Hope, habitus and social recognition: A Bourdieusian proposal

Abstract

This paper provides a conceptual account of Pierre Bourdieu's operational concept of habitus through the lens of social recognition. More precisely, a ‘habitus of recognition’, or ‘recognitive habitus’, is defined as a set of perceptive patterns and expectations whose main function is to actualize social behaviour that allows reciprocal recognition among social agents. In this respect, this paper explains why, thanks to the recognition paradigm, we can better grasp how habitus works as a pre-reflective common sense capable of producing coordinated collective actions and social reproduction.