Getting out of the habitus: an alternative model of dynamically embodied social action

• Published in: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Vol. 6; no. 3; pp. 397 - 418
• Main Author: Farnell, Brenda
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK and Boston, USA Blackwell Publishers Ltd 01.09.2000; Blackwell Publishers; Blackwell Publishing; John Wiley & Sons, Inc; Royal Anthropological Institute; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: American Indians; Analysis; Bourdieu, Pierre; Cartesianism; Causality; Causation; Collective behavior; Communication; Cultural anthropology; Ethnology; Habitus; Human agency; Humans; Linguistic anthropology; Montana; Philosophy of science; Self (Psychology); Semiotic signs; Signification; Social Action; Social aspects; Social theories; Sources and methods; Subjectivity; Theoretical and systematic contributions; Theoretical Problems; Traditional Societies; Walking; Montana; North; North America; United States of America; Amerindian; Theory; Dialogism; Science philosophy; Social communication; Embodiment; Habitus; Bourdieu (P.); Assiniboin; Space conception; New Realism; Signal language; Causality; Personhood conception; Power; Meaning; Social action
• ISSN: 1359-0987; 1467-9655
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-9655.00023

Although Bourdieu's theory of practice has drawn widespread attention to the role of the body and space in social life, the concept of habitus is problematic as an explanatory account of dynamic embodiment because it lacks an adequate conception of the nature and location of human agency. An alternative model is presented which locates agency in the causal powers and capacities of embodied persons to engage in dialogic, signifying acts. Grounded in a non-Cartesian concept of person and `new realist', post-positivist philosophy of science, vocal signs and action signs, not the dispositions of a habitus, become the means by which humans exercise agency in dynamically embodied practices. Ethnographic data from the communicative practices of the Nakota (Assiniboine) people of northern Montana (USA) support and illustrate the theoretical argument.