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Approach not only rejects methodological individualism and holism, but argues that the debate between them has been replaced by a new one, between elisionary theorising and emergentist theories based on a realist ontology of the social world.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 article, an embodied framing of organizational routines is proposed to explain how routines are accomplished when power is exercised through gesture and bodily movement, and the spaces where routines unfold cohere with human bodies making a difference in how they are constituted and experienced.
Abstract: This article contributes to theory development through advancing an embodied framing of organizational routines. It addresses the absence of bodies in a literature that tends to treat the “people” involved in organizational routines as disembodied actors. One consequence of this is that progress toward a theory of “routines as practices” has tended to ignore how bodies contribute to their unfolding. Theorizing embodied communicative acts brings the body and embodiment into organizational routines research. Existing knowledge is extended by drawing from multiple empirical illustrations to explain how routines are accomplished when power is exercised through gesture and bodily movement, the spaces where routines unfold cohere with human bodies making a difference in how they are constituted and experienced, and, the routineness of routines is made manifest when mutual intelligibility is discerned in the silences that characterize how embodied actors interrelate.
18 citations
16 Jan 2013
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compare the main structure/agency approaches (Bourdieu's theory of practice, Giddens' structuration theory and Archer's morphogenetics) with a view to highlighting the core elements that characterise these theories.
Abstract: Research on post-migration processes usually focuses either on micro-level behaviours or on macro-level interactions between states and their diasporas. This paper aims to fill a gap by proposing a structure/agency approach likely to address the micro-, meso- and macro-level factors that account for cross-border phenomena. The first section compares the main structure/agency approaches (Bourdieu’s theory of practice, Giddens’ structuration theory and Archer’s morphogenetics) with a view to highlighting the core elements that characterise these theories. The second section outlines an innovative framework that combines Habermas’ theory of communicative action and the ‘plural man’ theory of Bernard Lahire. The central idea is to use a renewed concept of social institutions (family, associations and businesses) as an entry to the study of social practices and structuration processes.
18 citations
TL;DR: The authors argues that Lockwood's piece on social and system integration was quite insightful at the time, but that it failed in correctly solving the issues it raised, and that more recent versions of the piece failed to correctly solve the issues raised.
Abstract: This article argues that Lockwood's piece on social and system integration was quite insightful at the time, but that it failed in correctly solving the issues it raised. More recent versions of th...
18 citations
TL;DR: In the last decades, qualitative biographical/narrative methods gained a prominent position within the spectrum of social science methodology and research practice, mainly due to a reaction to the positivist-empiricist dominance and associated views of social reality.
Abstract: During the last decades, qualitative biographical/narrative methods gained a prominent position within the spectrum of social science methodology and research practice, mainly due to a reaction to the positivist-empiricist dominance and associated views of social reality. After an initial interest to biographical methods, which followed the edition of ‘The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1919-1921)’ by Thomas and Znaniecki (1958), biographical and generally qualitative research methods gave way to empiricist-quantitative approaches and only since the end of 1960 the positivist domination begun to be unsettled (Halfacree and Boyle 1993; Findlay and Li 1997; Tsiolis 2006).
18 citations
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TL;DR: The authors examines contemporary China's social transformation as a phenomenon that is neither simple nor unidimensional, wherein social and in particular sociopolitical change could be said not to be a multiattribute concept, but a multiconcept construct.
Abstract: The process of social change typically involves a combination of four different components: context, institutions, agents and events. Upon the praxis between operating structures and purposely acting human agents, agency is constantly shaped by structure which in turn is being reshaped in the process. Amidst the dynamic interplay of such an array of critical socioeconomic factors that underlie the surging currents of social change, the role of the individual as a catalyst for change cannot be underestimated, even if the long-term impact of the individual’s action is not immediately explicit and the lone crusade involved does not receive adequate sympathy of the wider public. Such is the tragedy of the commons. Beginning with the problem of increasing inequality and ethnoregional dimension of poverty which together constitute the epitome as well as the root of China’s social ills resulted from her recent decades of continuous, astounding economic tour de force, this paper examines contemporary China’s social transformation as a phenomenon that is neither simple nor unidimensional, wherein social and in particular sociopolitical change could be said not to be a multiattribute concept, but a multiconcept construct. Due attention is paid to various different dimensions of such changes, both positive and negative, including socioeconomic inequalities, socioracial stratification, ethnoregional disparities and State-civil society relations, in particular the structure-agency interface in the challenge of ACES (active citizenship and effective State) evolvement. At any one time, certain dimensions may increase in severity, while others remain constant or decline. Certain dimensions or variables are considerably more difficult to measure than others but their inclusion is essential to provide a comprehensive view of the challenges of China’s social transformation in her contemporary reform era.
18 citations