Cultural Sociology of Habit

The project investigates, from the perspective of cultural sociology, (1) concepts of habit; (2) the constitution, genesis, mediation, and effects of naturalised-naturalising habitual practices; and (3) the significance of habit as an enabling yet constraining category of practice for the duality of social reproduction and change. Guided by the notion of the dialectic of habit, the project pursues these objectives between (1) a critical reconstruction of the social-philosophical history of ideas of habit as second nature and (2) a practice-theoretical discussion of three sociological approaches to this phenomenon: Dewey's Pragmatism, Berger/Luckmann's Social Constructionism, and Bourdieu's Praxeology. On this basis, the project seeks to reconstruct core problems of reflexive theories of habit. In doing so, it aims to contribute to the renewed development of habit as a category of practice for both sociological theory and empirical research, while demonstrating its continuing relevance for social theory, as well as for contemporary social diagnosis and emancipatory political thought.