Practice Theory Revisited: How Flexible Meta-habit Complements Habitus
Practice Theory Revisited: How Flexible Meta-habit Complements Habitus

Summary/Abstract: This article seeks to understand why it is relatively easy for today’s individuals to acquire new behaviors,how the mechanism behind such acquisition developed, and how it is socially coordinated. Empirical findingsreveal that new behaviors are mostly acquired unthinkingly. Hence, revisiting practice theory, I propose the conceptof meta-habit to help us understand the blind and automatic acquisition of new behaviors. According to Pierre Bourdieu, habitus acquired primarily in childhood generates practices and contributes to the reproduction of thesocial order. Meta-habit includes disposal toward being open to situational context, toward inquisitiveness, andtoward reading the external clues of behavior. Meta-habit generates practices on the basis of influences in thesymbolic community: in this way practices are coordinated socially. Meta-habit is responsible for the reproductionof the social order in situations when the social space is very dynamic—this being the case of late modernity, whichis a system comprising myriads of fields.

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