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.The many articles and chapters given over to engaging with this con-cept of habitus, including all the interviews with Bourdieu himselfwhere he explicates at length on this concept, are a mark of its central-ity to his thinking and also a sign of the clear importance of the idea,particularly for its ability to fill out the missing spaces in Althusser s empty subject of ideology.Bourdieu has also made great attemptswith this concept to overcome traditional dualities of body and mind,and likewise in sociological terms he has sought to transcend theimpasse which is often reached between those who argue for objectivedeterminations of structure, as against those who focus on subjectiveaspects of action.There is no other sociologist of his generation so per-suasive in the account of social practice.And because Bourdieu is alsoa political thinker, the concept of habitus lies at the centre of his accountof the enduring features of social stability.For McNay the habitus goessome way in explaining how even for feminists the norms and instinctsand habitual practices around motherhood can  kick in in surprisingand unexpected ways, maternity can override the most well-consideredarguments about shared parenting and this is suggestive of the histori-cal residues and stored memories in the feminine habitus which areactivated in motherhood (McNay, 1999b).And likewise for Butler theeffectivity of the habitus might be that at an unthought and corporeallevel, it is able to shape that which is thinkable and unthinkable in rela-tion to sexuality.The habitus then of the heterosexual matrix wouldrefer to the lived spaces of gender normativity and family life ( theembodied rituals of everydayness as Butler puts it) which are so inclinedto shoring up the requirements of the field that the pursuit of waywarddesires is virtually unimaginable (Butler, 1999b: 113).But herein lies thedifference between both thinkers because Butler argues that what isunthinkable is also based on that which is thinkable but repressed; itcomes back to haunt the margins of habitus and is then lived out interms of loss or lack.What could have been otherwise, is thereforealways close to what is.And this opens a margin of hope, where the pos-sibility for political and social change can be envisioned.If the habituswas as successful as Bourdieu would have it, there would hardly be a gayor lesbian movement.Now while we could go on here, indefinitely pon-dering what Bourdieu s response might be to the fact that these political Uses Cultural Studies 10/3/05 11:52 am Page 136136 The Uses of Cultural Studiesmovements do indeed come into being, his response presumably wouldbe to focus on how normativity is still achieved.Yes, he would suggestthat, as Calhoun puts it,  contrary action of this type within the sexualhabitus, is not  foreclosed , but it would still find itself leant upon (per-haps by the fields of politics and the law) to fit with requirements and toact in a particular way, for example, to seek certain forms of state recog-nition and to embrace the terms and conditions for wider acceptabilitywithin the social field, for example, through legally sanctioned partner-ship and involvement in consumer culture (Calhoun, 1993: 75).Cultural Capital and DistinctionDistinction draws on research data (in the form of graphs, diagrams,interview material and statistics) which allows the analysis to pro-ceed.Bourdieu also intersperses his text with lengthy footnotes sothat the reader can only barely discern the differences between thetwo.In an interview Bourdieu commented that he did indeed attempta  discursive montage effect in the book (Bourdieu and Wacquant,1992: 66).The study seeks to present a materialist analysis of tasteand of the consumption of culture and art, as a counter to Kantianaesthetics, which poses the merely pleasing perception of art asdelight, with the more gratifying response which instead relies on the disinterestedness of contemplation [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]