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Approach not only rejects methodological individualism and holism, but argues that the debate between them has been replaced by a new one, between elisionary theorising and emergentist theories based on a realist ontology of the social world.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.
Citations
More filters
Dissertation•
01 Jul 2015
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue the mental health team is a differentially sedimented structural institution in which practitioners and service users navigate a field of contradictions defined by four strata: the custodial system of the asylum, the biomedical treatment systems of the hospital, community care within the Keynesian welfare state; and neoliberal welfare reconfigurations.
Abstract: Contemporary neoliberal reconfigurations of statutory mental health services involve significant organisational
changes. Based on findings from twelve months fieldwork within a community mental health team, the thesis
examines the effects of this new service landscape on the way conceptualisations of mental distress are utilised
and articulated.
The thesis combines critical realist epistemology and reflexive ethnographic method to produce a contextually situated understanding of the field capturing the dynamic relationships between concepts, agents and the context of action. This draws on and extends Rhodes’ ‘pentimento’ (1993) as a conceptual framework for understanding mental health practice. It argues the mental health team is a ‘differentially sedimented structural institution’ in which practitioners and service users navigate a field of contradictions defined by four strata: the custodial system of the asylum; the biomedical treatment system of the hospital; community care within the Keynesian welfare state; and neoliberal welfare reconfigurations. These are conceptualised as ideological positions that coexist within practitioners as alternative modes of thinking and operate in a relationship of mutual tension. Practice should be understood as a process shaped by mechanisms at different levels of scale from micro to macro, and involving movement between these overlapping and co-existing strata of historically sedimented meaning.
19 citations
TL;DR: There are many differing ways to be a realist about language as mentioned in this paper, and the implications of each of them for the study of language are examined in the context of language ontology.
Abstract: There are many differing ways to be a realist about language. This paper seeks to classify some of these and to examine the implications of each for the study of language. The principle of classification it adopts is that we may distinguish between realisms on the basis of what exactly it is that they take to be real. Examining in turn realisms that ascribe reality to the external world in general, to causal mechanisms, to innate capacities, to linguistic signs, to social structures, to language systems, and to linguistic groups, the paper summarises the case for a particular critical realist ontology of language. In the process, it engages briefly with the work of Saussure, Chomsky, Halliday, and more recent explicitly realist thinkers such as Bhaskar, Pateman, Archer, Sealey and Carter. One implication is that language itself is not a phenomenon that separates us from a causally structured world, but rather a part of that world, a part with an identifiable causal structure of its own that is similar to that of other normative phenomena.
19 citations
TL;DR: The role of concrete Utopias in the works of Roy Bhaskar is contrasted with the real utopias of Erik Olin Wright as mentioned in this paper, and Critical Realism treats them as 'possibilities' that are real because re...
Abstract: The role of Concrete Utopias in the works of Roy Bhaskar are contrasted with the ‘Real Utopias’ of Erik Olin Wright. Critical Realism treats them as ‘possibilities’ that are real because re...
19 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that changes in working life and society in general have affected our identities, with the result of increased individualization and the decline of the organizational man.
Abstract: A dominant sociological argument asserts that changes in working life and society in general have affected our identities, with the result of increased individualization and the decline of the “organizational man.” The author is critical of this epochalist claim and argues that it is important to design an approach to analyzing the identities and telling the stories of the current transformation of work and identities that recognizes the processes within working life. This proposal goes beyond a grand-scale epochalist claim about the consequences of the transformation to a postmodern area of identity. As an alternative, the author suggests an analysis of identities, drawing on a relational and social constructivist paradigm. She examines how workers employ elements from widespread identity stories as “raw material” when negotiating emerging identities. Drawing on a qualitative study within the information technology field, the author illustrates what such an analysis of emerging identities might look like.
19 citations