1984: 206). It should also be noted that at leastpart of what Bourdieu attributes to the effects of the habitus and to the ‘rel-ative closure’ of this ‘system of dispositions’ (in Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992:133) – which, for Bourdieu, means that certain practices are immediately‘excluded, as unthinkable’ (1990a: 54) – may instead reflect the divergentmoralities of different social groups.

Whatever the difficulties and ambiguities of Bourdieu’s account, however,accepting even a non-deterministic version of habitus clearly problematisesthe ‘reflexive modernization thesis’ (Hetherington, 1998: 47), and, indeed, thisis partly the point. That the concept of habitus is intended as a rebuke to bothsubjectivism and objectivism has already been pointed out. In his objectionto subjectivism, however, Bourdieu also has a more specific target – the vol-untarism of ‘rational action theory’ (Bourdieu, in Bourdieu and Wacquant,1992: 123) – and to the extent that Giddens (1991) and others reproduce the‘ideological notion of consumer choice’ (Warde, 1994: 884), and re-introducethe ‘reflexive freedom of subjects ‘without inertia’’ (Bourdieu, 1990a: 56)

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found in rationalist theories of action, their account might also be taken torepresent what the concept of habitus explicitly sets out to reject.

For McNay at any rate, their failure ‘to consider fully the recalcitrance ofembodied existence’ (1999: 97) means that ‘theories of reflexive identity trans-formation’ overstress their case, and that self-identity may be ‘less amenableto emancipatory processes of refashioning’ (1999: 95) than such approachessuggest. Like Bourdieu, McNay argues that ‘reflexive awareness is predicatedon a distanciation of the subject with constitutive structures’, and ‘is not anevenly generalized capacity of subjects living in a detraditionalized era butarises unevenly from their embeddedness within differing sets of power rela-tions’ (1999: 110). McNay is particularly concerned with gender and habitus,or the way in which masculinity and femininity are embodied and thus maynot be subject to easy reflexive transformation, but the point can be mademore generally. I do not intend to question this. What I do want to suggest isthat for some, reflexivity and flexibility may actually characterise the habitus,and that for those who display a flexible or reflexive habitus, processes ofrefashioning – whether emancipatory or otherwise – may be second naturerather than difficult to achieve.

The flexible or reflexive habitus

In other words, I want to suggest that for some contemporary individualsreflexivity and flexibility is itself deeply embedded, or rather that a capacityfor – and predisposition towards – reflexive engagement is characteristic ofcertain forms of contemporary habitus, and that, while a reflexive stance maybe unreflexively adopted, this by no means rules out such a stance but simplyrenders it a more durable or stable characteristic of the individuals or groupsconcerned. I would also like to suggest that this flexible or reflexive habitusis increasingly common due to various economic, social and cultural shifts, notleast shifting patterns of work and employment, changing forms of commu-nity and relationship, and the impact of consumer culture, which encouragesus all to constantly monitor and ‘improve’ ourselves (Featherstone, 1991a,1991b).

Occupational/workplace shifts. On the one hand, reflexivity is increasinglydemanded of employees. The decline in manufacturing, and the concomitantrise of service industries has arguably led to an increasing demand for ‘emo-tional labour’, or the ongoing management of one’s emotions in the contextof what Arlie Hochschild refers to as the ‘commercialization of feeling’ (1983).In manufacturing, meanwhile, ‘newer uncertainties in the economic environ-ment’, themselves allied to and partly responsible for greater demands forflexibility, mean that the ‘heteronomous control’ of the shopfloor characteris-tic of Fordist production techniques has increasingly given way to calls for ‘thedevelopment of autonomous agency – in terms of risk-taking, innovation,responsibility, [and] commitment’ amongst employees (Lash, 1993: 18; see



also Lash, 1994: 119). Nor are such demands confined to those on theshopfloor. Tony Blair’s recent attacks on ‘the forces of conservatism’ werenothing if not a demand for ‘flexibility’ amongst public sector employees (see,for example, Blair, 1999; Taylor, 1999; Wintour, 1999), and within BritishHigher Education, for example, bureaucratic exercises such as ‘Quality Assur-ance’ and the ‘Research Assessment Exercise’, whilst significantly reducingautonomy, also have the effect of demanding greater reflexivity amongst aca-demic staff. Whilst reflexivity is increasingly demanded of employees withinparticular occupations, however, it is also required in order to negotiate one’s‘career’:

not only have jobs-for-life disappeared, but trades and professions . . . haveacquired the confusing habit of appearing from nowhere and vanishingwithout notice . . . and to rub salt into the wound, the demand for the skillsneeded to practice such professions seldom lasts as long as the time neededto acquire them. (Bauman, 1996: 24)

Although there may be an element of hyperbole in this account, the overalldirection of Zygmunt Bauman’s argument is supported empirically by – forexample – work within Youth Studies, where it is pointed out that, over thelast three decades, ‘The transition from school to work has become much moreprotracted . . . increasingly fragmented and in some respects less predictable’(Furlong and Cartmel, 1997: 27), and that demands for flexibility have ‘led toa more contingent or flexible attitude on the part of employees towards theirown definitions of work and career’ (Dwyer and Wyn, 2001: 185, originalemphasis). As one of Peter Dwyer and Johanna Wyn’s interviewees put it:

You have to have diversity these days if you want to build a successfulcareer. Going back, looking at the changes in the last 20 to 30 years youcan’t just focus on one career anymore, you really have to be able to do amillion and one things these days. (Steve, in Dwyer and Wyn, 2001: 179)

Changing forms of community and relationship. First, as Giddens points out,the breakdown of traditional social ties means that increasingly, ‘Social bondshave effectively to be made, rather than inherited from the past’ (1994: 107).At the same time, however, to the extent that ‘sexual ties, marriages andfriendship[s]’ now ‘tend to approximate . . . to the pure relationship’ (Giddens,1991: 87, original emphasis), it has been argued that they are themselves con-tingent, ‘sought only for what . . . [they] can bring to the partners involved’(Giddens, 1991: 90), and ‘reflexively organised, in an open fashion, and on acontinuous basis’ (Giddens, 1991: 91). Nor can one’s role within such rela-tionships any longer be taken for granted. Combined with a series of widerstructural shifts, the active questioning of issues around gender and sexualitymeans that it is no longer viable, for example, to simply say: ‘I am a man, andthis is how men are’ (Giddens, 1994: 107).

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Although Lynn Jamieson (1998, 1999) has questioned Giddens’ emphasison the pure relationship, arguing that structural inequalities and the moreprosaic demands of everyday life mean that, in reality, more traditionalarrangements tend still to apply, she also acknowledges the increasingly pervasive impact of cultural ideals (1999: 490–491), and notes the way in which couples deploy ‘a range of creative . . . strategies’ (1999: 477, 485) tojustify an adherence to more traditional forms of domesticity, thereby suggesting that, even where ‘painstaking efforts’ have not been made toachieve greater equality within the household (1999: 485), a greater degree ofreflexive monitoring of the relationship still applies. Whilst considerably lessoptimistic than Giddens in her diagnosis of contemporary trends, Hochschild(1994), meanwhile, provides additional support for the idea that relationshipshave become increasingly contingent and subject to reflexive monitoring ofthe sort that the former identifies. Whether linked to the increasing contin-gency of intimate relationships or otherwise, it is also the case that youngpeople’s movements in and out of different living arrangements have – liketheir transitions from school to work – become increasingly complex andunpredictable, again suggesting that a reflexive approach to such changes isrequired:

The smooth transitions from family of origin to family of destination whichwere the hallmark of the 1950s and early 1960s . . . are no longer with us.Instead, frequent and complex movements back and forth between livingalone or with parents, friends and partners are now increasingly commonamongst young adults, removing any sense of a common linear transition.(Heath, 2002: 139)

The impact of consumer culture. Not only has consumption become increas-ingly individualised, but consumer culture demands reflexivity through itsrequirement that ‘individuals of all classes . . . harness their rising expectationsto venture along the road to self-improvement’ (Featherstone, 1991a: 92).Individuals are increasingly expected to approach their ‘leisure-time’ with ‘acalculating frame of mind’ (Featherstone, 1991b: 186), and alongside the sensethat we are all increasingly on display in a variety of contexts (Featherstone1991b), this ‘forces us out of our pre-reflective ease’, potentially ‘generatinganxiety’ and an acute sense of self-consciousness (Crossley, 2001a: 158): asMichel Foucault has pointed out – albeit in a somewhat different context –we are now told to ‘Get undressed – but be slim, good-looking, tanned!’ (1980:57). Neglecting to invest in one’s appearance carries various sanctions – andcan be regarded ‘as an indication of laziness’ and ‘low self-esteem’ (Featherstone, 1991b: 186) – while an investment-orientation towards one’sfree-time pays dividends not only in terms of one’s social life, but in ‘career’terms too. As Manuela du Bois-Reymond indicates, ‘Active investment inone’s professional future [now] means activating one’s leisure time for itwithout wanting to sacrifice the fun involved’ (1998: 67).



These trends are coupled with the extension of consumerism – and osten-sible choice – into previously less commercialised arenas (healthcare, educa-tion and so on), while the rapid turnover of products and the increasinglyeclectic and fragmented nature of contemporary fashions, for example, resultsin ‘diminishing shared agreed meanings of styles’ (Tseëlon, 1995: 127). Suchambiguity in turn calls for greater reflexivity. As Scott Lash points out, witha comment that is equally applicable to fashion and other areas of consumerculture:

When a community like a football team is functioning, the meaning of signslike a shout, a nod of the head, is transparent . . . It is only when there isbreakdown that the goalkeeper must confer with his central defendersabout gestures and sounds and take the signifier as problematized. (1994:148)

In their contribution to the ‘cultural omnivore’ debate, Alan Warde, LydiaMartens and Wendy Olsen (1999) suggest that under such circumstances itmay also be the case that consumers respond to a greater degree of choiceand uncertainty by developing a taste for variety in and of itself, the implica-tion being that we are currently witnessing a shift in emphasis ‘from connois-seurship or refinement – knowing what is best – to having a wide knowledgeof all the alternatives’ (1999: 120).

Additional factors contributing to the increasing likelihood of a pervasiveand habitual reflexivity include the effects of globalisation and the media,which ensure that individuals now ‘have access to experiences ranging indiversity and distance far beyond anything they could [otherwise] achieve’(Giddens, 1991: 169), and that ‘pre-existing traditions cannot avoid contactnot only with others but also with many alternative ways of life’ (Giddens,1994: 97). Competing claims to knowledge, meanwhile, ensure that even themost mundane decisions – over what sorts of food to eat, for example – mustbe carefully monitored and potentially revised. Whilst many forms of knowl-edge ‘are relatively secure . . . all must be in principle regarded as open toquestion and at every juncture a puzzling diversity of rival . . . claims [is] tobe found’ (Giddens, 1994: 88; see also Beck, 1992, 1994).

Taken together, the various factors sketched out above mean that crises,understood as situations where one is unable to simply keep on going asbefore, become all but ubiquitous and ‘more or less endemic’: ‘a “normal” partof life’, which cannot, however, ‘be routinised’ (Giddens, 1991: 184). Thissense of continual and pervasive crisis in turn means that nothing can be takenfor granted: nothing ‘goes without saying’ (Beck, 1994: 21), and ‘living andacting in uncertainty becomes a kind of basic experience’ (Beck, 1994: 12, myemphasis). Adopting a particular lifestyle may lend temporary stability toone’s everyday life and to the narrative that one has chosen to adopt, but suchchoices are themselves open to continual revision, and ‘the individual cannotbut be conscious that any such option is only one among plural possibilities’

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(Giddens, 1991: 183). The existence of ‘multiple milieux of action’ also meansthat ‘modes of action followed in one context may be . . . substantially at vari-ance with those adopted in others’ (Giddens, 1991: 83), and that individualsmust now ‘be able to maintain appropriate behaviour in a variety of settingsor locales’ (Giddens, 1991: 100). In this context it may even be that, for some,it makes more sense to avoid trying to construct a viable, coherent and sus-tained sense of identity at all (Bauman, 1996: 24, 2001: 22).

As Giddens has pointed out, ‘Self-therapy is grounded first and foremostin continuous self-observation’ (1991: 71). In this sense, self-therapy can beseen as ‘the exemplary form of the reflexive project of the self’ (Giddens, 1991:202). As Giddens also points out, however, and as has already been indicatedabove, under conditions of late-, high-, or reflexive-modernity, such continualself-questioning, or reflexivity, is increasingly demanded of us all (1991: 16,70). This point has already been made elsewhere. What I am suggesting here,however, is that for some, the various factors outlined above contributetowards a continual and pervasive reflexivity that itself becomes habitual,however paradoxical this notion may at first appear. In Bourdieu’s terms, thisfollows in part from increased movement between and across fields, but it canalso be argued to result from rapid, pervasive and ongoing changes to socialfields themselves.

It may be, therefore, that Bourdieu’s analysis lacks historical specificity, or– as Calhoun puts it – that Bourdieu ‘has not made entirely clear what sortsof categories should be taken as historically specific and which are trans-historical’ (1993: 82; see also Margolis, 1999: 69). Although Bourdieu suggests,in places, that the effects of the habitus may be more significant in traditionalsocieties (1990b: 65), and – as has already been noted – allows that the habitusmay be superseded in times of crisis, for the most part his analysis implies thatthe concept is universally applicable in much the same way. Reflexivity, forBourdieu, is both informed by, and emerges in addition to – or in spite of –the habitus, and only during what he appears to regard as temporary disjunc-tions between habitus and field.

As Bourdieu himself points out, however, as a durable and relatively stable‘system of dispositions’, habitus only develops through ‘lasting experience ofsocial position’ (1990b: 131), and what is being suggested here is that, in con-ditions of late-, high-, or reflexive-modernity, endemic crises of the sort out-lined above can lead to a more or less permanent disruption of social position,or a more or less constant disjunction between habitus and field. In this contextreflexivity ceases to reflect a temporary lack of fit between habitus and fieldbut itself becomes habitual, and is thus incorporated into the habitus in theform of the flexible or reflexive habitus to which the title of this paper refers.To the extent that Bourdieu’s ‘non-reflexive’ habitus depends upon relativelystable social conditions and on ‘lasting experience of social position’, his analy-sis may thus be said to apply more to simple- or organised- modernity, wherethe comparative stability of people’s social identities allowed for a sustained,coherent, and relatively secure relationship between habitus and field.



Others who have made similar points include Calhoun, who argues that apost-traditional context may require a ‘theoretical attitude’, and that thisshould itself ‘be seen as a variety of habitus . . . reflecting a certain social place-ment and participation in specific socially constructed projects’ (1993: 81). Inhis discussion of Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, Mike Featherstone,meanwhile, refers to ‘the new petit bourgeois habitus’, suggesting that‘whereas the bourgeois has a sense of ease and confidence in his body, thepetit bourgeois is uneasy with his body, constantly self-consciously checking,watching and correcting himself’ (1991a: 90–1). As a ‘pretender’, the ‘new petitbourgeois’ aspires to be ‘more than he [sic] is’, and adopts an ‘investment orientation’ and a ‘learning mode to life . . . consciously educating himself’ inareas of style and taste (1991a: 90–1). Where Calhoun’s ‘theoretical habitus’appears to be limited to those working in quite specific occupational fields,however, and Featherstone’s uneasy reflexivity is – like for Bourdieu – confined to the new petit bourgeoisie, what I am suggesting is somethingrather more ubiquitous, even if – as will be considered below – certain groupsremain largely outside of its remit.

Perhaps the closest account to that presented here is provided by Crossley,who argues that ‘Bourdieu is wrong to posit reflection and choice as differentmodalities of action to those rooted in habit’ (2001a: 137). Crossley also suggests that ‘Late modern societies . . . tend to call for and generate morereflexive habits amongst their members’, in part because of their increased‘complexity and speed of change’ (2001b: 113–4), but also because of demands‘for ‘flexibility’ in economic and political life’ (2001a: 117). Whilst suggestingthat contemporary conditions call for a heightened degree of reflexivity,however, the main thrust of Crossley’s argument is to suggest that the conceptof habitus allows for reflexive action whatever the circumstances, ‘that ourvery capacity for reflexivity is rooted in the habitus’, and that ‘Bourdieuunderestimates the extent to which ‘rational and conscious calculation,’indeed reflexivity, enter into everyday life as a matter of course’ (2001b: 113).What is being suggested here, however, is something rather more historicallyand culturally specific than this. In other words that contemporary conditionsdo not simply demand a heightened degree of reflexivity, but may contributeto the development of a particular type of habitus, characterised by a perva-sive and habitual reflexivity that differs in degree to the generalised capacityfor reflexivity that Crossley identifies.

Implications and conclusions

Whilst McNay is right to point out that Bourdieu’s concept of habitus ‘sug-gests a layer of embodied experience that is not immediately amenable to self-fashioning’ (1999: 102), the idea that, for some, reflexivity itself is now habitualin turn suggests that certain contemporary individuals or groups may easilyand largely unquestioningly engage in reflexive projects of self (re)construc-

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tion as a matter of course. And while McNay, following Bourdieu, continuesto posit reflexivity and habitus as distinct – with ‘reflexive awareness . . . pred-icated on a distanciation of the subject with constitutive structures’ (1999: 110)– the argument presented here is that a reflexive orientation towards the con-temporary environment may itself be regarded as a form of habitus, itself theoutcome of an adaptation to – rather than a distanciation from – the chang-ing nature of the social terrain. Nor should this be regarded as either sur-prising or coincidental: as Bourdieu himself points out, ‘An institution, evenan economy, is complete and fully viable only if it is durably objectified notonly in things . . . but also in bodies, in durable dispositions to recognize andcomply with the demands immanent in the field’ (1990a: 58). In this sense itcan also be argued that, in referring to a pervasive reflexivity, Giddens andothers are not so much invoking the ‘reflexive freedom of subjects ‘withoutinertia’’ (Bourdieu 1990a: 56) found in rationalist theories of action, as point-ing to an habitual reflexivity that itself reflects wider structural demands.

To the extent that we can now talk about an habitual reflexivity, this alsohas implications for more specific debates about fashion and consumption.Although the concept of habitus, as generally understood, suggests difficul-ties with the idea that contemporary fashion is now entirely ‘free-floating’, forexample, and that we can all now wear what we want, picking up and dis-carding ‘costumes’ at will in the global jumble-sale that is Jean Baudrillard’s‘carnival of signs’ (Tseëlon, 1995: 124), the idea of a flexible or reflexivehabitus would indeed suggest that more and more of us are now able to ‘pickand mix’ in what others have referred to as the ‘supermarket of style’ (Polhemus, 1995). This, in turn, suggests that there is a link between thepresent discussion and accounts of ‘neo-tribal’ sociality. While MichelMaffesoli’s (1988, 1991, 1996) references to the superficiality of the neo-tribalpersona sit uneasily with Bourdieu’s understanding of the ‘embeddedness’ ofidentity, dispositions and taste, the idea of an increasingly pervasive reflexivehabitus would both allow for and itself help to explain the emergence of thetemporary and largely superficial forms of identification that Maffesoli’s workexplores.

As Kevin Hetherington (1998) has pointed out, however, we should notnecessarily regard ‘tribal’ affiliations as temporary and superficial, andamongst those for whom such forms of identification represent a more lastingcommitment we might regard such attempts towards ‘stability and belonging’(Hetherington, 1998: 29) as a response to – rather than an easy acceptance of– the increasing demands for a constant and habitual reflexivity to which thepresent discussion refers. The same is true of the adoption of particularlifestyles, or a lasting involvement with particular forms of body project, forexample, which, whilst dependent initially upon a reflexive engagement withthe various options that are available, may also reflect an attempt to evadedemands for an ongoing reflexivity and to fix, or ‘anchor’ the self in what canbe regarded as a modernist response to the contemporary social terrain(Sweetman, 1999, 2003).



The emergence and increasing prevalence of an habitual reflexivity orreflexive habitus may be regarded as having a certain liberatory potential,freeing people from the ‘quasi-traditional’ modes of action to which Bour-dieu’s understanding of habitus refers. While Bourdieu himself appears toregard such a standpoint as limited to particular groups – such as those whohave studied sociology (1990b: 15) – he also points out that, although ‘It is dif-ficult to control the first inclination of the habitus, . . . reflexive analysis, whichteaches us that we endow the situation with part of the potency it has over us,allows us to alter our perception of the situation and thereby our reaction toit’ (in Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 136). This liberatory potential is, ofcourse, somewhat paradoxical in the case of an habitual reflexivity, itselfentered into unthinkingly or simply ‘allowed to act’, but even where a reflex-ive orientation is unreflexively adopted, its operation would still imply afreedom from ‘quasi-traditional’ modes of action, if not from reflexivity itself.

In suggesting that an habitual and pervasive reflexivity may be becomingincreasingly ubiquitous, however, I am not suggesting either that such a reflex-ive habitus is demanded of us all, or that the opportunity to develop such areflexive orientation to the social environment is equally distributed amongstdifferent social groups. While a reflexive orientation to the workplace isincreasingly demanded of employees within a variety of contexts – and whilethis can, in turn, be seen as one of the key factors contributing to the emer-gence of an habitual reflexivity or reflexive habitus – amongst employees incertain occupations reflexivity is neither required nor desired. Such ‘reflexiv-ity losers’ (Lash, 1994: 120) may therefore be said to be doubly disadvantaged;not only are such groups required to undertake menial, routine tasks withinthe workplace, but the ensuing lack of opportunity to develop the habitualreflexivity increasingly required of employees in higher status occupationsmay further disadvantage such lower status groups in both social and eco-nomic terms.

Whilst an overall premise of this paper is that such demands are becomingincreasingly ubiquitous, Hochschild (1983: 20–21) points out that ‘emotionallabour’ – or the reflexive management of one’s emotions – is demanded lessof working-class than of middle-class employees, and while ‘cultural omnivo-rousness’ can be regarded in part as a generalised response to increased con-sumer choice and an ensuing ambiguity over the ‘meanings of things’, it mayalso be the case that it functions as a mark of distinction in its own right, andthat ‘the pursuit of variety . . . is a feature of particular social groups’ (Warde,Martens and Olsen, 1999: 105; see also Tseëlon, 1995: 134). As Erickson (1996)suggests, it may also be the case that a broader – rather than more specific –cultural repertoire is both particularly prevalent and of most advantage tomiddle-managers and other higher-status occupational groups.

Although there is insufficient space to fully explore such issues here, addi-tional factors contributing to an unequal distribution of habitual reflexivitywould be expected to include core sociological variables such as age and

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gender. Whilst the middle-aged and elderly can be presumed to be more likelyto display the ‘quasi-traditional’ habitus characteristic of Bourdieu’s under-standing of the term, for example, it may also be the case that certain formsof masculinity militate against the acquisition of an habitual reflexivity, andthat ‘sons who . . . are unable to find the industrial labouring jobs they werebrought up to do’ (Lash, 1994: 131), for instance, thereby find themselvesmore easily trapped within unemployment or marginal occupations (see alsoDwyer and Wyn, 2001: 128–9).

Lisa Adkins (2002: 49) suggests that women, in particular, can be regardedas ‘reflexivity losers’ due to a relative lack of mobility within and betweenfields, and argues that ‘mobility in regard to gender styles is a privileged posi-tion’, from which many women are excluded because of the way in which fem-ininity has been naturalised (2002: 6). At the same time, however, others havepointed out that women tend to be both more skilled in the management ofemotions, and to have entered jobs calling for ‘emotional labour’ in greaternumbers than men (Hochschild, 1983; see also Duncombe and Marsden, 1993:234), whilst empirical studies of young people’s experiences of paid employ-ment have suggested that young women tend to be more flexible than theirmale counterparts, and that:

In one sense, the fragmented nature of the processes to which they are sub-jected is less problematic to the construction and maintenance of theiridentities than to the young men, whose identities have traditionally beenconstructed through their involvement in the full-time workforce and thepursuit of a defined career choice. (Dwyer and Wyn, 2001: 129)

While studies of fashion and consumption suggest that men have been increas-ingly – and successfully – targeted as consumers of fashion since the 1980s,and that ‘Late twentieth-century promotional culture has been extremelyactive in the construction of more plural versions of identity for men’ (Mort,1996: 10; see also Edwards, 1997, Nixon, 1996), it should also be noted thatboth Susan Kaiser (2001: 87) and Diana Crane (2000: 179) suggest that mentend to be less keen to experiment with their appearance, with Crane notingthat – in the United States at least – an interest in fashion and the manipula-tion of one’s appearance is frequently ‘regarded as suspect, particularly byolder men’ (2000: 179).

None of this is to suggest that those possessing a flexible or reflexive habitusare the unequivocal ‘winners’, however. Despite its liberatory potential, as theembodiment of wider structural imperatives, an habitual reflexivity is no lessthe product of historical and cultural circumstance than the more ‘traditional’habitus to which Bourdieu’s understanding of the term refers, and to theextent, for example, that its emergence responds to demands for ‘the perfectconsumer’ (Featherstone, 1991a: 91), the increasing realisation of suchdemands ought not, perhaps, to be greeted with open arms.



While the institutional price of greater flexibility and reflexivity may be acorresponding decline in loyalty and commitment – when individuals pos-sessing the non-specific forms of capital increasingly demanded of them findthey are no longer tied to a particular field – the individual cost may be a senseof alienation or estrangement that is both lasting and profound. For those dis-playing a ‘traditional’ or non-reflexive habitus, acting in accordance with thehabitus implies behaving ‘naturally’ and in an unselfconscious way (Bourdieu,1990a: 73), but the idea of an habitual reflexivity or reflexive habitus suggeststhat the ‘natural’ or pre-reflexive state of certain contemporary individuals is to be definedly ill-at-ease. As has already been indicated, such unease ispartially captured in Bourdieu’s (1984: 207), and Featherstone’s (1991a:90–91) accounts of the petit-bourgeoisie. It is also captured, to at least someextent, in Hochschild’s (1983: 220) account of the costs of ‘emotional labour’.While Bourdieu suggests that the world of the petit-bourgeoisie ‘provides the privileged terrain of interactionists and in particular Goffman’ (1990b:134), however, such estrangement is arguably deeper and more profound thanthe cynical detachment suggested by Goffman’s understanding of the ‘per-forming self’, because while Goffman suggests that it is possible to relax onceone has moved behind the scenes, the notion of an habitual reflexivity orreflexive habitus implies that, for increasing numbers of contemporary indi-viduals, it is becoming ever more difficult to leave the stage. And whileHochschild’s sense of potential estrangement goes deeper than Goffman’s(Hochschild, 1983: 220), she too implies that the reflexive management ofone’s emotions is strongly contextualised and tied up with particular occupa-tional roles.

It may be that some are able to cope relatively easily with the continualself-monitoring and flexibility that the notion of a reflexive habitus implies.As Giddens points out, for example, ‘a cosmopolitan person’ can be regardedas someone ‘who draws strength from being at home in a variety of contexts’(1991: 190). As has already been indicated, it may also be the case that adopt-ing a particular lifestyle can provide something to ‘hide behind’, although ashas also already been pointed out, ‘the security such a strategy offers is likelyto be limited’ (Giddens, 1991: 183), because whatever lifestyle the individualchooses to adopt, she or he cannot fail to be aware that other choices bothcould have been, and still could be, made.

In this context, certain forms of therapy may be regarded equally as cause,symptom and attempted cure; at one and the same time encouraging a con-tinual reflexivity, whilst responding to the demand that such a situation engen-ders, and attempting to offer a solution to some of the difficulties it entails(see also Hochschild, 1983: 193). Others, however, may seek more immediateforms of escape, with theme parks, extreme sports, and various forms of druguse each reflecting a demand for ‘contingency which escapes the governanceof reflexivity’ (Lash, 1993: 20). In resolving the need, or perhaps even theability to choose, addictions of various sorts may be particularly effective inthis regard (Giddens, 1994: 75), suggesting – finally – that the notion of an

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habitual reflexivity can help to explain why increasing numbers of ‘reflexivitywinners’ turn out to be ‘reflexivity losers’ too.

University of Southampton Received 23 August 2002Finally accepted 8 September 2003

Notes

I am grateful to Wendy Bottero, Paul Bridgen, David Byrne, Mike Savage, Chris Shilling,Emmanuelle Tulle, and two anonymous referees for their comments on earlier drafts of thispaper. I would also like to thank Nick Crossley for suggesting additional material to me fol-lowing the presentation of an earlier version of this argument at the BSA Annual Conferencein April 2001, Helen Thomas for encouraging me to think these issues through more fully fol-lowing a different conference presentation in April 2000, and Jane Rendell for a very helpful– and enjoyable – discussion of the argument before any of it had been put down on paper.

1 This is not to adopt an essentialist position and suggest that those possessing a ‘traditional’rather than a reflexive habitus are somehow closer to their ‘real’ selves. Rather, it is to suggestthat, for those possessing a reflexive habitus, acting according to habitus – or ‘being oneself’ –is a less comfortable proposition than it is for those possessing the ‘traditional’ – or ‘quasi-traditional’ – habitus characteristic of Bourdieu’s understanding of the term.

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