Habitus Clivé and the Emotional Imprint of Social Mobility

Abstract

Increasing social mobility is the 'principal goal' of the British Government's social policy (Cabinet Office, 2011: 5). However, while policy perspectives present mobility as an unambiguously progressive force, there is a striking absence of studies looking at the impact of mobility on individuals themselves. Drawing on 39 lifecourse interviews with upwardly mobile respondents drawn from the UK Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion Project (CCSE), this paper examines how mobility affects the psychic and emotional life of the individual. More specifically, it examines how mobility influences social, familial and intimate relationships, as well as the ontological coherence of the self. Following Bourdieu's (2004: 127) description of his own upward trajectory, the paper argues that the concept of a divided habitus, or habitus clivé, may be particularly useful for understanding some iterations of the contemporary mobility experience, particularly its most long-range forms. Such a concept, it argues, helps explain how the emotional pull of class loyalties can entangle subjects in the affinities of the past, and why -despite prevailing political rhetoric -upward mobility may remain a state that not everyone unequivocally aspires to.

„Másoknak ez munka, nekem szívügyem” Az etnicitás szerepe a diplomás roma nők munka-család konstrukcióinak alakulásában

“…Cole és Omari (2003) is felhívta a figyelmet, akik e problémákat a felfelé történő társadalmi mobilitás rejtett költségeinek nevezik (lásd még erről: Durst-Fejős-Nyírő 2014, Friedman 2016, Bereményi-Carrasco 2016.…”

“…Mindezek az előítéletek hozzájárulnak ahhoz a sajátos társadalmi helyzethez, amiben a magas iskolai végzettségű, középosztálybeli romák kénytelenek élni és boldogulni -ahogy ezt egyik interjúalanyunk vélemé-nye kifejezően érzékelteti: E két idézet értelmezésünk szerint plasztikusan illusztrálja az etnicitás, a cigány származás "érzelmi lenyomatát" (Friedman 2016) a felfelé mobil roma középosztály esetében, ahová az elemzésünkbe bekerült roma diplomás nők nagy része tartozik. Az etnicitás fogalmát, amit többekkel együtt (lásd pl.…”

‘The Person God Made Me to Be’: Navigating Working-Class and Christian Identities in English Evangelical Christianity

“…Empirical work on the lived experience of class has explored a variety of everyday spheres including relationships, family and the home (Johnson and Lawler 2005;Walkerdine et al 2001), education (Addison and Mountford 2013;Allen 2014;Reay et al 2009Reay et al , 2010Abrahams and Ingram 2013;Stahl 2013) and the workplace (Hebson 2009;Friedman 2016). However, study of the sphere of religious life and of how class and religious identities relate to one another has been relatively limited (however see Mellor 2010).…”

Habitus, social elevation, and the channel of shame‐fear: The decision to expand Guinness advertising

“…The relationship between habitus and shame has in recent times been the subject of increasing attention within sociology (Loveday, ; Probyn, ; Scheff, ). One aspect of this has been a focus on shame and anxiety in the social habitus during the course of social elevation (mobility) (see Friedman, ; the work of Barrett, is also relevant here though it does not relate to social mobility). We revisit this issue here but unlike Friedman and Barrett who apply Bourdieu's formulations and what he labelled ‘hysteresis’, we employ Elias's (2012[]; 2012[]) theoretical frame of figurational sociology to examine the relationship between shame, habitus formation and social elevation.…”

“…Bourdieu (: 62) labelled this latter aspect a ‘hysteresis’ effect, a structural lag concerning the habitus, whereby ‘dispositions function out of phase and practices are objectively ill‐adapted to the present conditions because they are objectively adjusted to conditions that no longer obtain’. Friedman (: 132) notes how some of Bourdieu's later work explored this issue of hysteresis or habitus clivé in relation to social mobility, suggesting that for those experiencing extreme upward mobility it could have ‘profound psychic implications’.…”