Habitus and the practical logic of practice: an interpretation

Bourdieu confuses himself and others by calling his project a ‘transcendence ’ of the objectivist–subjectivist antinomy. Contrary to claims, Bourdieu’s methodology and theoretical premises are directly opposed to phenomenological social construc-tivism, though he makes use of several key phenomenological concepts. Habitus enriches the objectivist perspective by specifying a partial theory of agency which, contrary to critics, is non-reductionist. Habitus ’ current formulation and usage brim with inconsistencies and ambiguities. It is non-reflective but not corporeal; it should not be equated to cultural capital; it is specifiable into concrete components instead of being ‘difficult to specify empirically’.The concepts of practical logic and doxa are connatural to habitus, but the concept of strategy derives from a differ-ent premise and is non-essential to habitus.The above interpretation derives from the critical realist view.An empirical study of China’s trade unionists is provided for illustration