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18 Habitus, social identity,
the perception of male
domination – and agency?
Sigrid Norris
. . . what appears, in history, as being eternal is merely the product of a labor of
eternalization performed by . . . institutions such as the family . . .
(Bourdieu, 2001: viii)
According to Nishida (1958) and Bourdieu (1977) social identity is embedded
in cultural and social currents, constructed through social and societal histories,
and internalized by the individual as habitus. Certainly, identity is constantly
constructed on a micro level, where an individual’s identity is claimed, contested,
and re-constructed in interaction and in relation to the other participants (R.
Scollon, 1997). Such constructions are often, if not always, expressed as elements
through lower-level, higher-level, and/or frozen actions (Norris, 2002a, 2002b,
2004a, 2004b). But social identity is also constructed in relation to others who
may not be present at a given moment (Goffman, 1959) and it is always
constructed through schemes of perception.
In this chapter, I elucidate the interconnections between habitus, social identity
construction, and two women’s construction of male domination.1In order to
demonstrate this complexity, I draw on nexus analysis and multimodal interaction
analysis as my methodological frameworks (Scollon and Scollon, 2004; Norris,
2004b); I take into consideration the performance of sequential and simultaneous
actions and the (not necessarily intentional) re-production of practices on different
timescales as constructed in the histories and cultures of the individuals and the
societies that they belong to; and I discuss the two women’s identity and power
construction, and thereby investigate what role – if any – agency plays in
the process.2
Data and method
I look at two representative excerpts taken from a year-long ethnographic case
study of two women living in Germany.3One of the women, Anna, is married
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and has three children, while the other woman, Sandra, is going through a
divorce and has two children. During the year of data collection, I visited Anna
and Sandra and their families (who lived close to each other and spent much time
together) four times and lived with them for about four months in all, quickly
becoming a part of their families during my first stay. While I was living with the
two women, I shared their lives. I went shopping with Sandra and Anna; tagged
along when they dropped off/picked up their children at preschool and school;
read the books, magazines, and newspapers that they read; met their extended
families and social networks; watched the TV programs that they watched; and
listened to the music that they listened to. All the while I was jotting down field-
notes, had the video recorder running every so often and audio taped the women
when video recording was not possible. During the eight months that I was not
staying with Anna and Sandra, the women wrote day-diaries, audio taped some of
their own interactions, collected the books, magazines, and newspapers that they
were reading, and the CDs that they were listening to, and sent me this material
on a regular basis. Furthermore, I have studied the social histories of the two
women through family narratives, and learned about the practices of identity
construction that Anna and Sandra acquired while growing up.
The social identity constructions and the women’s perceptions of male domina-
tion found in these two excerpts are found throughout my personally collected
60 hours of video and audio data of naturally occurring interactions, several hours
of informal sociolinguistic interviews, and an abundance of fieldnotes. The two
examples illustrate the complexity involved when we start studying social identity
construction in more than one mode and on more than one time scale (Lemke,
2000a, 2000b; Norris, 2002a, 2002b, 2004a, 2004b; Scollon and Scollon, 2004);
when we take the cultural projections and societal currents that are embedded
in the individual’s habitus into consideration; when we analyze the actions within
their practices (Scollon, 1998); and when we investigate the power relationships
that are being constructed and reconstructed (Bourdieu, 2001). Such a complex
analysis brings with it the challenge to balance the micro analysis of the examples
with the macro analysis of historical information that cannot possibly be explicated
in a short chapter like this, perhaps resulting in shortcomings on either side. How-
ever, I believe that it is crucial to bridge micro and macro analysis in order to
advance our understanding of human interaction, identity construction, and power
relations. By bridging micro and macro, a micro analysis is greatly informed by
the macro analysis, as our understanding of the macro societal and cultural
underpinnings allows for a richer micro analysis.
Interaction and identity construction
As I demonstrate elsewhere (Norris, 2002b, 2004a, 2004b), a person seldom acts
only on one level of consciousness. Usually we find that individuals perform
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184 Sigrid Norris
simultaneous higher-level actions, each of which is constructed out of a multi-
plicity of lower-level actions performed through the use of various communicative
modes. Every action that is performed by an individual claims at least one of the
individual’s identity elements, so we find that individuals always construct several
identity elements simultaneously (Norris, 2002b). Concurrently, each action
displays some kind of power relation – or better, as T. Bartlett (2004) suggests:
an array of power relations. Just as one action can have different simultaneous
meanings, it can claim more than one identity element, and/or a variety of power
relations (see also Norris, 2002b, 2004a, 2004b).
During these excerpts there are no male participants present, and yet, both
women demonstrate that they construct at least some of their actions according
to what we can interpret as their internalized perceptions of male domination. It
is this portrayed power-relationship that I am particularly interested in here, as
this seems to be the power relationship that the participants themselves experience
as the strongest one.
A sociolinguistic interview
During a sociolinguistic interview, Anna was asked to describe who she perceives
herself to be. The interview was conducted on a morning that Anna had chosen.
When the interviewer entered Anna’s apartment that day, and throughout the
interview, Anna was ironing her family’s clothing, her daughter was playing
behind her on the floor, and Anna was watching a soap opera, as illustrated in the
first image of Figure 18.1.4
The interview started with the request ‘well, talk a bit about yourself, about
your identity.’ Anna starts her narrative at the point when she was born, and
moves quickly through the early years by listing dates and events, before she pauses
and then says, ‘I actually got where I am today and what I do today in quite a
round-about way.’ At this point she starts telling her social history from her youth
to now, as represented in the transcript below.
The transcription conventions are adopted from Tannen (1984): each period
indicates a 1⁄2-second pause; : indicates lengthening of vowels; - marks abrupt
cutting off of sound; ? marks rising intonation; , marks phrase-final intonation (i.e.
more to come); zindicates latching or (in the following excerpt) continuous talk;
and CAPITALS illustrate emphatic stress:
(1) als Jugendlicher ...
(2) ich wollte nicht Hausfrau werden,
(3) und mich von einem Mann abhängig machen,
(4) das wollte ich alles nicht ...
(5) aber dann
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Habitus, social identity, perception of male domination 185
(6) hab ich irgendwann Robert kennengelernt
(7) und dann
(8) wurden auf einmal
(9) alle Grundsätze über den Haufen geschmissen
(10) und dann
(11) war auf einmal alles ganz anders
Translation of the excerpt:
(1) as a youth ...
(2) I didn’t want to become a housewife,
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186 Sigrid Norris
Figure 18.1 Identity construction and perception of male domination
(3) and make myself dependent upon a husband,
(4) I didn’t want any of that ...
(5) but then
(6) I met Robert at some point
(7) and then
(8) suddenly
(9) all principles were overthrown
(10) and then
(11) suddenly everything was completely different
At this point, Anna talks about her family and how every one of the family
members is important to her (for about five minutes). Then she starts talking about
her current place in life5:
(12) und nach wie vor bin ich auch .. so zufrieden
(13) mit all dem was ich mache.
(14) ich bin zufrieden mit meinem Haushalt,
(15) bin zufrieden mit dem Partyservice,
(16) als Ausgleich zum hier-
(17) Haushalt und Familienleben?
(18) wobei ich das nich:t .sehe .als .. ä:hm ..
(19) .. wie soll ich sa:gen,
(20) .. als Gelegenheit mich hier ..
(21) finanziell unabhängig zu machen von Robert —
(22) —darum geht’s mir ÜBERHAUPT nicht.
Translation:
(12) and I am as .. content as ever
(13) with everything I do.
(14) I am happy with my household,
(15) I am happy with the party service,
(16) as a balance to here-
(17) household and family life?
(18) while I do:n’t .see .this as .. a:hm ..
(19) .. how shall I pu:t it,
(20) .. as an opportunity to make myself here ..
(21) financially independent from Robert —
(22) —that’s not AT ALL what this is about.
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Habitus, social identity, perception of male domination 187
Actions
As mentioned earlier, during the course of the interview Anna is ironing, her
daughter plays in close proximity, and Anna watches a soap opera. Thus, what we
find here are several higher-level actions being constructed simultaneously
(Norris, 2002a, 2004a, 2004b). Each higher-level action – the telling of a social
narrative, ironing, watching TV, or interacting with her daughter – is constructed
through chains of lower-level actions. For example, the telling of the narrative is
constructed through a chain of utterances, a chain of glances at the interviewer, a
chain of gesture units, a chain of postural shifts, and a chain of head movements;
while the higher-level action of ironing is constructed through several chains of
object handling: a chain of movements taking an item of clothing from a basket
to place it on the ironing board, a chain of movements of the iron, a chain of
movements of the pieces of clothing that are being ironed, and a chain of move-
ments of folding the ironed clothes. Similarly, the higher-level action of watching
TV and the higher-level action of interacting with her daughter are being
constructed through a number of chains of lower-level actions.
Some of these many chains of lower-level actions happen simultaneously to
construct one and the same higher-level action, as for example, when the chain of
head movements coincides with the chain of gaze shifts when Anna either glances
at the interviewer or at the TV. Alternatively, some of the chains of lower-level
actions are coordinated with two (or more) higher-level actions, as for example,
the chain of gesture units can only be performed when Anna’s hands are free, and
the iron is placed on the ironing board. When the iron is placed on a piece of
clothing during the gesture, the gesture has to be performed at great speed, so that
the piece of clothing does not burn. Thus, coordination and timing are of great
importance when crossing chains of lower-level actions that simultaneously
construct different higher-level actions.
Practices
Each higher-level action is part of a practice. The higher-level action of telling
about herself can be portrayed as the practice of a sociolinguistic interview or, for
Anna, the telling of personal narratives, or the telling of narratives in general.6
The higher-level action of ironing can be described as the practice of ironing, or
as part of the practice of being a housewife (in Germany). The higher-level action
of interacting with her daughter can be viewed as the practice of mothering, or
can again be described as part of the practice of being a housewife. The higher-
level action of watching a soap opera, or of watching TV in the morning, again
falls under the rubric of the practice of being a housewife.
Each practice is embedded in the historical development of the society. The
practices, according to which Anna produces her actions of ironing, interacting
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188 Sigrid Norris
with her daughter, and watching TV in the morning, display some of the normative
historical meanings of a nuclear family within Anna’s community of practice (Lave
and Wenger, 1991), which in turn is embedded within the normative historical
meaning of a nuclear family within German society. The practice of telling a
narrative, on the other hand, can be theorized as happening on an overarching
level, as it is not limited to housewives, but is in fact a practice that is acquired
by each and every person through family interaction and schooling.
All practices are embedded in a person’s habitus, and all practices show signs
of power structures within family, community, and society. As Bourdieu (2001:
37) points out, ‘[t]he effect of symbolic domination (whether ethnic, gender,
cultural or linguistic, etc.) is exerted not in the pure logic of knowing conscious-
ness but through the schemes of perception, appreciation and action that are
constitutive of habitus.’
Social identity
Anna’s actions, consistent with the practices that they (re)construct, also give us
insight into Anna’s social identity. The action of telling a narrative both displays
Anna’s identity as an interviewee (complying with the request to talk about her
own perceived identity) and her self-perceived identity as a housewife. The actions
of ironing, watching TV in the morning, and interacting with her daughter, also
display Anna’s identity as a housewife.
Perception of male domination
When we now take a closer look at the narrative sections above, we find that Anna
problematizes the concept of the ‘housewife’ and male domination. There, Anna
says, ‘I didn’t want to become a . . . housewife, and make myself dependent upon
a husband, I didn’t want any of that.’ Here, the power relationship, the
dependency of housewife upon husband is directly addressed. But, what is more,
here Anna portrays agency and free will through her choice of wordings.
Then she goes on by saying, ‘but then I met Robert at some point and then
suddenly all principles were overthrown and then suddenly everything was
completely different.’ As soon as Robert is introduced in the narrative, the voice
shifts to passive, illustrating that some unknown force brought about a great
change in her life. Here, agency and free will are no longer claimed.
In this section of the social narrative, Anna depicts the historical development
of her social identity from not wanting to become a housewife to ending up in
exactly that position, and in doing so assigns the historical development of her
social actions from past to current as progressing towards the normative social
identity of a housewife. While the normative male/female power-difference and
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Habitus, social identity, perception of male domination 189
male domination in a nuclear family is addressed directly, and agentively contested
in the beginning of the excerpt, Anna shifts to a passive voice later on, when she
adopts just that normative power difference. Thus, as soon as Anna introduces
Robert in the narrative, she speaks with a less powerful voice.
The second section of Anna’s transcribed narrative (lines 12–22), where she
starts by saying ‘and I am as .. content as ever with everything I do.’ – Anna again
uses active voice. She starts listing, ‘I am happy with my household, I am happy
with the party service,’ and then displays hesitance in the next two lines, saying
‘as a balance to here- household and family life?’ – as marked by the glottal stop
after ‘here’ and the rising intonation after ‘family life.’ The following three lines
are produced at a much slower speed, with several short pauses and elongations
(lines 18–20), where she says ‘while I do:n’t .see .this as .. a:hm .... how shall
I pu:t it, .. as an opportunity to make myself here ..’ – then she speeds up (in lines
21–22), uttering an 11-word-long intonation unit, saying ‘financially independent
from Robert that’s not AT ALL what this is about.’ – emphasizing the word(s) ‘at
all.’ The speed in lines 21–22 and the emphasis demonstrate that Anna believes
that she does not want to be financially independent. She then continues with her
narrative, explaining that she only works as a caterer sometimes, and only works
because she enjoys it.
This narrative projects the narrator’s identity elements. Like a boomerang,
Anna’s narrative veers away from her portrayed identity as a housewife, when she
comments that she is happy with the party service, only to slow down in lines 16
and 17 and reverse course, slowing down even more in lines 18–20, before
returning at fast speed to the current identity location of the narrator in lines
21 and 22.
Here, Anna’s talk evidences the social norm of a housewife being dependent
upon a husband as a conscious decision, pointing to the self as agent with a free
will. In other words, this section of the narrative points to the self as transcending
the social norms of society through free will and as a meaning-making conscious
agent. As Bourdieu points out:
Symbolic power cannot be exercised without the contribution of those who
undergo it and who only undergo it because they construct it as such. But . . .
one has to also take note of and explain the social construction of cognitive
structures which organize acts of construction of the world and its powers. It
then becomes clear that, far from being the conscious, free, deliberate act of
an isolated ‘subject’, this practical construction is itself the effect of a power,
durably embedded in the bodies of the dominated in the form of schemes of
perception and dispositions (to admire, respect, love, etc.) which sensitizes
them to certain symbolic manifestations of power.
(Bourdieu, 2001: 40)
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190 Sigrid Norris
When we follow this thought, we can surmise that Anna’s display of free will,
in expressing her desire to take on the normative submissive position of housewife
and of not wanting to be financially independent from her husband, is a social
construction that is deeply embedded in a society’s history. Likewise, when Anna
constructs her agency in the first section of the narrative by explaining that she
had not wanted to take on the submissive role of housewife and to become
dependent upon a husband in her youth, she in fact portrays herself as a normal
youth. Youth in Germany at the time when Anna was growing up commonly
contested social norms of the nuclear family. Here again, we can claim that the
agency that is depicted, or the free will of not wanting to be dominated by a male
partner that is expressed, actually is a manifestation of social behavior that is deeply
rooted in the communities of practice that the individual belongs to.
But next we want to ask ourselves what happens when an individual suddenly
leaves a community of practice? In the following example, Sandra is moving from
a house to an apartment because of her divorce. By profession, Sandra is an archi-
tect, an artist and a part-time caterer with her friend Anna.7She considers herself
a stay-at-home mother, however, and schedules her work around her children.
Before separation she and her husband had assumed stereotypical gender roles.
‘he never let me do anything like this’
At the moment of this excerpt, loud music is playing, and Sandra is sitting on the
floor, setting up the computer and telephone, as depicted in the second image of
Figure 18.1.8The researcher is sitting across from her in a chair, and Sandra’s sons
are playing in the hallway. Only Sandra is speaking, and has just declared, ‘he
never let me do anything like this.’ Before Sandra puts all the pieces back into the
boxes and stops working on the computer, she says, ‘I will manage to do this.’ –
gets up from the floor and concludes, ‘I’ll continue there later.’
Actions and practices
During this brief excerpt, Sandra performs several simultaneous higher-level
actions: she works on the computer, interacts with the researcher, and watches
her children, who are playing in the hallway. Some of the chains of lower-level
actions are overlapping, so that Sandra’s talk about the computer, for example,
partly constructs the higher-level action of working on the computer and simulta-
neously partly constructs the higher-level action of interacting with the researcher.
Certainly, we can see that each higher-level action is also part of a practice.
The action of working on a computer is embedded in the practice of computer
use; the action of interacting with the researcher can be viewed as the practice
of interacting with a familiar person in general; and the action of watching her
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Habitus, social identity, perception of male domination 191
children falls within the practice of mothering.9However, while Sandra is without
a doubt constructing the higher-level actions of interacting and mothering as
practices, she does not construct the higher-level action of working on the
computer within a common practice. She has not (yet) acquired the knowledge
that is necessary to perform such actions within a practice. Here, she is (still) a
novice within the community of practice of computer users. She calls specialists
or friends for help, reads instruction manuals with great care, and tries to decipher
abbreviations like ‘the USB,’ which are taken-for-granted within the community
of practice.
Social identity, levels of discourse, and perception of
male domination
Sandra’s higher-level action of working on the computer is an attempt to acquire
a new practice and, as pointed out earlier in the chapter, actions and practices
allow us to perceive an individual’s social identity. When we consider the first
general statement – ‘he never let me do anything like this’ – which Sandra utters
before she starts working on the computer, we find that the talk projects her own
historical development of a social identity from wife to divorcee, and from
acceptance of the symbolic power of male domination to learning to overcome it.
While Sandra and her now ex-husband had enacted normative gender roles and
Sandra had taken on the identity of a housewife, she now explains her obvious
non-belonging to the community of practice of computer users by fusing
normative male behavior with technical knowledge.
When we take this utterance, and then look closer at her actions of working
on the computer, we see that Sandra is doing something that she stated she could
not do while she was married. As Bourdieu (2001: 38) points out, ‘the dominated,
often unwittingly, sometimes unwillingly, contribute to their own domination by
tacitly accepting the limits imposed.’ While Sandra no longer accepts the prior
perceptions of imposed limits, she has not yet acquired the necessary – in her
perception ‘normatively male’10 – practices that allow her to live her life as a single
mother without constant struggle and frustration. During this time of learning
new practices, Sandra takes on the identity of a divorcee.
This divorcee identity can be seen as a temporary social identity, which was
invoked as soon as Sandra’s identity of wife was negated, but her identity as a
single mother was not yet developed. This temporary divorcee identity is
displayed at three different levels: the general, which is constructed through actions
that concern the divorce by and large; the continuous, which is constructed through
long-term actions, whose starting points coincide with the divorce and are
permanent; and the immediate, which is constructed through performing actions
that Sandra’s ex-husband used to perform. These levels of identity can be thought
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192 Sigrid Norris
of as vertical constructions,11 where the general builds the highest level, the
continuous builds the mid-level, and the immediate builds the lowest level.
When linking the utterance – ‘he never let me do anything like this’ – to her
actions of doing this, Sandra displays a general divorcee identity. She also constructs
this general divorcee identity by listening to the music, as the lyrics, ‘I wanted
love, but it’s gonna kill me, you swear you’re faithful, that was a lie, you’ve
cheated on me with half of this city, you aren’t worth it, bye-bye,’ suggest.
Simultaneously, Sandra’s actions of working on the computer are due to, and in
the middle of, her move out of her house into an apartment. The move is a long-
term action that has its starting point in the divorce and which is permanent. Thus,
the mid-level of a continuous divorcee identity is constructed. Concurrently,
Sandra works on the computer, which is a task that her ex-husband used to
perform, which constructs her immediate divorcee identity.
While these three vertically constructed levels of her divorcee identity are
constructed through the duration of the various actions, these levels of identity
are also constructed through various communicative modes simultaneously in a
moment of time. The most obvious level in a moment of time is the lowest level
or the immediate identity construction: Sandra is working on the computer,
displaying her frustration with the task through her intonation, facial expression,
and her use of print, as well as gesture. However, when you take a close look at
the surroundings in image 2 of Figure 18.1, you will see moving boxes, stacks of
clothing, books, paint brushes, and much more. This layout ‘tells’ of the move
that Sandra is going through, and allows us to observe that this very moment is
simultaneous to, and part of, a vertically higher level of action. Now, when we
observe that at this very moment loud music is playing, and when we consider
Sandra’s account during playback when she was asked about the music – ‘yes. I
needed that. he yells everything out. my frustration had to go somewhere. when
he yells, that makes me feel better instantly.’ – we can be sure that Sandra’s choice
of music displays her general divorcee identity. The lyrics, the hard rock, the
intensity, and the volume all depict the general frustration that Sandra is feeling
at that moment. Thus, Sandra’s divorcee identity is particularly salient at this time
because it is constructed on three vertical levels simultaneously.
Projection to the future and perception of male domination
Looking at the utterance of the excerpt, when Sandra stops working on the com-
puter and says – ‘I will manage to do this.’ – her utterance projects to the future,
which is evident by her use of the future tense. While the utterance can be seen as
just projecting the future outcome of her current actions of setting up the com-
puter, it can also be interpreted as simultaneously operating on both higher levels
of discourse, indicating that Sandra will manage to complete the move and will
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Habitus, social identity, perception of male domination 193
manage to learn new practices that enable her to live as a single mother. When tak-
ing these higher levels of discourse into consideration, we can see that this utter-
ance projects Sandra’s future development of her social identity as a single mother.
This utterance then, projects away from her current actions and her current
identity of a divorcee, to her new, not yet mastered identity of a single mother.
Because of the divorce, the accepted male domination in Sandra’s life, as
practiced throughout the time that she was married, was suddenly absent, leaving
her identity without the known boundaries and limits. This vacuum led her to
reconstruct her identity from housewife to single mother. However, in order
to accomplish this task, she had to go through stages of learning new practices and
with them new schemes of perception.
Such a period of learning also brings with it many struggles and much
frustration, which can be read off her facial expression, or can be heard in the
music that she is listening to. During this period of learning, Sandra constructs a
semi-new identity, the divorcee identity. This identity formation runs through
phases from housewife to single mother and is in a constant flux; it is a continuum,
which entails part of the single mother identity from the very beginning of change,
and elements of the housewife identity even at the point when the identity of a
single mother is fully constructed.
The stages of the divorcee identity are visible in the long-term study when
taking a closer look at the vertical constructions (Norris, 2002b). While initially
all three levels of a divorcee identity are present almost constantly, the immediate,
and also the continuous construction of this temporary identity fade away with
time, while the general divorcee identity changes and eventually becomes fully
reconstructed as the single mother identity.
The stages of the divorcee identity are also visible when we look around the
apartment. For example, we find a painting that Sandra produced early on in
the divorce process, which she called ‘Family.’ This painting depicts a mother and
two children. She often looks at the painting and says ‘that is our family.’ She also
depicts one-adult-two-children families in some of her other paintings. Such
repetition appears to have two functions: first, Sandra seems to be trying to come
to terms with her new family structure; and, simultaneously, she is providing her
children with a new scheme of perception, making the new family structure real
in her art and through her verbal declarations.
Sandra’s assurances that a family can exist consisting of one adult and two
children contradict the norms of the nuclear family which are deeply embedded
in the historical social development of the society. And, the depiction of this family
structure in her art supplies this non-normative family structure with permanence,
giving it more reality than the mode of language alone would be able to provide.
Here, Sandra actively constructs a new single mother identity. Her actions,
even in the moment of the above excerpt, portray agency. Her utterance – ‘I will
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194 Sigrid Norris
manage to do this.’ – emphasizes this agency. Nevertheless, Sandra did not take
a completely agentive role in the higher-level action of constructing her divorcee
identity. This non-agentive side becomes obvious in much of her talk (outside of
this example) and also in the music and the lyrics ‘you’ve cheated on me with half
of this city.’ She had not anticipated having to change her social identity from
housewife to single mother, in fact, and she uses her art to re-construct her own
understanding of a family. Thus, agency, although practiced in the immediate does
not necessarily coincide with agency in higher levels of discourse.
However, the projected agency that Sandra portrays in her immediate actions,
developing new practices, enables her to cultivate new perceptions and to readjust
her habitus. As Sandra moves through the phases from housewife to single mother,
the acquired one-adult-two-children family structure becomes the norm for this
family unit, and Sandra constructs a clear single mother identity.
Conclusion
These two examples demonstrate that habitus, social identity construction, and
perceived male domination are interconnected. While agency and free will are
projections of the individual that are often constructed through the communicative
mode of language, such portrayed agency and free will appear to be deeply
embedded within society and the communities of practice which the individual
belongs to, so that we need to question whether we can speak of agency and free
will at all.
The above excerpts show two seemingly contrasting examples. While Anna’s
excerpt could be taken to illustrate that depicted agency and free will may have
little to do with conscious decision, Sandra’s excerpt could be taken to show
that agency and free will are linked to choice. We may presume that Sandra could
also have constructed her identity in different ways; she could have held on to
the perceived imposed limits that she had accepted during marriage, and thus
embraced male domination and the composition of a nuclear family as a given.
There are many imaginable identity constructions that she could have adopted,
yet, she chose this one. However, thinking about Anna once more, we may also
conclude that she chose to take on the identity of a housewife wholeheartedly, to
embrace the norms of society, and not infringe on expectations. We can reason-
ably argue that Anna chose to watch TV during the interview, or we can say
that she chose to iron the family’s clothing at that very moment. Individuals
choose many of their actions on a moment-by-moment basis, yet, we can argue
that their choice often is limited by their internalized perceptions, social and
cultural norms, and social histories, which are all intertwined in an individual’s
identity construction. Even though agency and free will may only be possible
in a limited way for any individual, it does appear to be an important aspect in
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Habitus, social identity, perception of male domination 195
identity construction, and, as Dostoevsky has pointed out so splendidly, when
arguing in his most poetic way on grounds of agency: ‘One’s own free unfettered
choice, one’s own fancy . . . that is that very “most advantageous advantage” ’
(Dostoevsky, 1960: 23).
In mediated discourse analysis, we take the mediated action as our unit of
analysis, which focuses on the ‘social actors as they are acting’ (R. Scollon, 2001)
and emphasizes the irresolvable dialectic between action and the material means
that mediate social action (Wertsch, 1998; R. Scollon, 2001). Many actions that
an individual performs, or to put it in other terms, most mediated actions, at least
in part, are a result of some choice – however minute – that the social actor
performing the actions has arrived at. This leads to the conclusion that agency and
free will are just as much an aspect of a person’s identity construction, as the habitus
that makes this very choice possible for the individual.
Notes
1 I am using the term ‘male domination’ in this chapter, because the two women focus
on this aspect. However, we could certainly (and maybe more accurately) speak of
female submissiveness in these cases, as Deborah Tannen has kindly pointed out
to me.
2 I would like to thank Maurice Nevile for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of
this chapter.
3 While the actual study was completed after a year, I am in contact with Sandra on a
regular basis, and my understanding of her identity construction is informed by this
continuous contact.
4 Also, see some discussion of this moment in Norris, 2004 Analyzing multimodal
interaction: a methodological framework, London: Routledge, p. 55 (where the image was
first published in Plate 2.9) where I discuss the function of proxemics.
5 I continue with the line-numbering to make it easier for the reader to follow the
argument later.
6 Certainly, Anna’s narrative is unavoidably tied up with the trajectory of my relation-
ship with her, with my socio-cultural position and gender; however, in this chapter I
do not focus on this aspect.
7 Please note that Sandra perceives the catering as a profession, while Anna perceives it
as a pastime.
8 This image was first published in Norris, 2004 Analyzing multimodal interaction: A
methodological framework, London: Routledge, p. 85 (Plate 4.1).
9 I claim here that Sandra performs this action as part of the practice of ‘mothering’
while I claim in the above example that Anna performs the very same action of
watching her children as part of the practice of ‘being a housewife,’ as this is the view
that the social actors themselves take.
10 Sandra no longer believes that working on the computer is a ‘male practice.’
11 I speak here of vertical (simultaneous) constructions – which, in fact are hierarchical
constructions – to differentiate them from horizontal (simultaneous) constructions –
which may also be hierarchical.
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