According to authors such as Giddens (1991), late modern society is characterised by increased fluidity and dynamism. The institutions of the social world are no longer constant, and dictated by history and tradition, but are continually changing. We now live in a ‘runaway world’
(Giddens 2002). Similarly, social identity is no longer relatively fixed and stable, but is instead fluid and dynamic. This notion of identity is supported by anthropological studies such as those by Barth (1969) and Cohen (1986). To what extent identity is something that is reflexively constructed by individuals, and to what extent individuals are constrained by social structure, is a matter of intense debate. I here review the two opposing strands to the argument about the nature of identity in late modern society, before examining some more recent accounts which attempt to tie together the two approaches.
The reflexively constructed self is described by Giddens (1991); Beck (1992, 1994); Beck
& Beck-Gernsheim (2002). According to these authors the current world is experiencing an unprecedented pace and scope of social change (Giddens 1991, 16). For example, Giddens and Beck claim that in the late modern world we are increasingly influenced by global risks such as the threat of nuclear warfare and climate change. As well as these global risks increasingly dictating our lives, labour markets, fashion and personal contacts are increasingly globalised:
we lead our lives in a dialectic of the global and the local. In this context, identities are no longer solely local, but global tendencies allow us to pick and choose lifestyles from a large array of options: ‘in our present day world the self [. . . ] has to be reflexively made’ (Giddens 1991, 3).
Reflexivity involves choosing how we want to live and present ourselves to the world.
Those living in economic hardship may seem to have less choice about their lifestyle than others, posing a challenge to this theory. Giddens maintains, however, that reflexivity can apply to those living in reduced circumstances as well: ‘lifestyle choices include the choices made under conditions of severe material constraint’ (Giddens 1991, 6). Reflexivity refers not only to personal choices, but also to societal level tendencies: modern society itself is also inherently reflexive (Giddens 1991, 20):
Modernity’s reflexivity refers to the susceptibility of most aspects of social activity, and material relations with nature, to chronic revision in the light of new information or knowledge.
What is implied here is that in the modern world it is increasingly difficult to accept anything as ‘given’. Increased mobility and contact with different cultures, coupled with the decline of traditional religious and other institutions has led to a continual process of making choices.
Faced with a continual stream of new information we have learnt to accept that the new ‘way of doing things’ is continually negotiating change.
In short, Giddens and Beck highlight agency as crucial in identity construction and negotiation. The idea that the individual has complete freedom in constructing themselves seems a little overoptimistic, and provides an excessively weak account of the social structures still constraining agentive choice in everyday life today (Adams 2006). Another objection to reflexivity as the dominant pattern of self-formation is that this view, according to Adams (2003), presents modern western society as the pinnacle of civilisation. Traditional cultures are implied as naive in accepting the status quo and not reflexively fashioning themselves.
This hints at ethnocentrism and an offensive portrayal of certain cultures (Adams 2003).
Also as explored in the previously mentioned work of Barth (1969), identity is something continually constructed as renegotiated by all cultures in many different circumstances. An alternative view of identity to that of Giddens et al. can be found in the notion of habitus in the work of Pierre Bourdieu.
Bourdieu acknowledges the possibility of individually motivated action, but foregrounds history and social structure in determining individual identity. The concept Bourdieu uses to put forward his model of identity in the social world is habitus, a system of dispositions which are ingrained in individuals through socialisation in their early years: ‘habitus is laid down in each agent by his earliest upbringing’ (Bourdieu 1977, 81). This results in an unconscious and long-lasting tendency towards particular actions and patterns of cultural consumption. Habitus is historically determined and transmits existing social structures such as class (Bourdieu 1977, 82):
the habitus, the product of history, produces individual and collective practices, and hence history, in accordance with the schemes engendered by history. The system of dispositions – a past which survives in the present and tends to perpetu-ate itself into the future by making itself present in practices structured according to its principles[. . . ] – is the principle of continuity and regularity which objec-tivism discerns in the social world without being able to give them a rational basis.
Although individuals believe they are acting in rational and meaningful ways, they are in fact reacting in predictable ways determined by their habitus. However, the above citation does emphasise that the habitus produces tendencies, rather than entirely predictable actions and tastes. Within this model the individual has freedom to renegotiate and act spontaneously.
While leaving room for individual spontaneity, the habitus also has generative capacity, which can determine how individuals react in circumstances they have never encountered before: ‘The habitus is the necessity internalised and converted into a disposition that generates meaningful practices and meaning-giving perceptions’ (Bourdieu 2010, 166). Social actions or practices are generated in relation to the field currently occupied by the individual, summarised succinctly as (Bourdieu 2010, 95):
[(habitus)(capital)] + field = practice
A field is a particular social space in which individuals compete for certain forms of power and/or capital. For example, in the artistic field, artists compete for cultural superiority and authority. Individuals occupy multiple and overlapping fields in their everyday life (Bourdieu
& Waquant 1992, 16-17). It is the relationship between the habitus and the field occupied which determines social practice. Capital, according to Bourdieu (1986) is the force which drives the social world. It is a potential capacity to produce profit and reproduce more capital.
In Bourdieu’s model there are three kinds of capital: economic, cultural, and social. Economic capital is the easiest form to conceptualise: it is money and the rights to property. Cultural capital is a long lasting disposition towards certain kinds of cultural consumption and cultural achievement. In material form, cultural capital can be owned in the form of paintings, books, or works of art. Cultural capital can also be attained in the form of educational qualifications.
Social capital is concerned with connections and relations to other people with social capital.
Bourdieu gives the example of a hereditary title as a material form of social capital, but other kinds of connections and relationships are difficult to acquire. The different forms of capital are linked: for example an individual must have sufficient economic capital to be able to take the time necessary to acquire social and cultural capital.
Within Bourdieu’s framework, language is one social action which is also partially shaped by the habitus and its relation to the field. Habitus defines a certain propensity towards saying things in a certain way. Although each human has the capacity to speak, the way in which we speak and how we know what to say in certain social situations is informed by the habitus (Bourdieu 1991, 37). In this treatise on language and power, Bourdieu argues that although the habitus allows generation of tendencies to speak in certain ways, what ways are socially acceptable is ultimately defined by the ‘linguistic marketplace’, a system of symbolic power relations and censorships which is imposed on every individual (Bourdieu 1991, 52). While the individual ultimately has freedom to speak how they choose, social constraints to some extent impose limits on this choice and affect its outcomes.
Although Bourdieu’s work claims to end the age-old debate between structure and agency in sociology, some authors have claimed that habitus is an overly deterministic model of the self, for example Jenkins (1992, 77): ‘it is difficult to know where to place conscious deliberation and awareness in Bourdieu’s scheme of things’ and McNay (1999, 102): ‘habitus suggests a layer of embodied experience that is not immediately amenable to self-fashioning’.
Bourdieu’s writing does at some times suggest that there is room for reflexive action from
the habitus ‘the habitus, like every “art of inventing”, is what makes it possible to produce an infinite number of practices that are relatively unpredictable’ (Bourdieu 1990, 55). However, this unpredictability is limited and cannot usually be deliberately manipulated (Bourdieu 1977, 94):
The principles em-bodied in this way are placed beyond the grasp of conscious-ness, and hence cannot be touched by voluntary, deliberate transformation, cannot even be made explicit.
Bourdieu argues for reflexivity, but does not refer to reflexivity in the same way that Giddens does. For Bourdieu, reflexivity refers to the way sociology should be carried out.
Sociologists should examine the biases their own background, and position in the academic field, bring to research. Reflexivity is: ‘the systematic exploration of the unthought categories of thought which delimit the thinkable and predetermine the thought, as well as guide the practical carrying out of social enquiry’ (Bourdieu & Waquant 1992, 40).
Reflexivity as defined by Giddens fails to account for some notion of constraint on individ-ual voluntarism, and Bourdieu’s habitus is sometimes considered overly deterministic in its account of self. Several authors have searched for a compromise in the debate surrounding the nature of identity, for example, Adkins (2003); Sweetman (2003); Adams (2006). It is argued in Adkins (2003) that the crossover from traditional to reflexive society has been uneven:
some are fully reflexive while others are not. In this uneven distribution of reflexivity, it is women who are more likely to be the ‘reflexivity losers’. This sidesteps Giddens’ unlikely claim that everyone has equal resources to lead a reflexive lifestyle (Giddens 1991, 6). Sweet-man (2003)’s model is perhaps the most convincing hybridisation of habitus and reflexivity.
Sweetman argues that in contemporary society reflexivity is becoming part of the ingrained habitus (Sweetman 2003, 528):
for increasing numbers of contemporary individuals, reflexivity itself may have become habitual, and that for those possessing a flexible or reflexive habitus, processes of self-refashioning may be second nature rather than difficult to achieve.
Although this reflexive habitus is becoming increasingly common, certain groups in society may lack the resources necessary to actually act reflexively. As summarised by Bauman: ‘all of us are doomed to the life of choices, but not all of us have the means to be choosers’ Bauman (1998, 86), quoted in Sweetman (2003, 525). This tendency towards the reflexive habitus is a very recent development: Sweetman argues that elderly and middle-aged people are more likely to be governed by a habitus as defined by Bourdieu, whereas younger generations are more likely to possess the new reflexive habitus Sweetman argues for (2003, 545). Finally, Sweetman questions whether or not a reflexive habitus is desirable, citing the
‘dis-ease’ felt by the petit-bourgeoisie in Bourdieu’s work. Borrowing Goffman’s (1990) metaphor of the stage, Sweetman claims that contemporary individuals are spending less and less time relaxing ‘offstage’ and instead must constantly perform ‘onstage’.
These later accounts of the nature of identity appear convincing: identity is something personally constructed to a certain extent, and this is a feature of late modern society. However, there are constraints on the extent of this personal construction and choice. All individuals are constrained by history and socio-cultural context to some extent, but some are constrained more than others. These constraints follow predictable patterns along common sociological distinctions such as gender, age and class.