The psychosocial significance of social character, habitus and structures of feeling in research on neoliberal post-industrial work

Abstract

This article highlights the psychosocial relevance of Erich Fromm’s concepts of ‘social character’ and ‘social change’ to broaden our understanding of the intergenerational traumatic legacy of neoliberalism. As part of this, it also reflects on the psychosocial significance of other related concepts – namely Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘habitus’ and Raymond Williams’ ‘structures of feeling’ – as ways to also acknowledge their significance when related to each other in emerging research on the neoliberal effects of changes in work and identities. This includes secondary analysis of my own earlier research on the psychosocial ramifications of the loss of stable work, changing worker-gendered identities, disrupted affect, community engagement and historical memory within a global context of insecure labour. This is all understood within a theoretical frame that stresses the emerging neoliberal forms of social character in the aftermath of the massive redundancies and unemployment experienced recently in post-industrial working-class communities in the UK.