the latter often interpellated the constitution of the former. This is the
experience of “being in the world” thatBourdieu’s (1977)habitusconcept
posits. The theory of practice from which his concept emerged
advances a dispositional theory of action...which treats individuals as actors who
apprehend the world with all their sensesthat is, not with the ‘logic of the logician,’
but with their bodies and with the employment of a half-conscious, semi-tangible,
practical logic. (Desmond, 2006,p. 390)Bourdieu’s theorizing on the habitus suggests that individuals think in
dispositionaltermsnot in conscious, rational, or discursive ones. As with
Merleau-Ponty’s (1962) work on the “body-subject,” this dispositional
theory of action posits that social actors must successfully perform willful
and empowering bodily movements in order to form a stable and meaning-
ful identitya position that the feminist literature on embodiment has
well substantiated (Bartky, 1988; Butler, 1990; Murphy, 2008; Young,
2005 ).
As the feminist literature suggests, punk was not so much something
thatone was as something that one didsomething that one accomplished
with his or her body during ritual performance. Identities remained secure
or insecure and fixed or fluid to the extent that subjects could bodily enact
them in a way that activated positive affect. My field observations
suggested that the concert’s social structure enforced such movements,
facilitating identity confirmation by conscripting attendees into enthusiastic
and emotion laden participation.
The gestural form of ritualistic practice that ensued inscribed identity
into the habitus of subjects, and the embodied forms of knowledge that
developed positively conditioned the way in which their bodies inhabited
the physical world. AsJackson (2004)hasobserved in relation to other
forms of dance,
this [sensual] knowledge does not simply evaporate when people leave...it becomes a
particular coordinate within [their] sensual landscape, a point of reference, which
throws the bodily practices of the everyday world into relief. (p. 23)At the same time that the deep play of the concert promoted the ossifica-
tion of punk identity into a form of “corporeal knowledge,” the concert
helped research participants to unify their reference groups and neutralize
competing identifications.Gergen (1991)notto mention the numerous
symbolic interactionists before himargues that many social actors find it
difficult to successfully construct a generalized other in the postmodern
world. Unable to identify or deposit themselves within a unified community
184 PHILIP LEWIN