A Habitus Divided? Exploring the Impact of Social Mobility on Habitus and Consumption

摘要

Bourdieu's theory of distinction is commonly applied to social mobility. Briefly, this theory works to explain how individuals draw boundaries between different social groups and compete to arrange them hierarchically. The currencies in this competition are social, economic, and cultural capital. Cultural capital can be objectified in consumption items, displayed through consumption behaviors and practices known as taste or embodied in the habitus. According to this theory, either upward or downward social mobility result in a divided habitus where individuals are forever caught between two competing habituses. For example, Bourdieu describes how upwardly-mobile students "continually desire reintegration into their community of origin but at the same time are also unable to fully assimilate into the elite" (Bourdieu 1998,107). However, others have suggested that social mobility is but one of many contradictions experienced, and that mobile individuals can pick and choose their habitus at will (Emmisson 2003; Lahire 2011), a position termed a strategic habitus .Both positions have received empirical support, raising two questions. First, does the experience of social mobility conform more closely to the idea of the divided habitus or strategic habitus? Second, what factors influence the outcome?