Stasis and Change: Innovators, Affective Poles, Reflexivity, Irony

Chapter Six considers aspects of social change through a Bourdieusian lens. It outlines the autonomous and heteronomous poles of fields, emphasising their affective nature. The chapter uses the examples of subversive innovators and how the importing of illusio from different fields can affect an individual’s disposition to illustrate how change occurs. It then examines recent social changes around the rise of reflexivity, irony, cynicism and anxiety. In a precarious global labour market, where even the well-educated experience forms of insecurity about the future, reflexive and ironic ways of being are becoming normalized, while mental health issues effect an ever-greater proportion of the population. This produces a relation of cruel optimism. If the illusio of specific fields increasingly come under scrutiny as being unachievable, unsustainable or violent, this may open a space for emancipatory social change.