Realist social theory : the morphogenetic approach
TL;DR: The Morphogenetic Cycle: the basis of the morphogenetic approach 7. Structural and cultural conditioning 8. The morphogenesis of agency 9. Social elaboration.
Abstract: Building on her seminal contribution to social theory in Culture and Agency, in this 1995 book Margaret Archer develops her morphogenetic approach, applying it to the problem of structure and agency. Since structure and agency constitute different levels of stratified social reality, each possesses distinctive emergent properties which are real and causally efficacious but irreducible to one another. The problem, therefore, is shown to be how to link the two rather than conflate them, as has been common theoretical practice. Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach not only rejects methodological individualism and holism, but argues that the debate between them has been replaced by a new one, between elisionary theorising and emergentist theories based on a realist ontology of the social world. The morphogenetic approach is the sociological complement of transcendental realism, and together they provide a basis for non-conflationary theorizing which is also of direct utility to the practising social analyst.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the reality of global knowledge production in relation to the way in which ontology may influence the reasons how and why we come to do particular forms of research, providing an ontological reference for the ever expanding pluralism that characterizes the field of environmental education research.
Abstract: This paper responds to a keynote paper presented by William Scott at the 2007 World Environmental Education Congress held in Durban, South Africa. The keynote address reviewed 30 years of environmental education research. In this response to William Scott's paper I contemplate the way in which environmental education research may enable reflexivity in modernity and develop knowledge that can serve as cultural mediator between individual and society. Through emphasizing ontology, I consider the reality of global knowledge production in relation to the way in which ontology may influence the reasons how and why we come to do particular forms of research, providing an ontological reference for the ever‐expanding pluralism that characterizes the field of environmental education research. The paper comments on various aspects of the Scott paper, but presents an argument for not only valuing pluralism, methodological experimentation and ‘reaching out’, but for embracing the cosmopolitan implications of wider on...
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw on a social theory-informed understanding of causality to illustrate how notions of agent-structure interactions can enhance the intuitive logics approach to scenario planning.
23 citations
23 citations
Dissertation•
01 Apr 2012
TL;DR: In this article, the authors assess the extent to which employees and users of public services can develop collaborative partnerships that promote person-centred services within institutions and establish an analytic framework, termed co-participation, to explore processes of collaboration between public service staff and users.
Abstract: This study assesses the extent to which employees and users of public services can develop collaborative partnerships that promote person-centred services within institutions. Both citizen and worker participation are currently advocated as a means to develop public services, yet academically they have been studied within distinctive disciplines. Drawing together different theories of participation alongside the analysis of the concepts and practices of co-production, co-design and co-creation, this thesis establishes an analytic framework, termed co-participation to explore processes of collaboration between public service staff and users. This framework then informs the analysis of two case studies in local government and the health service where both staff and service users are involved together in developing person-centred services. This empirical work is supplemented by expert interviews with people who have worked in a number of different collaborative projects, alongside a realist synthesis of other similar cases. Using a critical realist approach and retroductive analysis this study explores how agents act within their institutional and policy contexts, assessing the extent to which their actions can instigate changes through institutionally designed participatory projects. It is found that the projects facilitated processes of reflexivity and intersubjectivity which promoted a sense of embedded collectivism within institutional contexts. The projects enabled agents to make many localised changes which positively impacted people’s lived experiences. Collectivities and networks were developed, yet these operated within dominant hierarchies and could be limited by their structural and cultural environments. Wider social inequalities and power relations had an impact upon these participatory processes, although participatory processes could also be adapted to enable greater access and more equal voice. These projects and practices are analysed within the wider context of the continuing neo-liberal reform of public services, exploring how the state shapes the structural and policy context which sets situational logics and conditions of possibility for these practices.
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TL;DR: In this paper, a modification of Sibeon's anti-reductionist sociology to include a focus on the biological variable, psychobiography and power would be a starting point for a sociology of genomics.
Abstract: We require an ontologically flexible, meta-theoretical framework in order to study the ethical implications of genomics and the social construction of the Genome Project. It is argued in this article that a modification of Sibeon'santi-reductionist sociology, which focuses upon agency–structure, micro–macro and time–space, to include a focus uponthe biological variable, psychobiography andpower would be a ‘starting point’ for a sociology of genomics. The intention is to ‘build bridges’ between sociology and biology, to combine a modified anti-reductionist framework with some of the insights into the sociology–biology divide from the work of Benton, Bury, Hochschild, Layder and Newton for the purpose of conceptualizing the sociological implications of genomics. The termgenetic-social science is used to describe the new framework in order to distance it from the association withsociobiology. Such a post-postmodern approach is not reductionist or essentialist. It acknowledges that genesdo influence behaviour...
22 citations