Habitus, Regularity and Change : The Potential of Bourdieu's Sociology

Pierre Bourdieu aimed to escape from the opposition between objectivism and subjectivism. But Bourdieu's sociology is criticized as determinism. What is the cause of the misunderstanding about his theory? The purpose of this paper is to consider this question. In this article, I will concentrate on a consideration of the concept of "habitus", because Bourdieu uses this concept to escape from the opposition between objectivism and subjectivism. However, there are shortcomings in Bourdieu's formulation of habitus. Several studies have sought to identify the shortcomings. According to these studies, Bourdieu implies that 'the novelty of situations' and 'reflective thought' has important roles in the process of generation of practices, but he does not discuss their roles in detail. The consideration of 'the novelty of situations' and 'reflective thought' will show other problem about habitus. Bourdieu argues that habitus is principles of the generation of improvisation. However, our consideration reveals that improvisation is generated from the relationship between habitus, reflective thought and situations. This discussion leads us to a view that habitus is not the capacity for generating improvisation and that habitus is simply the base of the regularity in practices. Such view does not devalue the concept of habitus. On the contrary, by restricting habitus to the base of the regularity, this concept is able to play an important role in an explanation of change. What seems to be lacking in Bourdieu's theory is an emphasis on the 'relationship' between habitus and other elements (the novelty of situations and reflective thought). From the point of view that the relationship between habitus and other elements generate practices, we are able to think that Bourdieu's sociological theory is a theory about change