Embodied social capital and geographic perspectives: performing the habitus

Abstract

This paper re-opens debates of geographic theorizations and conceptualizations of social capital. I argue that human geographers have tended to underplay the analytic value of social capital, by equating the concept with dominant policy interpretations.It is contended that geographers could more explicitly contribute to pervasive critical social science accounts. With this in mind, an embodied perspective of social capital is constructed. This synthesizes Bourdieu's capitals and performative theorizations of identity, to progresses the concept of social capital in four key ways. First, this theorization more fully reconnects embodied differences to broader socio-economic processes. Second, an exploration of how embodied social differences can emerge directly from the political-economy and/or via broader operations of power is facilitated. Third, a path is charted through the endurance of embodied inequalities and the potential for social transformation. Finally, embodied social capital can advance social science conceptualizations of the spatiality of social capital, by illuminating the importance of broader socio-spatial contexts and relations to the embodiment of social capital within individuals.

Social Capital, Local Communities and Culture-led Urban Regeneration Processes: The Sydney Olympic Park Experience

“…SC is a quality of social networks (Holt 2008;Mohan & Mohan 2002;Radcliffe 2004;Coleman 1988;Glaeser, Laibson & Sacerdote 2002;Putnam 2001), and is built about the core idea that 'social networks have value' (Putman 2000, p19, emphasis added). As Westlund (2006, p.1) asserts, SC as a concept can be understood as emerging from the work of Bourdieu (1983) and Coleman (1988).…”

Young people's embodied social capital and performing disability

“…The concept of embodied social capital is utilised to aid conceptualisation of how differential positioning within social networks reproduces variously (de)valued embodied identities (see Holt, 2008 for a fuller discussion). Embodied social capital synthesises insights from Bourdieu's theories of capitals and habitus (e.g.…”

“…Bourdieu, 1986Bourdieu, , 1990; see also Reay, 2004a) and Butler's performativity and subjection (e.g. Butler, 1993Butler, , 1997Butler, , 2004 to theorise how everyday performances (re)produce (de)valued embodied identities which materially locate individuals; (re)producing or potentially transforming broader societal inequalities (Holt, 2008). Disability and childhood or youth, like gender, race, and so on, are (re)produced via regularly repeated everyday practices that entwine with corporeal bodies to give an illusion of natural fixity (Holt, 2007).…”

“…In this exert Holly holds a powerful position in relation to Violet, since Violet depends upon Holly's support for inclusion into the game. Thus, social capital must be re-conceptualised to account for the differing positions that people occupy within the social networks to which they belong (see also Holt, 2008).…”

“…Drawing upon the concept of embodied social capital (Holt, 2008), the paper explores empirically how young people's positioning within a variety of social networks (re)produces differentially valued identity positionings which can become embodied within young people's shifting senses of self. …”