Habitus as foregrounded history: theorising affect in the social formation of embodied practice

This paper builds upon a tradition of feminist critical engagements with Bourdieu (Adkins and Skeggs, 2004; Skeggs, 2011; Reay 2015), developing the concept of ‘foregrounded history’ as a way to conceptualise the temporal and affective in processes of habitus formation. Through analysis of affects ‘produced through the social encounter’ (Skeggs and Wood, 2012: 68) within everyday childhoods on a British council estate, the paper explores habitus as histories both embodied and felt in the present. Drawing upon ethnographic research conducted within the interrelated fields of the Primary School and the Community Centre, this paper considers processes of distinction (Bourdieu, 1984), disagreement (Rancière, 2004) and resistance in the formation of classed positionings on The Estate.