Body & Society: The Child in Family Relationships Embodied Spaces, Social Places and Bourdieu: Locating and Dislocating

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Embodied Spaces, Social Places and Bourdieu: Locating and Dislocating

the Child in Family Relationships
Erica Haimes
Body Society 2003; 9; 11
DOI: 10.1177/1357034X030091002
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Embodied Spaces, Social Places and

Bourdieu: Locating and Dislocating the
Child in Family Relationships
ERICA HAIMES
Introduction
This article examines the question of how children are located in, and attached to,
families. The focus is on children whose placement in families is problematic for
some reason, such as in adoption, egg and semen donation, embryo donation,
surrogacy, paternity testing, babies swapped at birth and foundlings. How a child
is located in a family defines not only that childs position but also the position
of others in relation to the child.
Notions of space and place are central to Bourdieus work. He uses the term
space literally (activities occur, and actors act, in physical spaces which have
practical and symbolic significance in relation to each other) and metaphorically
(preferring the term social space to society (2000a: 1305)). Actors occupy
multiple places within multiple relatively autonomous fields that together
constitute the social space. These places constitute their status, class, social
position: their place within society.
Thus the positions and groups to which individuals are initially attached as
babies, or in which they later seek to place themselves, and the processes whereby
this occurs, are highly significant, both for them as individuals and also for an
analytical understanding of the wider structures of society. One comes to learn
ones place and to learn how that is positioned in relation to others through
the acquisition and development of the habitus, that is their present and past
positions in the social structure that biological individuals carry with them, at all
Body & Society 2003 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi),
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12 Body and Society Vol. 9 No. 1
times and in all places, in the form of dispositions which are so many marks of
social position and hence of social distance . . . between . . . persons (Bourdieu,
1977: 82). Thus, in a dynamic and mutually reinforcing set of social processes,
ones place in the wider social space is a reflection of ones habitus which is
a reflection of ones place: a paradoxical relationship of double inclusion
(Bourdieu, 2000a: 130).
The process of attaching a child to a family (that is, confirming his/her place
within the family field) entails both a process of categorization (at the very least,
my child/your child) and disputes over the criteria for these categories. These
disputes are important for the individuals directly involved but also have a wider
impact on how we understand the parentchild relationship, and the family, more
broadly. This is not unexpected for Bourdieu:
. . . each field prescribes its particular values and possesses its own regulative principles. These
principles delimit a socially structured space in which agents struggle, depending on the position
they occupy in that space, either to change or to preserve its boundaries and form. (Bourdieu
and Wacquant, 1992: 17)
I shall present a series of case studies to illustrate the sorts of disputes1 that can
occur over the placement, displacement and misplacement of children within
families. I shall use these to demonstrate what a Bourdieusian analysis adds to our
understanding of these issues and also how these issues add to our understanding
of Bourdieu.
Background
While much has been written about reproductive technologies (e.g. Franklin,
1997; McNeil et al., 1990; Stacey, 1992; Strathern, 1992) very little has been written
analytically about this particular aspect of the location of children, even though
it is one that troubles professionals such as doctors and social workers (Blyth and
Speirs, 1998). Even less has been written situating this aspect of reproductive tech-
nologies in parallel with childrens attachments to families in other situations such
as adoption, foundlings and so on.
This article is part of an ongoing ethnography (Haimes, 1996) of families and
children in which I have approached the central topic from a number of different
angles. I have tended to focus either on subjective accounts (albeit with reference
to the wider social context) or on objective, institutionally based analyses (albeit
with an eye though one probably less clearly sighted on the relationship
between these and everyday actors). However, is it possible to bring these two
sorts of accounts together analytically and is it desirable or necessary to do so?
What more can we learn from so doing? Such an attempt would have to produce

Embodied Spaces, Social Places and Bourdieu 13
an analysis that retained the complexity of the institutional perspective but did
not smooth out the ambiguities of the members accounts. Few overarching
analyses, such as a Foucauldian approach, are capable of retaining such a multi-
faceted, empirically grounded, texture. So here my question is whether Bourdieus
work, particularly in its concern to bridge the subjective and the objective, agency
and structure, can assist in the analysis of these sorts of questions. The framing
of these issues as presented in the Introduction gives a useful sign of the poten-
tial of Bourdieus work for this topic but this needs to be tested to see how robust
it is against empirical data. While I want to avoid too mechanistic and decon-
textualized an application of his work I have nonetheless taken the tool-kit
approach that he himself advocates:
I have very pragmatic relationships with authors; I turn to them as I would to fellows and craft-
masters, in the sense those words had in the mediaeval guild people you can ask to give you
a hand in difficult situations. (Bourdieu, 1990, cited in Jenkins, 1992: 11)
The difficult situation that I have in my exploration of children and assisted

conception is that previous approaches, while useful in shedding light on some
aspects of this topic, still leave questions unanswered. For example, I have used
the notion of identity (stable, fractured, in crisis, multiple) to try to grasp what is
at issue for the person who is seen (by self and/or others) as having been
misplaced or displaced. However, that is an insufficiently nuanced concept. I
therefore want to see how much more insight into these issues is afforded by
Bourdieus understanding of the individual in society.
Case Studies
I shall discuss these issues through case studies since, in true Bourdieusian
fashion, I would argue that empirical data are the most appropriate starting point
for any piece of social analysis, while acknowledging that the transformation of
situations as experienced in everyday life into data is an inherently theoretical
process (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 35). The cases are taken from a number
of written sources. I could make those sources (their narratives and authorship)
the focus of analysis since these are not insignificant factors in how we come to
understand the practical issues raised therein but that is not my intention in this
article. Rather, I want to present the case studies as everyday situated accounts
which manage to construct the stories as plausible accounts of remarkable (as in,
capable and worthy of being remarked-upon) events that is, as events that
challenge our taken-for-granted notions of everyday life. By the nature of this
challenge, and of the remarks elicited, these events are presented as causing
concern. In that sense it does not matter which accounts I have chosen since they

are all cultural representations and are all interesting and, more importantly, open
to analysis for that fact. As discussed elsewhere (Haimes and Williams, 1998: 143)
my reading of these accounts is deliberately open-ended; I am not interested in
trying to work out what the authors of the accounts really think or intended in
writing these articles. It is much more fruitful to open up the analytical space, to
see the range of ways in which it is possible for members to think and use ideas
about these matters, in order to grasp the cultural ordering of what ties adults and
children together (and what does not).
There is not space here to conduct a detailed examination of the case studies.2
Nonetheless, I shall briefly identify the common reference points that the authors
and participants deploy in trying to work through their ideas on these issues, even
though their conclusions (about the topic overall and about what should happen
in particular instances) differ radically. As I have shown elsewhere, two opposed
points of view on the same issue actually depend upon the use of the same frame
of reference (Haimes, 1992). In particular we shall see the interplay of notions of
embodied spaces and social places that everyday actors draw upon in trying to
negotiate outcomes to these disputes. Thus, through an examination of the case
studies we shall see the actual struggles that this particular field produces.
Case Study 1: Writs Fly after Embryo Mix-up (The Observer, 18/7/99, and New
York Times)
In 1999, the New York Times reported a legal dispute between two couples over
the custody of a baby boy. Both couples, one white, one black, had received fertil-
ity treatment at the same clinic and both had achieved a fertilized embryo.
However, staff mistakenly replaced both fertilized embryos in the white womans
womb; she gave birth to two boys, one white, one black. A DNA test showed
that the black baby was genetically related to the black couple, but the white
couple argued that he should be considered the son of both couples. Their claim
was based on the fact that the white woman had carried him for nine months:
Shell always in her heart feel she is the mother. Each set of parents had given
the child a different name (Joseph/Akiel). After the DNA tests the white couple
gave the black baby to the black couple and it was agreed that the white couple
could visit him. This arrangement broke down when the white woman continued
to call him Joseph and to refer to herself as Mommy. In trying to sustain visiting
rights, the white couple claimed that the two babies would suffer from being sepa-
rated since they had formed links as brothers during nine months in the womb
and five months in the [white couples] home. They argued that the infants body
language showed this since they reached out to each other during visits and that

therefore contact should be maintained as they grew up. The legal case was aimed
at resolving parentage, visiting rights and the present and future relationship
between the boys. The judge ruled that the genetic parents were the legal parents
and should have custody of the child, and appointed psychologists to assess the
relationship between the two boys.
In this account we have a number of different claims about a childs appropri-
ate location within a set of family relationships, argued out as part of a real-life,
practical, legal and emotional problem for all the parties concerned. I am inter-
ested in the basis on which claims were made and in the repertoire of arguments
deployed in making those claims. I am also interested in the boundaries to those
claims: what is considered a plausible claim and on what basis? This is not a
question of legal correctness but rather of what is socially plausible. Such
measures and limits of plausibility help to construct the arena of dispute, both in
the specific case under consideration and in the general field of child placement.
The author provides us with a series of contrasting pairs as an explicit frame-
work for understanding both the dispute and its resolution. For example, black
baby/white woman, white couple/black couple, constructive visits/destructive
visits, Akiel/Joseph, biological parents/parents at birth, and so on. This series of
contrasts is also located alongside a series of matched pairs: black baby/black
couple, white baby/white couple, twin baby boys. The story is presented as a
series of contrasts and symmetries which carries within it its own resolution: how
else could this dispute have been resolved?
However, less explicitly, we find that the author draws upon and gives
exposure to a number of other claims that rely on the use of place and space as a
framework for this account. In fact, the account draws upon six different
categories of space and place. These are metaphorical space (as in allowing the
children to grow up in peace); geographical places (such as New York and a
black couple from New Jersey); bodily spaces; institutional spaces (such as the
court or clinic); domestic space (five months in the Fasanos home) and legal
space (as in the visiting agreement). Even the phrase embryo mix-up implies
embryos out of place and embryos that need re-placing, that is, placing in their
correct spaces. Adding to this, the phrase parents at birth situates those adults
in both time and space in relation to the baby, as do phrases such as brought into
life and carried for nine months.
The strength of the white womans claim rests on a sense of how a childs place
is tied to, and is seen as tie-able to, the embodied space of the womb. She deploys
the fact that the baby spent nine months in her womb to make claims about the
origins and identity of the child. On the basis of this time spent by this baby in
this space she makes claims about her relationship to the child. (Note that no

claims are cited as to the white mans relationship to the child since he cannot
invoke that, or any other, bodily attachment to the baby.) The power of the
womb, as a particularly physical, intimate place, to underpin such claims is
evident, both in ordinary procreation and when disputes such as this arise.
However, it is also important to note that the power of the womb to underpin
such claims is relative to other bodily claims regarding the location of individual
identity and family relatedness. For example, one element of this report is that
skin colour is not stated as a reason why the baby should be located with one
particular couple, yet it is part of the implied symmetry of the case. The factor of
skin colour could be used in a number of ways: as a statement of ethnicity (though
this does not appear to be the authors use of it since neither colour is designated
with capital letters to signify membership of an ethnic group) or as a physical fact.
The latter appears to be the way the author uses it (even though its status as fact
is highly contentious: how accurate or useful are black and white when used
as objective descriptions of skin colour?). In this usage, identity could be seen as
located in this other (em)bodied space, that is on the surface of the body. The fact
that little is made of this in the account suggests that it is either a taken-for-
granted element of the case (how else could the case be resolved other than by
giving the black baby to the black couple?) or that it is of only relative import-
ance to other factors.
In contrast to the non-reference to skin colour, we have a very clear reference
to DNA testing, which is seen to provide an objective measure of family related-
ness and as therefore an appropriate determinant of family placement. The gene
connects embodiment and space in two ways: it is contained within the body and
it is seen as the embodiment of the essence of an individuals relatedness to other
individuals. Even the white couple accepts the objectivity of the DNA link since
they suggest sharing the baby with the black couple: the facts of, and thus the
claims from, genetics are seen as indisputable and are given at least equal import-
ance to the womb and to skin colour. Had the DNA tests not shown a link to
this black couple would the black baby have remained with the white couple, on
the basis of the carrying relationship?
In understanding the nature of the claims made, it is useful to note the sorts of
claims that are not made about certain spaces and their importance in locating the
childs origins. For example, none of the parties attached importance to the petri
dish in which the actual fertilization of the egg took place, even though a claim
could be made to this being the actual space of the origins of this unique indi-
vidual. Thus the bodily spaces of the womb, the gene, the skin are made sense of
in relation to other types of space as well as to each other.

Case Study 2: Nightmare of Limbo Twins (Mail on Sunday, 7/5/00)

The importance of other types of space in relation to bodily connections is shown
by this case. This is an account of twin girls whose conception and birth involved
three different adults (semen donor, egg donor and carrying woman) but whose
origins and subsequent placing involved at least five other adults, located over
several countries. Rather than being the subject of competing claims about bodily
connections and family relatedness, these twins were initially claimed by no one.
Space and place feature throughout this account. First, the heading: limbo has
several definitions, including the supposed abode of the souls of unbaptized
babies and an intermediate state or condition of awaiting a decision. Both
meanings are pertinent to the case described and the poignancy of the first is diffi-
cult to shed. There is an echo here of liminality, as well as of a phrase I have used
elsewhere in referring to the children of assisted conception as dwellers on
thresholds (Haimes, 1998). Clearly the sense is of babies out of place, between
places, or even of no place.
The author explains this description because the babies were born without
parents, either legal or genetic. Their cosmopolitan conception (my phrase)
involved the semen of an anonymous American donor, obtained from a Danish
sperm bank, and the egg of an anonymous British donor. The gametes were fertil-
ized in a Greek clinic and implanted into the womb of a British woman, who had
been commissioned by an Italian man and his Portuguese wife who lived in
France. The babies were born in a Californian hospital and, having been rejected
by the commissioning parents because they were girls, were eventually adopted
by an American lesbian couple who employed a Puerto Rican nanny to help look
after them. The very proliferation of places leads to their representation as being
from no particular place. Equally the very proliferation of possible parents leads
to their representation as belonging to no particular parents.
Though the account is objectively wrong in claiming that these twins have no
genetic or legal parents (since the gamete donors are the genetic parents and the
twins have been legally adopted by the lesbian couple) the claims make sense and
are plausible because they rely on an understanding of how babies bodily
connections to others usually locate them in a set of other relationships that we
commonly call family.
The contrast between this case and the first case is that, here, although there
are at least three adults who could make claims to owning the twins on the basis
of a biological connection, no one does so, whereas in the first case there are too
many adults making such claims. Indeed in this case the surrogate mother is
quoted as being keen to distance herself from any such possible claims: They

werent her daughters she was merely the surrogate mother who carried them
and gave birth to them. At one stage she had to contemplate the possibility that,
since the commissioning couple did not want the babies any more, she would have
to put them in the care of the local social services.
The lack of claims made as to ownership of the babies, on biological grounds,
does not eliminate the need to place them somewhere, on the grounds of social
and collective responsibility. The fact that the babies were then claimed by the
lesbian couple, and legally adopted, shows (as in case study 1) that institutional
placement can override biological connection. The essentially arbitrary charac-
teristic of such decisions, however, is illustrated by the authors observation:
In the space of a few weeks, the lifestyle and nationality which awaited the twins had been
shuffled in a way only surrogacy could allow: first, they might have been wealthy Europeans;
then they might have been the troubled residents of a West Midlands childrens home; now, it
seems, they might end up as Hollywood girls.
The same range of spaces and places (metaphorical, domestic, legal, bodily,
geographical and institutional) occur in this account as in the previous account,
but the importance of each in relation to the others is different. Here, more
explicit associations are made, between places and projected lifestyle. Embodied
spaces, while still important (because without their implied importance there
would be no story to tell) are less central to claims being made about the likely
fate of the twins than claims about geographical and domestic (and implied status)
locations. We see here the usefulness of Bourdieus concept of habitus and a
warning against taking an essentialist view of identity. The identity of these twins
lies less in their DNA and their genes and more in their social location: they will
be this particular type of person in this family and a different type of person in
another family.
Case Study 3: We Really Were Mixed Up Kids (Mail on Sunday, 27/9/98)

The question of what type of person an individual might have been if raised in
another environment is central to this third case study. On 18 November 1936,
two women each gave birth to a baby girl; the babies were placed in a nursery
overnight so that the mothers, who were sharing a room, could recover from the
births, as was the usual practice of the day. The babies papers were muddled up
overnight and the babies were returned to the wrong mothers the next morning.
Margaret Wheeler was convinced she had been given the wrong baby since her
birth had been easy and she had had a good look at her own baby; the one she
had been given back was lighter in weight and had darker eyebrows. Blanche
Rylatt had had a difficult birth and was not aware of the mistake; when asked

about this by Margaret, she was convinced that professionals did not make such
mistakes. Since no one else believed that the babies had been swapped, Margaret
took home Blanches baby but did everything she could to befriend and keep in
touch with the Rylatt family. She made Blanches husband the godfather to the
baby she had named Valerie (that is, his own biological baby). In 1943 the combi-
nation of an inspection of the hospital records and an inconclusive blood test on
Margarets husband (Blanches husband refused to undergo a test) was taken as
confirmation by the families that a mistake had occurred. (Note what counts as
sufficient and reliable evidence to substantiate the claims made in the different
case studies.) Both daughters were told of the mistake in their late teens.
The article presents comments from the surviving parties: Margaret and the
two daughters. Margarets story shows that physical evidence was important to
her in confirming that she had the wrong baby: The more I saw of this baby . . .
the more convinced I was that I had the wrong one. Nonetheless she took the
baby home and named her Valerie: If Id brought my own child home, I dont
think shed have been a Valerie. She felt that as the girls grew up the physical
signs of family likeness grew stronger but, though the families met frequently, no
one mentioned this or the possibility of their having been mixed up. However,
Margaret feels that she treated Val differently from her other children, partly
because she was different. . . . Mine walked late, talked early; Val was an early
walker and a late talker. Val was also quieter than the other children. Margaret
did not know how the mistake affected the daughters:
Val got an education she wouldnt have had with Fred and Blanche. Peggy missed out on that
but she got music. . . . Val got the art training. I dont want to sound snobby but the two families
had different sets of friends.
Peggy, Margarets biological daughter who was raised by Fred and Blanche,
always found Fred difficult to get along with. Her experience of childhood was
described thus:
I felt . . . different. I felt I didnt fit in. . . . I didnt like doing the things they did. They liked
playing cards but it bored me to tears. I was always very good at spelling. Even when I was
small I was always ticking off Fred and Blanche about their spelling and pronunciation.
When she was told about the mix-up she was initially very confused: she had said,
Im not who I thought I was. Things started to change.
Funnily enough, I found it easier to talk to Fred once it had come out. I was myself at last. Id
spent eighteen years struggling to fit into someone elses idea of what I ought to be. At last, I
had a feeling of being comfortable. Of fitting in without any stress.
Reflecting back on the life she had had and the life she might have had, Peggy
said:

If I had grown up with the Wheelers, my life would certainly have been different. Whether it
would have been better is debatable. The Rylatts tend to keep things to themselves whereas the
Wheelers are very outgoing. I think I would have had a better education. . . . The Wheelers had
literally thousands of books so Id have been more literate. The Wheelers are very strong char-
acters. . . . All of us are bossy boots. If Id have gone home with Mum Wheeler, Id have been
called Valerie. I dont feel like a Valerie.
Valeries account is similar to Peggys, but with the additional factor of feeling
that she was the child that nobody had wanted. She felt that Margaret Wheeler
had treated her differently to her other children and when she realized Margaret
had spent 20 years trying to claim Peggy back this confirmed that feeling of not
being wanted. When she realized that her biological father had held her at her
christening, as her godfather, only to hand her back to Mum Wheeler, it tore me
up. She shared Peggys experience of feeling that she did not fit in; I felt like a
cuckoo in the nest. . . . I grew up in a rich, volatile household. I wasnt intellec-
tual; it was always a struggle. . . . I was always searching for another mother.
After being told what had happened she went to live with the Rylatts:
It all slotted into place for me. It was a final achievement and resting place. There was always
love and goodnight kisses, never a cross word. I hate rows and the Wheelers row a lot . . . as a
child Id find it difficult. . . . But I could talk to my own parents about anything.
These comments suggest that all three feel that there is something in the
biological connection between parents and children that produces a sense of
compatibility that is impossible to find in families that are not biologically
connected. The author of the piece endorses that view: The strange reciprocity
of these statements hints that what they are talking about is emotional fit like
a bolt fits a nut and that this is something we are born with. Yet the features
that are most referred to in these accounts are all socially situated and expressed:
names, lifestyles, hobbies, temperament and responses to situations that are given
a stamp of being the family way of doing things. All of which have very little to
do with biology and genetics; even the evidence of the swap lay in the hospital
records rather than the inconclusive blood test. Perhaps the limbo twins in the
previous account will eventually grow up to make similar what-if comparisons.
Just as, in that account, reference was made to a genetic jigsaw that constituted
the twins physical existence, here reference is made to the family jigsaw that
constitutes the biographies of these women.
The descriptions that Peggy and Valerie give are similar to those that adopted
adults give in discovering facts about their adoption and about themselves.
Responses to these discoveries appear to fall into one of two patterns: of an
identity enhanced by this additional material or of an identity replaced by a new,
truer identity (Haimes, 1987; Haimes and Timms, 1985).

Case Study 4: Donated Ovarian Tissue in Embryo Research and Assisted

Conception (1994)
Cases such as the one cited above often cause concern because of the psycho-
logical effect on a child of going through such experiences. Similar issues are
raised in the last case study. This is a public consultation document published by
the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (1994), the body that regu-
lates assisted conception in the UK. It was published in order to debate whether
scientists should be allowed to research the possible use of either aborted foetuses
or female cadavers as sources of ovarian tissue. Eggs could be retrieved from this
tissue and matured for use in fertility treatment where a woman might need
donated eggs. Live donors of eggs were in short supply and this was seen as a way
of providing additional eggs for treatment.
In the light of the other case studies one paragraph in the document is particu-
larly interesting:
Paragraph 23 . . . In the case of children born from cadaveric or foetal ovarian tissue, the particu-
lar implications of finding out that their genetic mother had died before they were conceived,
or was an aborted foetus, are unknown. It would be necessary to consider further how to assess
the likely effects on children and their wider family relationships of knowing they were born
from donated material from these sources.
In an earlier analysis of this document we commented that this could be seen as

a problematic boundary incursion between the biological and the social domains
of reference for the authors of the report (Haimes and Williams, 1998: 143). We
also commented that the authors were drawing on an implicit distinction between
this type of problematic genetic material and other types of genetic material. The
distinction had very little to do with the genetic material and everything to do
with the different social status of the sources of that material: that is, dead or
aborted donors as opposed to live donors. This case study links back to the first
case study where embodied spaces and their relationship to the childs place
within the wider society are taken as an important matter for consideration.
However, in this fourth case the notion of an embodied space is seen to have
further connotations when that space has then been removed from the body (and
is therefore matter, or space, out of place, perhaps) or the body that it is contained
within is a dead body. This can happen in at least two ways. First, a live female
body contains within it a female foetus that contains ovarian tissue (as does the
host body, of course). The foetus has to be disembodied (aborted) before access
can be gained to its own embodied spaces. Second, a live body dies but is still seen
as a source of embodied material, the ovarian tissue.
While the focus of this consultation document is more on creating than

locating children, the two are, of course, connected. The reservations about
creating children from foetal or cadaveric tissue are expressed in terms of the
consequent difficulties of placing such children, socially, in a network of family
relationships. In particular, the assumption of the direct primary relationship
between mother and child (though as we have seen such an assumption is based
on unstable grounds) is seen in this case to be the most vulnerable element, since
the mother, as such, would be seen to have never existed. Therefore it could be
argued that the problem with the use of foetal or cadaveric tissue lies not so much
in its origins from the foetus or the cadaver (after all, they are used as sources of
tissue and organs in other treatments) but in the fact that, by their very nature,
these foetuses and cadavers lack family embeddedness even though they are being
used to generate family relationships.
In the earlier analysis of this document we also noted the difficulty (that is
implied in Paragraph 23) of trying to explain ones origins as residing in a genetic
mother who had died (or who had never lived) before one was born. We drew on
the study referred to earlier (Haimes and Timms, 1985) which highlighted the
difficulties that adopted adults had in everyday interaction when they had to
admit not knowing even the most basic facts about themselves (where they were
born, who their parents were, what their medical history was). One is asked for
such accounts as a matter of routine and, in responding, one normally has to place
oneself within a set of family relationships. The inability to respond leads one to
be deemed incompetent, or perhaps worse (Haimes and Williams, 1998: 143).
Thus what was presented as a matter of moral and political sensitivity could be
seen as a matter of interactional competence for the child: one that draws further
attention to their uncertain place within a network of family relationships.
Discussion
It is tempting to think of these case studies simply as exceptional circumstances.
However, as Bourdieu observed in his studies of practical kinship, when
confronted with such circumstances it is necessary to rearrange the categories of
thought or even to radically question them (1977: 31), since such an interro-
gation will reveal the deep structures that organize the field of study (Bourdieu,
2000b: 4; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 12). As part of the radical questioning
of these case studies it is necessary to try to identify the nature of the claims being
made across the four cases.
The central theme across these cases is the making of claims about childrens
places in families. These claims (which are also usually associated with claims to
ownership of children) pivot around ideas of space, and places within certain

types of space. Crudely these can be divided into interrelated ideas about physical
space (within the body, between bodies, geographical space) and social space.
These case studies suggest that one resource we have for making claims about
the location of children within families is their bodily relationships to other indi-
viduals. However, as is also clear from the case studies, this works in a far more
nuanced way than the obvious claim of saying the bodily relationship derives
from who gives birth to the child or even in who is genetically related to the child
(let alone in the less obvious way of apparent family resemblances). These case
studies suggest that the bodily relationship is seen by the actors concerned as not
just being formed by one body in relation to the other but also in terms of the
relationship between embodied spaces (the womb, the gene, the skin) and,
moreover, the places within these spaces wherein the relationship to the other
(parent, sibling) is thought to reside (the DNA within the gene, the place in the
womb in relation to the other body also there). Thus these case studies make an
important addition to Bourdieus analysis: the body does not just occupy space
(Bourdieu, 2000a: 131) but is also seen as containing within it other culturally
important spaces. However, as the first two cases show, the meaning and import-
ance attached to these embodied spaces (and indeed to disembodied spaces, as in
case study 4) can only be understood in relation to the other embodied and
disembodied spaces. For example, claims made about the importance of the womb
can be undermined by claims made about the importance of the gene; claims made
about the importance of the genetic relationship can be undermined by claims
made about the disembodied source of that genetic material.
Equally, claims about embodied spaces have to be understood in relation to
claims made about other physical places. As case study 2 shows, claims about the
importance of eggs or semen, as carriers of a genetic relationship, can be under-
mined by their provenance from different countries or even continents. Case
study 2 also demonstrates the converse: that is, that we take for granted the idea
that a bodily relationship, as the basis of claims for placing children within
families, should be formed in a proximity of time and place. While some lapse of
time and increase in distance can be tolerated (as in, say, ordinary in vitro fertil-
ization) the limits of this tolerance can be seen in the cosmopolitan conception of
case study 2 and the conception-preceded-by-death of case study 4. Both these
entail a lapse of chronological, as well as symbolic, time, and a separation over
literal, and symbolic, distance. Thus sets of bodily connections only gain meaning
through reference to each other and to other possible connections of space and
time.
Of course these distinctions and the claims based on them are not absolute.
Rather they are part of the pragmatic, situated practices that underpin the

strategies appropriate to these contexts. It is quite likely that other claims based
on other distinctions will be made in other contexts where the location of children
is at issue. This both reflects the complexity of family relationships and the flexi-
bility (because of that complexity) of strategies for managing family boundaries.3
Ideas about social space and place are also central to these case studies. Indeed
these cases suggest that claims about the importance of bodily connections and
embodied spaces as a basis for attaching children to families are imbued with
meanings that only gain expression through a number of social relationships,
institutions and settings. A variety of social relationships is seen to be important,
for example between the doctor and patient, the lawyer and client, parents and
children, husbands and wives, rival claimants and apparently disconnected indi-
viduals who are nonetheless brought together by their shared responsibility for
the conception of a child. Perhaps the key social relationship in each of the case
studies is whether the child is claimed or not by one or more parties. While
competing claims (as in case study 1 and to some extent case study 3) are seen to
be problematic, the absence of a claim is presented as even worse since these
children are in limbo (as in case study 2) or feel unwanted (as with Valerie in case
study 3). Being unclaimed is to have no social place. Actually the twins in case
study 2 were claimed by the lesbian couple but this is presented as happening
somewhere down the line, as though the distance from the point of conception
of the person making the claim is a measure of the strength and validity of that
claim. This can also be read into case study 4 where those directly involved in
conception through the provision of the eggs (that is, the aborted foetus and the
cadaver) will have no ability to make a claim for the resultant child. It is also
important to note that making a claim itself involves mobilizing other social
relationships to establish the claim and to conduct the dispute.
Equally important in enabling the expression of such meanings is the range of
social institutions involved: law, medicine, regulatory bodies, the family, the
media. Each institution produces a regularity of procedures and meanings that
allow for the normal interpretation of the usual case. These case studies suggest
that the more formally constituted institutions, such as law and regulatory bodies
(though not perhaps medicine in this case) encourage a more normative view
about the location of children (see Dolgin, 1995, 1998), whereas the media encour-
age a more questioning approach to the meanings (at least in the way they see
these as reportable stories). Families in this case are recursively reflexive insti-
tutions, as is shown by all the case studies. Is the battle over the location of
children really a battle over what constitutes a family (as Ive suggested else-
where: Haimes, 1990) or is the battle over what constitutes a family really a
battle over ownership of children? Nonetheless, one regular feature of families as

institutions is that members are given names (often names that have a particular
significance within particular families). We have seen from case study 1 and case
study 3 how names become one of many methods for staking a claim (or other-
wise in case study 3) to a child. Bourdieu notes the competition and conflicts
that can arise over first names which he refers to as emblems, symbolizing the
whole symbolic capital accumulated by a lineage (1977: 36).
The case studies also indicate that attention needs to be paid to the specifics of
the settings in which claims are made and meanings attached to various places
(embodied or otherwise). Various social practices and processes that act to
reinforce or challenge relationships between individuals are played out within the
constraints, but also the opportunities, of the relatively structured settings of the
clinic, the courtroom and the home. The perhaps less structured setting of the
everyday encounter, in which accounts of the self and of ones place in relation to
others might routinely be expected, also features as an implicit concern for how
the children might cope with the uncertainties surrounding their conception and
birth.4
Case study 3 is a particularly powerful detailed example of the interplay of key
relationships, key institutions (note the reference to education in all three
accounts in case study 3) and everyday social settings (particularly of family life)
in confirming the uncertainties of a childs location in a particular set of family
relationships. In particular case study 3 shows the potential of habitus as a more
nuanced5 concept than that of identity as a tool for exploring the experience of
being mis-located for the children themselves and for their families. Note the
detail in which each of the three women express their sense and experience of
difference and of similarity (and familiarity): names, hobbies, class, types of
friends, pronunciation, life trajectory, educational values, personal style (bossy,
quiet), family styles (noisy, loving) and so on. (The possible lives mapped out
for the twins in case study 2 are less detailed but make a similar point.) They also
indicate the strategies used within the two families to handle the situation.
Bourdieu (1977: 41) suggests that one of the strategies for dealing with
genealogically ambivalent kin is to bring them closer by emphasizing that which
unites them with the rest of the kin group (which was Freds strategy with Peggy),
or holding them at a distance by emphasizing what separates them (which was
Margarets strategy with Valerie, including naming her in that way). Thus, rather
than overlaying these accounts with a psychologistic model of measuring the
impact of such an event on childrens lives, we have instead an analytical and
theoretical tool that enables us to engage with the empirical detail. Through this
engagement we can begin to identify the everyday practices and strategies, predis-
positions, tendencies, propensities and inclinations (Bourdieu, 1977: 214) that

constitute the habitus. Through this level of detail we can also see that family
placement, relatedness, like any other social placing, is not a fixed condition of
either the habitus or the field; it is not a once-and-for-all, single, feature of life.
Rather it is expressed and experienced with varying levels of intensity through
everyday activities and practices, albeit within a commonly accepted repertoire of
possibilities. Through the contrasts that the actors themselves draw in case study
3 we can also, from these details, get a sense of the incompatibility of habitus6 or
the possibility of identifying a fractured habitus. That is, a habitus that doesnt
quite fit.
A Bourdieusian Analysis?
To return to the questions asked at the beginning of this article, how much do we
learn about these case studies from a Bourdieusian approach and how much do
we learn about Bourdieus work through these case studies? Do they confirm,
supplement or question his central concepts? The answer is probably all three.
There is much here to support a Bourdieusian analysis of these case studies.
We have already begun to see how the concepts of practice, habitus and field inter-
relate and can be applied to the issue of attaching children to families. We can see
how the field is populated by a number of institutions that both collaborate and
compete, as sources of power, in creating and resolving these issues. We can see
how agents, both individually and in groups, position themselves in relation to
these institutions while conducting their disputes. We can also see where the
struggles occur. The key struggle is over the systems of classification (particularly
of bodily relationships and their significance in affirming or contesting a claimed
relationship to a child and which in turn challenge the boundaries of the field).
This first struggle is related to the struggle over the distribution of resources.
Children and family relationships are forms of emotional capital. Family relation-
ships are also a resource (Bourdieu, 1977: 39) that can be deployed (and indeed
are associated with the expectation that they should be deployed) in a number of
other fields (such as finance, housing, employment, leisure; see Winter, 2000).
Thus, through this combination of empirical data and conceptual tools we begin
to get a sense of the processes and structures whereby human beings make
meaningful the world which makes them (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 7).
We can also use these data to suggest ways of supplementing Bourdieus work.
First, these data add to our understanding of concepts of space and place. The
notion of space works in two ways in these case studies: ways that express the
double reality of the interwoven nature of objectivity and subjectivity, agency
and structure, theory and data (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 11). First there is

the theoretical social space of the field (the space of play, Bourdieu and
Wacquant, 1992: 18) of family relationships. Second, there are within this field the
empirical categorizations of physical space (embodied and other) that actors use
as part of their resources for establishing their claims to a child and about a child.
These classifications of physical space only gain expression, as we have seen,
through the social spaces of relationships, institutions and settings. These social
spaces are, however, in turn, part of the structuring structures of the field of family
relationships. These data provide a detailed example of just how this relationship
works.
Second, in understanding place and space as being positioned not just between
agents but also within agents, these case studies add to our understanding of the
embodied agent as an analytical and empirical tool. This makes the notion of
embodiment more complex and also serves to remind us to take account of the
notion of disembodied spaces (in relation to embodied spaces, of course). It is not
just the case that As a body and as a biological individual I am . . . situated in a
place; I occupy a position in physical space and social space (Bourdieu, 2000a:
131). It is also important to acknowledge that, as biological individuals, we
contain physical spaces that gain meaning, and reflect other structures, through
activities in the social space of particular fields. In addition, an awareness of how
embodied and disembodied spaces (in particular the gene, insofar as it is increas-
ingly seen to carry with it our identities) are used in classification systems, as
shown by the case studies, adds to our understanding of how the socialization
process is also a process of individuation (Bourdieu, 2000a: 134). Bourdieu asserts,
The body is in the social world but the social world is in the body (2000a: 152);
we can now see further ways in which we might understand this, including but
also beyond the notion of hexis.7
Third, these data add to Bourdieus work on kinship and on the problems of
genealogy as an analytical tool. His focus was on how marriage assigns agents to
social groups and these case studies focus on how claims about conception and
birth can be used to do the same. Both show that formal prescriptions about what
does, or does not, happen, in terms of assigning family membership, have limited
meaning beyond the institutions that express them and that attention also needs
to be paid to the meanings that agents themselves recognize and act upon
(Bourdieu, 1977: 334).
These data also add to Bourdieus concept of family and family life. He refers
to the relatively autonomous universe of family relationships which provides the
early experiences upon which the structures of the habitus are based and which
become in turn the basis of perception and appreciation of all subsequent experi-
ence (1977: 78). The data from the case studies suggest that too much emphasis

should not be placed on that autonomy since its boundaries clearly overlap with
those of education and law (both of which have always been important in
Bourdieus work) and, increasingly, with those of medicine and science. In
addition the case studies open up that notion of early experiences, which remains
undeveloped in Bourdieus work, by adding at least two more questions: how
does one acquire a family in the first place and how does one acquire ones place
within the family? The case studies suggest that these early experiences are likely
to be influenced by how the parents regard the tentative person (to adapt
Barbara Katz Rothmans phrase) embodied within the gene/sperm/egg/embryo/
foetus. While many pregnant women probably give much thought to what sort
of life their child will have, we can now add to that the possibility of thinking
what sort of person their child might have been (if I had used that egg/sperm/
embryo . . .) before that child is even born. This in turn adds to our view of
habitus and of how any particular persons habitus begins to be structured before
conception, let alone before birth. If the habitus is history turned into nature
(that is, the accumulation of objective structures that appear to the individual as
simply the obvious way to act or think, its only natural) then so too is it nature
turned into (personal and therefore social) history.
Finally, these case studies provide some insight into Bourdieus recent interest
in mismatches, discordance and misfirings: habitus has its blips, critical
moments when it misfires or is out of phase (2000a: 15962). This can happen at
various levels: from that of the verbal or physical slip that produces a Goffman-
ian gloss in response, to that of major crises, either in habitus or the field, where
dispositions can be out of line with the field. In case study 3, as mentioned earlier,
we have examples of incompatible habitus which, though not the same as
Bourdieus notion of a destabilized habitus, arises in similar circumstances:
Habitus is not necessarily adapted to its situation nor necessarily coherent. It has degrees of
integration. . . . Thus it can be observed that to contradictory positions . . . there often corre-
spond destabilized habitus, torn by contradiction and internal division, generating suffering.
(2000a: 160)
However, what is not clear is how much a lack of fit between habitus and field
becomes incorporated into the ever-changing habitus (one might expect this to be
the case), particularly when that field is the family which is so crucial for the
acquisition of the habitus (so incorporation is presumably less simple?). Once
again the case study data illustrate Bourdieus general point:
. . . the degree to which one can abandon oneself to the automatisms of practical sense obviously
varies with the situation and the area of activity, but also with the position occupied in social
space: it is likely that those who are in their right place in the social world can abandon or
entrust themselves . . . to their dispositions . . . [more] than those who occupy awkward

positions . . . and the latter are more likely to bring to consciousness that which for others is
taken for granted, because they are forced to keep watch on themselves and consciously correct
the first movements of a habitus that generates inappropriate or misplaced behaviours. (2000a:
163)
Another question arises on the theme of discordance. If the habitus is the inter-
nalization of external structures we need to ask what happens when those struc-
tures are shaky and their boundaries are becoming blurred? Clearly fields are
dynamic, but what occurs when we have fractured fields? The case studies provide
some insight into these questions, as it could be argued that that is what is happen-
ing to the family field, as the key classifications and structures (such as mother)
are increasingly challenged (see Butler, 2000: 22). As we can see from the
consultation document in case study 4, the rules and boundaries are no longer
clear and, in Bourdieusian terms, not even the referee (the policymaker) has a feel
for the game. The evidence from the case studies suggests that the institutions
shift their positions in relation to each other (for example, medicine and law claim
authority through their possession of knowledge capital and the state and religion
increasingly concede that struggle). They and individual agents also deploy the
increasing uncertainties as an advantage in pursuit of their interests, while at the
same time invoking the traditional boundaries to underpin their claims (we are
the proper/true/real family; see Haimes, 1992).
As is clear from the above, the case studies support and gain support from
Bourdieus work but they also force us to interrogate that work further. Several
other questions arise, some new, some old: I include them here to try to ensure
that the reality of the model does not dominate the model of the reality. The
questions fall into two main groups. The first returns to the question of What is
a field? (Aldridge, 1998; Jenkins, 1992: 98). In presenting these case studies I have
used several terms interchangeably to denote my field of interest (family, kinship,
reproduction, relatedness and so on) and others could be added, confident that
they could each apply but uncertain whether it matters to choose and stick to
one term for the field. Actors tend to use either terms around the parentchild
relationship (since that is what they are disputing) or the more general term of
family. Other writers on these matters tend to use kinship. Therefore who or
what defines the field: the researcher, the actors, the struggles, the dominant insti-
tutions?8 Clearly, labelling the field is part of the struggles that take place in the
field (This isnt a matter of the right to have a baby, its a question of childrens
welfare) and the researcher has to take this into account. This makes the instruc-
tion to map out the topology of the field (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 17) more
difficult but perhaps that is the point. The further possibility of overlapping fields
(family certainly overlaps with biology, genetics and reproduction) allows for

further ambiguity. The goal of presenting substantive complexity requires analyti-

cal clarity but perhaps the concept of the field straddles those two ambitions
rather uneasily. As an analytical concept it imposes a false clarity on the social
space; as a representation of the social space its analytical usefulness is blurred.
However, it should be acknowledged that the analysis presented here represents
only an initial examination and a more detailed mapping needs to take place, to
provide an effective test of the concept of the field. Equally, as Brubaker argues,
it matters less to reach a precise meaning for key concepts such as field since the
central value of Bourdieus concepts is to inculcate a certain sociological dis-
position (2000: 37).
The second batch of questions to arise from the case studies concerns the role
of physicality in Bourdieus work. Clearly the concepts of embodiment and hexis
are important and I have now added a concern with embodied spaces, but how
might new understandings of the body (from genetics and biology) be analysed
by Bourdieu? Part of the reason for asking this is his use of the term second
nature to describe habitus, again particularly in its physical expression. What
then is first nature for Bourdieu and how much does it matter? There is a danger
that, in posing these sorts of questions, one simply perpetuates a well-worn and
perhaps rather sterile debate (Haimes and Williams, 1998). However, that debate
at least needs to be acknowledged, particularly in a set of ideas that rests so heavily
on notions of incorporation and embodiment.9 This point is also important to the
one above since it raises the question of the impact that new knowledges have on
the field and the extent to which such knowledge represents a crisis, a fracturing,
in the field, or simply requires a re-drawing of the map of the field.
Conclusion
In this exploration of the ways in which embodied devices are used to order
relationships and affiliations we gain two important insights. First, into the family
as cultural form;10 that is, into the infinite variety of ways and means that concepts
of family, and particularly of adultchild relationships, can be used to explore and
represent distinctions, not just of my child/your child, but, by extension, us
and them. Second, we understand, from an empirically grounded perspective
that includes conception, birth and kinship, Franks argument (following
Bourdieu) that social organisation [is] about the reproduction of embodiment
(1991: 42). Clearly I have only touched on the outlines of Bourdieus work here,
in applying it to my substantive topic. There is much more that can be done
analytically with the topic.
For the moment, however, my focus has been on the empirical data, following

the method of posing problems [with] a parsimonious set of conceptual tools and
procedures (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 5). The Bourdieusian tool-kit has
been essential for extending my analysis of this topic in new directions and for
providing new angles through which to turn the prism of analysis. The test of this
has been the generation of new questions, for further investigation, of both the
data and the analytical schema. While some of these questions will probably lead
to analytical dead-ends, others will bear much thought and discussion; what they
will all do is encourage and indeed require a detailed engagement at a number of
different levels and through a number of different routes, with the social space.
What more can one ask of a sociological theory?
Notes
I am grateful to two anonymous referees and to Paul Cammack, David Chaney, Gervase Haimes, Paul
Johnson, Anne Murcott, Robert Song, Stephen Sykes and Michael Whong-Barr for their comments and
encouragement, and to the organizers of the Habitus 2000 Conference, Curtin University, Western
Australia where the initial ideas were first presented.
1. See Bourdieu (1977: 115) for a detailed and subtle representation of just how strategically
complex such disputes can be.
2. In analyses such as this the decision on how much empirical detail to provide is always
contentious. I have decided to cover four cases (and therefore provide less detail in each) as my main
aim is to display the range of ways in which ideas about embodied spaces and social places are deployed
within the field of family relationships: through simple juxtaposition, to bring out everything that
results when different or antagonistic visions of the world confront each other (Bourdieu, 1999: 3).
Thus, awareness of the range enhances the possibility of an analytical critique.
3. As Strathern says, Rather the phenomenon I wish to describe is exactly the way in which a
diversity of possibilities is sustained (1996: 39). See also Rose (1998: 16997).
4. See also Franks argument that bodies exist among discourses and institutions. Discourses form
the normative parameters of how the body can understand itself . . . not [as] fixed limits but [as] fluid
resources (1991: 489).
5. Habitus is more nuanced than identity because it connects both the micro level of practices
and the macro level of fields and is thus a structuring structure (though the notions of agency and
temporality discourage too firm a distinction between micro and macro). Thus habitus already
contains within itself that which has to be added to identity to get it to perform the same analytical
tasks.
6. I am grateful to Paul Johnson for this observation.
7. See McNay (1999, 2000: 3173) for an explanation of how Bourdieus work on habitus, field,
temporality, embodiment and the family, can be developed to contribute to a more subtle understand-
ing of gender identity and agency that goes beyond the perceived limitations of a Foucauldian view of
gender as subjectification.
8. Bourdieu (1996) attributes the state with particular influence in defining who and what the
family is.
9. See also Taylor (1993) for a brief and elegant discussion of the relationship between practices,
rules and embodied understandings. See also Kauppi (2000).
10. I am grateful to David Chaney for this formulation.

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The difficult situation that I have in my exploration of children and assisted

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Case Study 2: Nightmare of Limbo Twins (Mail on Sunday, 7/5/00)

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Case Study 3: We Really Were Mixed Up Kids (Mail on Sunday, 27/9/98)

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Embodied Spaces, Social Places and Bourdieu 21

Case Study 4: Donated Ovarian Tissue in Embryo Research and Assisted

In an earlier analysis of this document we commented that this could be seen as

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22 Body and Society Vol. 9 No. 1

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further ambiguity. The goal of presenting substantive complexity requires analyti-

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