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Habitus: Its Transformation and Transfer through Cultural Encounters in Migration

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Bourdieu, Habitus and Social Research

Abstract

What happens when a person migrates? How does migration change this person, his/her way of doing and thinking about things? What if the new place of residence is very different from the place of origin of the migrant? And what if this difference is not only about how people do things but also about how they perceive differences in lifestyle, religious practice or ethnic belonging? Do migrants learn to do things differently, to talk about themselves differently, and to value this diversity differently? If yes, then how? Can these newly acquired skills and attitudes be transferred across space to the place of origin of migrants? These are the questions that the new, ongoing research project TRANSFORmIG1 intends to answer. It does so by using the epistemological and conceptual framework developed by Pierre Bourdieu. In this chapter, I discuss the ways the project incorporates Bourdieu’s legacy, and the challenges it faces by doing so.

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Authors
  1. Magdalena Nowicka
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Strathclyde, UK

    Cristina Costa (Lecturer in Technology Enhanced Learning) (Lecturer in Technology Enhanced Learning)

  2. University of Glasgow, UK

    Mark Murphy (Reader in Education and Public Policy) (Reader in Education and Public Policy)

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© 2015 Magdalena Nowicka

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Nowicka, M. (2015). Habitus: Its Transformation and Transfer through Cultural Encounters in Migration. In: Costa, C., Murphy, M. (eds) Bourdieu, Habitus and Social Research. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137496928_6

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