Homines in extremis: the lessons of fighting scholars.

Authors

  • Loic Wacquant University of California - Berkeley

Keywords:

habitus, Bourdieu, body, martial arts, carnal sociology

Abstract

I use the collection of “carnal ethnographies” of martial arts and combat sports assembled by Raul Sanchez and Dale Spencer under the title Fighting Scholars to spotlight the fruitfulness of deploying habitus as both empirical object (explanandum) and method of inquiry (modus cognitionis). The incarnate study of incarnation supports five propositions that clear up tenacious misconceptions about habitus and bolster Bourdieu’s dispositional theory of action: (1) far from being a “black box,” habitus is fully amenable to empirical inquiry; (2) the distinction between primary (generic) and secondary(specific) habitus enables us to capture the malleability of dispositions; (3) habitus is composed of cognitive, conative and affective elements: categories, skills, and desires; (4) habitus allows us to turn carnality from problem to resource for the production of sociological knowledge, and (5) thus to realize that all social agents are, like martial artists, suffering beings collectively engaged in embodied activities staged inside circles of shared commitments.

Author Biography

Loic Wacquant, University of California - Berkeley

Loic Wacquant é professor de Sociologia na Universidade da Califórnia – Berkeley e Pesquisador do Centre Europeu de Sociologia e Ciência Política em Paris. Seus interesses abrangem a dominação etnorracial, desigualdade urbana, estado penal, incorporação, teoria social e políticas da razão. Os livros de Wacquant foram traduzidos para dezenas de línguas, incluindo em português: Corpo e Alma: Notas Etnográficas de um Aprendiz de Boxe (Relume Dumará 2002), Onda Punitiva. O Novo Governo da Insegurança Social (Revan, 2007), O Mistério do ministério: Pierre Bourdieu e a política democrática (Revan 2005), As Duas Faces do Gueto (Boitempo, 2008) e As Prisões da Miséria [2001] 2011 (edição 10 anos, expandida).

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Issue

Vol. 1 No. 21 (2015): Dossiê Métodos de Pesquisa nas Ciências Sociais

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Dossiê

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