The Bio-Habitus: Using Pain Science to Reconstruct Bourdieusian Theory
Published Web Location
https://doi.org/10.1177/07352751231222Abstract
Habitus is society inscribed on the body, but Bourdieu does not explore how biological processes interact with habitus, namely, how action flows from a bio-habitus. I engage pain science to illustrate this point. First, I document how dispositions—specific components of habitus—mediate pain both before and after its onset. Second, I explain how pain alters cognition and affect, an interaction I contend inhibits the habitus. Far from placing the biological over the social, my discussion illustrates how the two are inseparable, a unity underlined by the term bio-habitus. I demonstrate how this concept intervenes in Bourdieusian debates over social reproduction and how the biological inhibition of habitus compares to work on hysteresis. I end by discussing resonances with and implications for disability studies.
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