Shifting Interorganizational Relations and the COVID-19 Pandemic as External Shock: An Analysis of Organizational Fields, Capital, and Habitus

Applying the concepts of organizational field, capital, and habitus by Pierre Bourdieu, this study critically examines the (re)configuring of relations between grassroots and mainstream organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we examined refugee-led organizations (RLOs), via fieldwork and interviews, in one US city from the summer of 2020 during the peak of the pandemic through 2022. We argue for conceptualizing the pandemic as an “external shock” that allowed the (re)valuing of forms of capital and means for disrupting the stability and durability—habitus—of the power-laden organizational field. In a post-pandemic new normal, however, positioning within their organizational field remains a contested, ongoing struggle for grassroots organizations.