Exploring the racial habitus through John’s story: On race, class and adaptation

This article puts Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptual tool habitus to work alongside Sara Ahmed’s theory of racialization conceptualize a racial that is durable but not totally determining. The applied the narrative account John, Black-Caribbean man from North East London, who finds himself ‘fish out water’ within racist society, which confronts him with reality he must actively acquire new dispositions, sensibilities and cultural capital, in order survive. explores cost this adaptation for people such as John uneven processes enabled his constrained adaptation. It argued are forced ‘carve’ themselves against backdrop dominant discourse complex creative ways highlight non-essential nature subjectivities. In doing so, argues perceptions Bourdieu structural determinist through offering empirically-driven insights oft-ignored positions on agency.