Embodied social capital and geographic perspectives: performing the habitus

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Embodied social capital and geographic
perspectives performing the habitus

• Louise Holt
• University of Reading, UK L.Holt_at_Reading.ac.uk
• 4th International Population Geography
  Conference, Chinese University of Hong Kong, July
  10-13 2007

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Structure

• I Introduction - Is social capital dead?
• II Geographical accounts of social capital
• III Retheorizing social capital as a mechanism
  for reproducing privilege
• IV Embodying social capital
• V Discussion and conclusion

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Introduction Is social capital almost dead?

• Mainstream geographical debates have disengaged
  with social capital
• Despite vibrant discussions in other social
  sciences
• And policy arenas (e.g. World Bank, Social
  Exclusion Unit)
• This is problematic
• Policy approaches continue unabated
• Social capital has analytic value and can help
  to theorise how social inequalities are
  reproduced within populations at a variety of
  interconnected spatial scales
• Critique is tied to its capture by dominant,
  approaches
• Here I engage critical social science approaches
  (e.g. Morrow, 2001 Adkins, 2004 Reay, 2004a)
• gt embodied social capital how inequalities are
  reproduced via embodied identities
• Bourdieus habitus/capitals Butlers
  performativity/subjection

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Geographical accounts of social capital

• Diverse interpretations of social capital, from
  Bourdieu, Coleman to Putnam (Schaefer-McDaniel,
  2004)
• Dominant policy interpretations are tied to
  Putnams vision of social capital and/or
  ontologically incompatible approaches
• Putnam criticised on methodological, conceptual
  and theoretical grounds (e.g. Amin, 2005 Foley
  and B.Edwards, 1999 etc.)
• Troubling ontological, universalising tendency
• an impressive and growing body of research
  suggests that civic connections help make us
  healthy, wealthy and wise (Putnam, 2000 228)
• Particularly unappealing to geographers
• A lack of a critical conceptualization of space.
  Putnam treats spaces as static, pre-existing, and
  given

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Putnams social capital

• Despite its many critics some aspects have proved
  enduring
• The nature and formation of social capital
• Social capital has been equated to both being and
  as constructed by membership of formal civic
  organizations
• even in critical accounts (e.g. Li et al, 2003
  Mohan et al., 2005).
• Sub-themes of
• informal social relationships
• generalized norms of trusting-ness
• trustworthiness and reciprocity are also
  evident.

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Putnams social capital

• it is untenable to posit social capital as an
  independent variable and poverty as a dependent
  variable because the economic-political
  conditions of poor people have an enormous
  constraining effect on social capital itself and
  its supposed material benefits for the poor
  (Das, 2004 27)

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Retheorising social capital as a mechanism for
reproducing privilege

• Has been widely utilised in broader social
  sciences, and urban studies
• Posits social capital as inter-dependent with
  other forms of capital
• cultural (embodied, objectified, institutional)
• economic
• symbolic
• Differing values of social capital
• Social networks and relationships to maintain
  advantage in particular, interconnected fields
  (objective arenas of social relations, e.g.
  economic, political, educational etc.)
• Reproducing privilege and advantage rather than a
  generalised social good
• Tied to informal and formal social relationships

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Habitus a more nuanced conception of agency

• Capitals reproduced via unreflexive reflexive
  practices
• Move away from a fully conscious and rational
  actor
• Deconstruct objective/subjective dichotomy
• Habitus internalized capital embodied
  dispositions, largely subconsciously inculcated
  primarily in childhood (Bourdieu and Thompson,
  1991).
• embodied rituals of everydayness by which a
  given culture produces and sustains belief in its
  own obviousness (J.Butler, 1999 114)
• Deconstructs mind/body, conscious/unconscious
  (Lawler, 2004) and body/society (Shilling, 2003)
  dichotomies
• As a property of
• Individuals (e.g. R.Nash, 2003)
• A Collective consciousness, mapped onto spaces
  (e.g. T.Butler and Robson, 2001 D.Smith and
  Phillips, 2001).
• the internalisation of the social order, which
  in turn reproduces the social order (Cresswell,
  2002 381).

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Critiques of Bourdieus (social) capital / habitus

• often prioritizes social reproduction above
  transformation (via habitus/field distinction)
• Economic reductionism - the political-economy as
  at the root of all capitals gt theories of agency
  applicability for theorizing differences other
  than class / class faction (although see
  Bourdieu, 2001).
• Not particularly sensitive to spatial differences
  (dualistic distinction between objective/social
  space) could more fully explore performative
  understandings of space (Gregson and G. Rose,
  2000)

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Performing the habitus

• Synthesising Bourdieus capitals and habitus with
  J. Butlers performativity/subjection overcomes
  some critiques of Bourdieu (and Butler)
• Commonalities between both theorists
• Emphasise on beyond conscious, on everyday
  practices to reproduce embodied inequalities
• Beginning to deconstruct body/society dualism
• Butler reproduction of embodied inequalities
  via everyday practices a variety of axes of
  difference
• Identity performances are not entirely conscious,
  rationalized or staged they are often just
  done
• Contextuality of performativity and the
  performativity of space (Gregson and G.Rose,
  2000)
• Negotiates transformation and endurance
• Has been critiqued for underplaying the material
  consequences of everyday performances

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Embodied social capital

• Value accorded to different embodiments
• Process of becoming an embodied individual is
  bound up with socio-spatial contexts, social
  networks and relationships
• An individuals previous social encounters are
  embodied and influence their future social
  performances
• Destabilizes the benign norms presented in
  dominant accounts of social capital, by drawing
  upon theorizations of the diffuse power of
  normalization
• Individuals becoming recognized as knowable
  subjects/agents is always configured within a
  normative frameworks of personhood (J.Butler,
  1997, 2004)
• Interdependence of human beings. This
  interdependence is both physical and emotional
• desire is always a desire for recognition and
  that it is only through the experience of
  recognition that any of us becomes constituted as
  socially viable beings (J.Butler, emotional
  interdependence is a central mechanism for the
  inculcation of norms that ultimately confer
  embodied capital

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Embodied social capital

• E.g. performances of disability as dependent
  within particular socio-spatial school contexts
  
• often internalised and accepted by disabled
  children
• reproduces broader patterns of inequality tied
  to disability and dependence
• As Ben, a boy with mind and body differences,
  states
• My friend always comes with me at playtime
  cause he didnt have a friend, and now, whenever
  Im lonely and hes there, he always comes and
  cares for me (Holt, 2004a 225).

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Spatiality and transformation

• These norms are socio-spatially variable, and,
  importantly, intersecting
• This focus on things coming together in specific
  spatial contexts provides an opening for a more
  spatially sensitive theory of capitals
• Capital reproduction occurs within specific
  spatial moments themselves not neutral and
  pre-existing, but becoming though everyday
  performances and within broader power
  geometries (Massey, 1994)
• Individual embodied identities are specific
  moments within broader social (economic,
  political, cultural) processes that emerge from
  a variety of intersecting spatial scales from the
  individual (including dynamic bodily materiality)
  to the global
• Allows for transformation
• Via conscious acts, such as re-signification
  (J.Butler, 2004) or contestation.
• Slippage

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A brief empirical example

• Young people
• resignify the meaning of both disability and
  composite components of dominant representations
  of disability
• forge relationships of recognition wherein
  mind-body-emotional difference is either
  suspended or not understood within a framework of
  otherness (Holt, forthcoming)
• The positive or negative relationships forged
  within one context can become embodied within
  individuals and influence their negotiation of
  future social situations (see also Valentine and
  Skelton, 2003).
• However
• Dominant facets individual tragedy models of
  disability are often (re)produced, rather than
  transformed.
• Attention needs to be paid to how individuals
  socio-spatial positionings influence their
  capacity to transform broader societal processes
  and representations (McNay, 2004)
• Without negating the potentialities for a range
  of non-conforming practices, ranging from
  resilience, reworking to resistance (Katz,
  2004).

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Discussion - Empirical Mobilisation

• Difficult
• Move beyond uncritical analyses of formal social
  relationships that have little conceptual basis
  and which exclude certain groups
• Messy, gratifying and difficult social and
  cultural relationships that feature in everyday
  life (both formal and informal)
• Reconnect with other capitals (cultural and
  economic)
• Deconstruct the qualitative/quantitative
  dichotomy to utilize a variety of methods, either
  in conjunction within specific projects or via
  collaboration between researchers across the
  field (see Holt, 2006 for fuller discussion)
• Network analysis provides useful insights into
  the type and extent of individuals networks
  (Savage et al., 2004)
• However, it does little to demonstrate the
  normative power embedded within such
  relationships.
• Innovative methods could be utilized, that seek
  to point to limits of representation (see for
  instance Morton, 2005),
• Ethnographies (see McNay, 2004, for an
  exploration of Bourdieus phenomenology).

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Conclusion why bother with social capital?

• Has focused policy attention to social networks
  and relationships which are significant in
  peoples lives (what is most important to you)?
• Can help to refocus upon mechanisms for
  reproduction of privilege and disadvantage, and
  inequalities within populations
• It is utilised extensively, and thus needs
  critical resignification
• Embodied social capital provides one way forward
  reconnecting the cultural, social and economic
  - drawing upon concepts of bodies as
  interconnected rather than bounded
• The paper provides an impetus to re-open debate
  and discussion about the usefulness and
  mobilization of social capital for geographers.
• Such debates can promote the cross-fertilization
  of conceptualizations of social capital and
  spatiality between geography and the broader
  social sciences.