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Journal ArticleDOI

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

TLDR
In this paper, 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.
Abstract
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 commulnicative practices of the Nakota (Assiniboine) people of northern Montana (USA) support and illustrate the theoretical argument.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

Language and agency

TL;DR: In this paper, a review describes and critiques some of the many ways agency has been conceptualized in the academy over the past few decades, focusing in particular on practice theorists such as Giddens, Bourdieu, de Certeau, Sahlins, and Ortner.
Journal ArticleDOI

‘It's all becoming a habitus’: beyond the habitual use of habitus in educational research

TL;DR: The concept of habitus lies at the heart of Bourdieu's theoretical framework as discussed by the authors and it is a complex concept that takes many shapes and forms in the author's own writing, even more so in the wider sociological work of other academics.
Journal ArticleDOI

Toward an Ecology of Materials

TL;DR: A review of recent trends in the study of material culture finds the reasons for this in a conception of the material world and the nonhuman that leaves no space for living organisms, an emphasis on materiality that prioritizes finished artifacts over the properties of materials, and a conflation of things with objects that stops up the flows of energy and circulations of materials on which life depends as mentioned in this paper.
Book Chapter

Theorizing acts of citizenship

Engin F. Isin
TL;DR: In this article, the authors introduce the concept of "acts of citizenship" as an alternative way to investigate citizenship and argue that to investigate acts of citizenship in a way that is irreducible to either status or practice, while still valuing this distinction, requires a focus on those moments when regardless of status and substance, subjects constitute themselves as citizens.
Book

The Body as Material Culture: A Theoretical Osteoarchaeology

TL;DR: Sofer as mentioned in this paper argues for reassessment of the role of the skeletal body in archaeological practice, and develops a theoretical framework for bioarchaeology based on the materiality and historicity of human remains.
References
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Book

The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception

TL;DR: The relationship between Stimulation and Stimulus Information for visual perception is discussed in detail in this article, where the authors also present experimental evidence for direct perception of motion in the world and movement of the self.
Journal ArticleDOI

Outline of a Theory of Practice

TL;DR: Bourdieu as mentioned in this paper develops a theory of practice which is simultaneously a critique of the methods and postures of social science and a general account of how human action should be understood.
Journal ArticleDOI

Outline of a Theory of Practice.

Book

The Principles of Psychology

William James
TL;DR: For instance, the authors discusses the multiplicity of the consciousness of self in the form of the stream of thought and the perception of space in the human brain, which is the basis for our work.
Book

Reproduction in education, society and culture

TL;DR: The Second Edition of Bourdieu's Theory of Symbolic VIOLENCE as discussed by the authors is a collection of essays about the foundation of a theory of symbolic violence and its application in higher education.