Pomiędzy klasą a tożsamością : habitus, emocje i zmiana. Koncepcja structure of feeling Raymonda Williamsa w perspektywie teorii klasowej Pierre'a Bourdieu

Abstract

In social theory of the last several years, there has been a return to the category of class: its definition, range, and meaning have been analyzed. The authors of this article deal with the part of the discussion whose key element is cultural practice that delineates class distinctions on the level of unconscious reproduction of social inequalities. The concepts, inspired by Bourdieu’s theory, are embedded in class inequalities — constantly renewed through a hierarchically varied character of social tastes that work beyond the level of consciousness and will. The article attempts at proposing the broadening of thus understood class, undertaken by John Kirk, a researcher of British working class, and linking it with the category of the habitus and emotional and moral aspects. In his theory, Kirk paid attention to the fact how Bourdieu’s theory of class and Williams’s theory of structure of feelings complemented each other. The theory of structure of feelings is a sense of deep community which enables favorable communication, that is, it points to the ways of identifying values in a given community, as well as enables to grasp their relations with the already institutionalized and systematized beliefs. Similarly to habitus, it is formed on the basis of a sense of community that does not have to be aware of itself in terms that are usually ascribed to class awareness, and at the same time, it provides evidence on significant life experiences (as well as attitudes towards them) of groups or communities in a certain time by defining the meaning of particular social events in the process of historical change and continuity.