Bourdieu and Social Movements: Considering Identity Movements in Terms of Field, Capital and Habitus

Abstract This article examines the explanatory capacity of Pierre Bourdieu's work in relation to social movements and, in particular, identity movements. It aims to provide a theoretical framework drawing on Bourdieu's central concepts of field, capital and habitus. These concepts are viewed as providing a theoretical toolkit that can be applied to convincingly explain aspects of social movements that social movement theories, such as political process theory, resource mobilization theory and framing, acknowledge, but are not able to explain within a single theoretical framework. Identity movements are approached here in a way that relates them to the position agents/movements occupy in social spaces, resources and cultural competence. This enables us to consider identity movements from a new perspective that explains, for instance, the interrelatedness of class and identity movements. Keywords: Bourdieusocial movementsidentity movementsfieldcapitalhabitus Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Finnish Cultural Foundation and Sovako (the Finnish Doctoral Program of Social Sciences) for funding. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful and helpful comments. Notes 1. For instance, McAdam (1999 McAdam, D. 1999. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency 1930–1970, 2nd ed., Chicago, IL/London: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1982)[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) links the historical processes behind the origins of the civil rights movement between the years 1876 and 1954 (the decline in cotton farming in the South, the increased resources of African Americans and mass migration to northern cities from the rural South) to shifts in political structures facilitating opportunities for successful insurgent action. 2. It is easier to mention the role of agents in grievance interpretation than to explain the different aspects of agency (see Tarrow, 1998 Tarrow, S. 1998. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; McAdam, 1999 McAdam, D. 1999. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency 1930–1970, 2nd ed., Chicago, IL/London: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1982)[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). McAdam (1999 McAdam, D. 1999. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency 1930–1970, 2nd ed., Chicago, IL/London: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1982)[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 51) argues that '[b]efore collective protest can get under way, people must collectively define their situations as unjust and subject to change through group action'. In addition, he suggests that '[m]ediating between opportunity and action are people and the subjective meanings they attach to their situation'. 3. Conceptualizing the concept of field with respect to gender, 'race' or sexual orientation can be problematic, as noted by many gender theorists (Moi, 1991 Moi, T. 1991. Appropriating Bourdieu: Feminist theory and Pierre Bourdieu's sociology of culture. New Literate History, 22(4): 1017–1049. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Adkins, 2004 Adkins, L. 2004. "Introduction: Feminism, Bourdieu and after". In Feminism after Bourdieu, Edited by: Adkins, L. and Skeggs, B. 3–18. Oxford: Blackwell. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Difficulties may follow from a tendency to conflate gender, 'race', sexuality understood as (doxic) practice with gender, 'race', and sexuality understood as symbolic struggle. Identity movements call for the recognition of a certain property, such as gender, 'race' and sexual orientation; thus, the meanings, values, ideas and ideals that people attach to these properties become a target of symbolic struggle reflecting the interest of different groups. In this sense, gender, for example, can be understood as constituting a field. Any agents (individuals, organizations or institutions) that focus interest on the field are part of the field. If gender is understood as (doxic) practice and related to the field, then the question is how gendered dispositions affect practice in a field (is it related to the lack of practical mastery in male-dominated fields?). 4. The state and institutions (as official authorities) can claim monopoly of the legitimate use of symbolic violence and guarantee certain states of affairs by imposing on 'someone what his [sic] identity is, but in a way that both expresses it to him and imposes it on him by expressing it in front of everyone' (Bourdieu, 1992b Bourdieu, P. 1992b. Language and Symbolic Power, (new ed.) (G. Raymond & M. Adamson, Trans.) Cambridge: Blackwell. [Google Scholar], p. 121, 1996a Bourdieu, P. 1996a. State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power, (L. C. Clough, Trans.) Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 376). This implies the importance of the state as the central target of identity movements (e.g. with respect to the issue of same-sex marriages). 5. According to the concept of symbolic violence, the categories of perception and appreciation that marginalized groups use to understand and evaluate the social world, dominants, themselves, etc., are constructed from the perspective of the dominant (male, white, heterosexual). What follows is that these groups marginalize and negatively value themselves, which can result in feelings of inferiority, shame and extreme practices such as skin bleaching. In this sense, Bourdieu's power-related concepts resonate with identity movements and the phrase 'personal is political', as suggested by Walter (1990 Walter, L. 1990. The embodiments of ugliness and the logic of love. Feminist Review, 36: 103–126. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). In general, Bourdieu believes that stigmatized identity (gender, 'race', ethnicity and sexual orientation) is related to the lack of symbolic capital (resulting from status subordination) (see Bourdieu, 2001 Bourdieu, P. 2001. Masculine Domination, (R. Nice, Trans.) Cambridge: Polity Press. [Google Scholar]). Although Bourdieu (1986 Bourdieu, P. 1986. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, (R. Nice, Trans.) London: Routledge. [Google Scholar], p. 107) states that economic and social conditions give form and value to the properties of gender, age and place of residence, he also remarks that the secondary properties (such as gender and 'race') often provide the basis for the social value, i.e. prestige or discredit, of specific capital (such as income and education). Thus, the lack of traits related to 'proper' gender or social or ethnic origin leads to exclusion and marginalization (1986, pp. 102–103). The interrelatedness of different aspects (gender, 'race', sexuality and class) in social inequality is scrutinized in the growing literature on intersectionality (Browne & Misra, 2003 Browne, I. and Misra, J. 2003. The intersection of gender and race in the labor market. Annual Review of Sociology, 29: 487–513. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; McCall, 2005 McCall, L. 2005. The complexity of intersectionality. Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 30(3): 1771–1800. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Lutz et al., 2011 Lutz, H., Herrera Vivar, M. T. and Supik, L. 2011. Framing Intersectionality: Debates of Multi-faceted Concept in Gender-Studies, Aldershot: Ashgate. [Google Scholar]). 6. Nationalist, populist and reactive identity movements (typically possessing less cultural capital, in particular) may form strategies that differ from those who are endowed with cultural competence, as is characteristic of middle-class identity movements. They are likely to choose channels of discourse and representation that create distance from arenas of argumentation and technical competence. For instance, a public march emphasizing unity and masculine discipline as an illustration of a group's power can be understood as position-taking. 7. For a Bourdieusian analysis of strategies of distinction among environmentalists, read Horton (2003 Horton, D. 2003. "Green distinctions: The performance of identity among environmental activist". In Nature Performed: Environment, Culture and Performance, Edited by: Szerszynski, B., Heim, W. and Waterton, C. 63–78. Oxford: Blackwell. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 8. Individuals and groups those lack economic, cultural, social and symbolic resources are disadvantageously equipped and dispositioned to impose and legitimate their vision in the world. Swartz (1997 Swartz, D. A. 1997. Culture and Power: Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. [Google Scholar], p. 220) criticizes Bourdieu's theory of symbolic power for underestimating 'the capacity of nonspecialists to develop in certain situations appropriate understanding of the true character of power relations'. For a Bourdieusian analysis of how a disadvantaged group that significantly lacks capital understands and resists unequal material and symbolic power relations, read Husu (2010 Husu, H. M. 2010. The Nation of Islam's efforts to raise black consciousness in 1950s and 1960s USA: An application of Bourdieu's symbolic domination and doxa. International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, 47(2): 325–347. [Google Scholar]). 9. It should be noted that symbolic capital functions most efficiently within the boundaries of the field effects. In addition, movements (even those with a high volume of capital) are likely to have different opportunities in different fields such as media, journalistic, political or judicial.