Bourdieu's Habitus: A Complementary and Practical Understanding of Alertness and Entrepreneurial Action
Bourdieu's concept of habitus shows the relation between social, market and mental structures in explaining how individuals form cultural and cognitive frames that inform their ability to interpret the action of other market participants, and engage in entrepreneurial activities—mainly in developing schemata of perception, classification and action leading to macro-structural social reproduction and change (Zerubavel 1997).
Originally defined as all aspects of culture anchored in the body or daily practices of individuals, groups, societies and nations, the habitus includes all the learned habits and forms of non-discursive knowledge (Mauss 1973). Bourdieu developed it further as the internalization of the social world in the individual through socialization. The habitus is closely linked to a central notion known as the field, defined as “arena of struggle”, where players occupy positions relative to one another with a shared sense of the socially constructed framework of meanings in which they compete for resources (Bourdieu 1977). This could align with the Austrian conception of market and competition.Furthermore, like the Austrian tradition, Bourdieu's conception places knowledge at the centre. it is a conception derived from cognitive psychology that addresses the role of the mind in the structuring of reality, as well as the dialectical interaction between the individual and the environment, and how a pre-existing stock of knowledge is utilized (Piaget 1971). It is furthermore a conception that addresses the subjective nature of knowledge, and how it generates an action-scheme. Bourdieu defined the habitus as: “... a system of lasting, transposable dispositions which integrating past experiences, functions at ever y moment as a matrix of perception, appreciation and actions and makes possible the achievement of infinitely diversified tasks, thanks to analogical transfer schemes permitting the solution of similar shaped problems” (Bourdieu 1968: XX).
indeed, via different layers of socialization such as family, school and community, the individual incorporates rules—which determine a matrix of representation—transposable to different contexts with infinite kinds of content, producing an infinite number of behaviours that are put into practice to solve problems (Hilgers 2009: 730-736).The habitus copes with the dynamism of the social world by enabling the perception and appreciation of events. it does this via a transfer of scheme, through which previous experiences and their equivalents are utilized and, when necessary, adapted—based on strategy-generating principles—to cope with problems (Bourdieu 1977, 1980). Those strategygenerating principles are based on the logic of practice and practical logic, the former being concerned with the understanding of how things work generally and the conditions and principles of operation in a certain field. The practical logic embedded within the habitus attributes certain dispositions, predispositions or inclinations to the actors behind certain perceptions, judgements and actions that fit with the logic of practice of the field (Schaefer 2009). The link between cognition and social structure addressed by the habitus relies on the compatibility it attributes to the dispositions of the individual with the logic of the field. It is necessary then that the economic habitus of the individual entrepreneur fits closely with the economic structure of the society in order to operate successfully (Bourdieu 2005; Swedberg 2011). Entrepreneurial success linked to the possession of a fitting habitus sheds light on the possibility that some individuals may have an economic habitus that does not fit the economic realities of their environment. it also explains why some people are entrepreneurs who discover opportunities and others are not. Having the right economic habitus matters for entrepreneurship because it impacts the future orientation, creativity and strategy of the entrepreneur, all of which enable improvisation and adaptability to new contexts and dynamic flows of events.
While adapting to present realities, the habitus inclines the individual to act and actualize the probability of future events via their anticipation and development of strategic action. The permanent adjustment, unadjustment and readjustment of action develops and sets free the creativity necessary for successful and compatible actions with local dynamic realities (Hilgers 2009: 734-740). It is obvious that Bourdieu's habitus integrates not only alertness, but also the required strategies of action. Beyond that, the economic habitus, as described, is as much as alertness, a human power, which, according to Kirzner, has grounding in the nature of the person who has it (Kirzner 1985). This power takes different forms and may explain the fluctuating manifestations of alertness in Kirzner narratives, which have led many times to sharp criticisms, especially in the field of economics. indeed, alertness is sometimes described as ability, sometimes as a position where one can independently size up situations and evaluate prospective gains through the imagining of future realities, sometimes a tendency, and other times as something that can be switched or trained (Maki 1991: 158-159).
The compatibility between the habitus of the individual and the field creates a certain state of mind within the individual: a permanent openness and ability to notice or discover, without searching, opportunities that have been hitherto overlooked (Kirzner 1979). The notion of the compatibility between habitus and the field gives us a practical understanding of the mechanisms that allow spontaneous reflection and non-deliberate searches for information. With Bourdieu's habitus, new directions in the empirical and interdisciplinary exploration of alertness are set. Exploring alertness today, in this newly developed setup, should start with an investigation of the embodiment process of community, specifically of ethnicity. Ethnicity, in this case, refers to a set of connections and regular patterns of interaction among people sharing common national (ethnic) backgrounds (Portes 1987; Waldinger and McEvoy 1990; Light and Gold 2000). With ethnicity, we have a good and practical way of breaking down culture for an empirical exploration of the habitus and the socialization process of individuals in relation with the field. Developing a Kirznerian-ethnic-entrepreneur model requires crossing new theoretical boundaries with a necessary realignment of the concept of ethnic entrepreneurship. This conceptualization develops Kirzner's theory further by addressing more narrowly the economic habitus of ethnic driven entrepreneurs.