Visualizing Subjectivity: Social Theory and the Role of Art as Metaphor of Self and Habitus

Abstract

This paper considers the way social theorists draw on affective imagery to convey ideas about complex social processes such as the formation of subjectivity within a given habitus. The argument focuses on discussions of art in the work of Elias and Foucault to question whether imagery, and particularly imagery drawn from art, serves to simplify more complex processes of reasoning, or whether the image can be understood as a type of conceptual consolidation of an argument rather than a means to simply illustrate or augment it. The paper also raises the question of whether art is a more complex form of social agency than it was sometimes understood to be in its original social context.