Bourdieu Studies

A theoretical project was done by Bourdieu (1977) to study the affects of habitus and identity (class, health and lifestyle) with injury. ‘Habitus can be defined as the ensemble of attitudes, dispositions, expectations and taste that individuals share as members of a field’. Ballet dancers are expected to have a certain body type, which is tall, slender and young. The ballet dancers identity is deeply affected by injury if they don't keep up their extremely high discipline of training, self-management and their culture of ballet (Turner and Wainwright, 2003). When ballet dancers feel stressed, sleep deprived, anxious and nutritionally deficient they are more susceptible to getting injured. Ballet dancers must ensure that they eat a balanced diet, as any nutritional deficiencies can weaken their body and make them fatigued. Fatigue can
She was 17 years old and practised ballet six hours a day. Nicola was in a semi-professional dance company and performed in ‘Beauty and the Beast’. During one of her performances Nicola dislocated her knee, but didn't realise how serious it was. The day after her injury she found it difficult to walk, yet still had not seeked medical assistance. Nicola tried to deal with her injury by wearing a knee pad, but after taking off her knee pad to warm up for her performance, she collapsed. ‘I did one pirouette and just crumpled up,’ Nicola says. ‘I had to try and teach somebody else my steps, and then I borrowed ten dollars and went straight to the hospital in a taxi. I missed the performance completely’. At the hospital she found out that as well as dislocating her knee she had also torn an important ligament in it. Nicola spent many hours trying to treat her injury by seeing a physiotherapist. Nicola had to have an operation and started dancing again after her recovery. Unfortunately within a year Nicola hurt her other knee while dancing and was forced to end her dancing career (Prior,