Place-making as Project? Habitus and Migration in Transnational Cities

TLDR: The work of Pierre Bourdieu, particularly his central and twinned concepts of habitus and social field, has not, to my knowledge, been widely applied to the study of built forms, the city, or that elusive but related notion of place as mentioned in this paper.

Abstract: JOHN FRIEDMANN The work of Pierre Bourdieu, particularly his central and twinned concepts of habitus and social field, has not, to my knowledge, been widely applied to the study of built forms, the city, or that elusive but related notion of place. In the following remarks, I would like to explore this application and, more particularly, explore the potential usefulness of Bourdieu’s sociology for the city-building professions. After elucidating the mutually contingent meanings of habitus and field, I will look at five ways by which Bourdieu’s theory of the habitus, which is essentially a theory of social reproduction, may be extended to illuminate also processes of social change. Continuing with some observations on Bourdieu’s interpretation of the typical dwelling in Kabyle village society in Algeria, I proceed to a more general discussion of habitus and the built environment in the contemporary, increasingly transnational metropolis. I conclude by asking whether and under what conditions localities whose habitus has been severely strained by the settlement of transnational migrants can become proactive on their own behalf and, in this way, attempt to heal the wounds they have sustained. Habitus and Field Defined Pierre Bourdieu is somewhat reluctant to give an explicit account of his theoretical framework. He prefers to let theory emerge from actual field investigations. Still, from time to time, he has felt obliged to expound his theoretical approach, and it is from these sources that I have drawn my own understanding of habitus and field (Bourdieu, 1990, 2000; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992. See also Calhoun, 1989).