Making Play or Playing the Game? On the Question of a “Cleft Habitus” at the Doorway to the Art Field

Marita Flisbäck

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.10.4.03

Authors

Marita Flisbäck University of Gothenburg, Sweden

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.10.4.03

Keywords:

Micro Crises, Cleft Habitus, Future Hope, Future Expectations, Artistic Performance

Abstract

This article concerns the question of how marginalized individuals at the doorway to the art field manage their position of uncertainty, what Bourdieu calls a “cleft habitus,” and in some cases challenge the repressive norms. Bourdieu’s perspective on how historical crisis prompts change at the macro level is used to view how “micro crises” in the lives of individuals leads to resistance against normative requirements. The article suggests that within situations of micro crises individuals assume three strategies to handle the contradictions they are faced with: 1) expand upon their cultural capital (these resources can then be used in opposition to the institution of the field within which they were accumulated in the first place); 2) move to an alternative scene and audience; or 3) create a new or emergent future horizon through which they can reinterpret their past and present situation.

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Author Biography

Marita Flisbäck, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Marita Flisbäck, Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg. Her research work has focused primarily on professional life and career-making in the artistic field, occupation and family life, life choices and career paths, and social recognition for workers in low-status occupations.

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