The force of habitus

conflicting perspectives between Norbert Elias and Pierre Bourdieu

Abstract

Human behavior is one of the most interesting and enigmatic objects of study in many areas of knowledge. In Sociology, it couldn't be different. In this sense, this article aims to understand a sociological concept called Habitus, from the point of view of two important authors: Norbert Elias and Pierre Bourdieu. The discussion was made based on an introductory presentation about the two sociologists. Next, we conducted an analysis of the concept of Habitus in order to emphasize the main conflicting perspectives about it, from the point of view of the two authors studied. Therefore, the present study is based on a qualitative method, being carried out through a bibliographical research that gathers not only works by the two sociologists analyzed here, but also a collection of others that approach the authors studied.

Keywords: Habitus. Norbert Elias. Pierre Bourdieu. Sociology.