> If anyone can help me better understand exactly what Bourdieu is saying
> about embodiment, I will be grateful.
>
>
> So far, I see only that he's saying that our bodies are inscribed with the
> social. Profound enough, but is there more?
>
Much much more ... You need to see embodiment as more than 'inscription',
which implies somethimg that is written on a surface - bodies are moving
and dynamic - actively participating in the generation of habitus.
Bourdieu talks about habitus as the embodiment of historical and social
relations. This embodiment needs to be understood in the context of
particular particular fields of action.
Wacquant expresses this clearly in The first chapter of IRS: 'A field
consists of a set of objective, historical relations between positions
anchored in certain forms of power (or capital), while habitus consists
of a set of historical relations "deposited" within individual bodies in
the form of mental and corporeal schemata, appreciation and action.' (16)
Habitus entails practical and enacted beliefs. In The Logic of Practice
Bourdieu refers to practical sense as 'social necessity turned into
nature, converted into motor schemes and body automatisms.' (69) Common
sense is thereby incorporated into everyday bodily practices through
which a person comes to know her or his place in the world. Embodiment,
as a vehicle for social reproduction, engages everyday movements and
actions so that 'social relations present themselves with every
appearance of nature ...[and] ... the most fundamental social choices are
naturalized' (71)
I strongly recommend a reading of the chapter in The Logic of Practice
entitled 'Belief and the Body'. Bourdieu goes on to talk about the body
believing in what it does so that what is learned by the body 'is not
something that one has ... but something that one is' (73).
I hope this is of some use.
Maude