Habitus
Habitus is all in the hips. (No, really, hear me out.)
How do we embody the way we perceive the rest of the world? How do we reflect our biases in the way we perform constructed personalities? To me, habitus is about perception and reflection: how we see the world, and how we perform accordingly. This obviously shifts in significance when you think about it as a writer. Habitus becomes about the people-watching and the research, the experimental styles and the deep, deep love you gain for the poetry book written by the chimaera.
Bourdieu's 'habitus' embodies what it is to be a writer desperate both to construct and to deconstruct, which I think is ultimately linked to the idea of particular/universal in general. We deconstruct by observing the social world around us, by soaking it in and taking our notes. We construct by absorbing this into our own individualities and spitting something out on paper that we think is a decent enough interpretation.
To me, habitus is staying in your lane and learning when to drive off-road. You can write about something without writing about it, if that makes sense. It's 2018 in Melbourne: you don't live on an isolated island and your lack of awareness for other cultures, experiences, and individuals has no excuse. (I say 'awareness' and not 'understanding' here on purpose.) At the same time, these cultures do not belong to you, and a document full of notes you made from Wikipedia research doesn't give you the right to write your novel about blue when you're born-and-bred orange. I think a lot of 'bad' writing comes from smugness and entitlement in reference to habitus. There's a big difference between absorbing and reflecting the wider social world around us, and simply taking from it and emanating the parts you like best. Some parts don't belong to you.
On a more personal note, I think that habitus absolutely interacts with the aesthetic values of my writing in a lot of ways. To put it bluntly, I write like a lesbian. I don't think I'd write the same if I didn't interact with the social world the way I do, and have done. My writing reflects a deep adoration of women and of womanhood, a complicated relationship with gender, and with the lesbian historical culture and embodiment. Dykehood if you will. This is my social group, and this is what informs my writing's habitus. I think that it works this way for everyone, even if it's just a little. People who went to public school write differently to people whose parents pay their rent for example.
I am a fiction writer at heart, and my habitus, the many aspects of me as a social being, are reflected in my diction, passionate love affair with metaphor, and hopeless romanticisation. I think that the idea of 'write what you know' really amps up this notion of habitus. 'Write what you know' doesn't mean 'stay in your lane, never try anything new, and death to the fantasy genre'. It means, 'branch out, interact with the social world, learn new things to inform your interpretations in writing'. It means, 'you can use your past and present experiences to inform how you put sentences together, as long as you acknowledge that certain topics may not come across so adequately if you're not used to interacting with the concept.' It also means, 'let's maybe not make your elf character a butchered metaphor for racism, Karen.'
Obviously, habitus is something that is constantly changing and will continue to do so. I grow and change every day, and in the same way, I will continue to carry myself differently as the years go on. So my habitus, and the habitus of my writing, will change accordingly: it's totally in the hips.
How do we embody the way we perceive the rest of the world? How do we reflect our biases in the way we perform constructed personalities? To me, habitus is about perception and reflection: how we see the world, and how we perform accordingly. This obviously shifts in significance when you think about it as a writer. Habitus becomes about the people-watching and the research, the experimental styles and the deep, deep love you gain for the poetry book written by the chimaera.
Bourdieu's 'habitus' embodies what it is to be a writer desperate both to construct and to deconstruct, which I think is ultimately linked to the idea of particular/universal in general. We deconstruct by observing the social world around us, by soaking it in and taking our notes. We construct by absorbing this into our own individualities and spitting something out on paper that we think is a decent enough interpretation.
To me, habitus is staying in your lane and learning when to drive off-road. You can write about something without writing about it, if that makes sense. It's 2018 in Melbourne: you don't live on an isolated island and your lack of awareness for other cultures, experiences, and individuals has no excuse. (I say 'awareness' and not 'understanding' here on purpose.) At the same time, these cultures do not belong to you, and a document full of notes you made from Wikipedia research doesn't give you the right to write your novel about blue when you're born-and-bred orange. I think a lot of 'bad' writing comes from smugness and entitlement in reference to habitus. There's a big difference between absorbing and reflecting the wider social world around us, and simply taking from it and emanating the parts you like best. Some parts don't belong to you.
On a more personal note, I think that habitus absolutely interacts with the aesthetic values of my writing in a lot of ways. To put it bluntly, I write like a lesbian. I don't think I'd write the same if I didn't interact with the social world the way I do, and have done. My writing reflects a deep adoration of women and of womanhood, a complicated relationship with gender, and with the lesbian historical culture and embodiment. Dykehood if you will. This is my social group, and this is what informs my writing's habitus. I think that it works this way for everyone, even if it's just a little. People who went to public school write differently to people whose parents pay their rent for example.
I am a fiction writer at heart, and my habitus, the many aspects of me as a social being, are reflected in my diction, passionate love affair with metaphor, and hopeless romanticisation. I think that the idea of 'write what you know' really amps up this notion of habitus. 'Write what you know' doesn't mean 'stay in your lane, never try anything new, and death to the fantasy genre'. It means, 'branch out, interact with the social world, learn new things to inform your interpretations in writing'. It means, 'you can use your past and present experiences to inform how you put sentences together, as long as you acknowledge that certain topics may not come across so adequately if you're not used to interacting with the concept.' It also means, 'let's maybe not make your elf character a butchered metaphor for racism, Karen.'
Obviously, habitus is something that is constantly changing and will continue to do so. I grow and change every day, and in the same way, I will continue to carry myself differently as the years go on. So my habitus, and the habitus of my writing, will change accordingly: it's totally in the hips.
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