Showing papers on "Agency (philosophy) published in 2013"

New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique of Interpretative Sociologies

Abstract: Preface. Introduction to the Second Edition. Introduction to the First Edition. 1. Some Schools of Social Theory and Philosophy. 2. Agency, Act--identifications and Communicative Intent. 3. The Production and Reproduction of Social Life. 4. The Form of Explanatory Accounts. Conclusion: Some New Rules of Sociological Method. Notes. Index.

Towards a general theory of implementation.

Abstract: Understanding and evaluating the implementation of complex interventions in practice is an important problem for healthcare managers and policy makers, and for patients and others who must operationalize them beyond formal clinical settings. It has been argued that this work should be founded on theory that provides a foundation for understanding, designing, predicting, and evaluating dynamic implementation processes. This paper sets out core constituents of a general theory of implementation, building on Normalization Process Theory and linking it to key constructs from recent work in sociology and psychology. These are informed by ideas about agency and its expression within social systems and fields, social and cognitive mechanisms, and collective action. This approach unites a number of contending perspectives in a way that makes possible a more comprehensive explanation of the implementation and embedding of new ways of thinking, enacting and organizing practice.

Professions and Institutional Change: Towards an Institutionalist Sociology of the Professions

Abstract: Beginning with this article, our special issue advances the understanding of the role of professions in processes of institutional change and through this it proposes a retheorization of contemporary professionalism. Using institutionalist lenses in professional settings, we highlight the relationship between professionalization and broader institutionalization projects. We start by critically reviewing existing approaches in the sociology of the professions, identifying a functionalist and a conflict-based approach. Then, we build on and further elaborate an institutionalist perspective on professional work. Such a perspective affirms the importance of studying professions as institutions and connecting professionalization to broader patterns of institutionalization; it highlights the role of professions and professionals as agents in the creation, maintenance, and disruption of institutions, and recognizes the importance of accommodating contemporary patterns of professionalization within the organizational context. We also illustrate how, empirically, the eight papers in this issue advance our understanding of professional agency in contemporary change and, theoretically, contribute to the reconceptualization of the study of professionalism. Finally, we briefly summarize our contribution and identify a series of directions for further research.

A Behavioral Theory of Corporate Governance: Explicating the Mechanisms of Socially Situated and Socially Constituted Agency

Abstract: We propose a behavioral theory of corporate governance based on an ontological foundation of socially situated and socially constituted agency. More specifically, we advance a multi-level, mechanism-based, theory of governance that is socially informed yet actor-centric, and thus offers a distinct alternative to under-socialized governance theories, such as agency theory. We highlight the contributions of recent governance research in providing the foundation for such a behavioral theory, with particular emphasis on our prior work that demonstrated the relevance of social structural relationships, institutional processes, and social cognition. We conclude with a discussion of the central themes that emerge from our perspective.

Migrant Balancing Acts: Understanding the Interactions Between Integration and Transnationalism

Abstract: In this article, we explore ways of understanding the interactions between migrant integration and transnationalism, based on a review of quantitative and qualitative literature. Integration is taken as the starting point, and the assumption that integration and transnationalism are at odds with one another is questioned. When considered as constituents of a social process, we argue that there are many similarities between integration and transnationalism. A typology for understanding these interactions is developed, based on an acknowledgment of migrants’ agency in straddling two societies—as a balancing act. This typology is presented as a tool to enable migration scholars to move beyond simply acknowledging the co-existence of transnationalism and integration and towards an analysis of the nature of interactions between the two—understood in relation both to particular places and contexts and to the human beings involved and their functional, emotional and pragmatic considerations.

Masculinidade hegemônica: repensando o conceito

Abstract: The concept of hegemonic masculinity has influenced gender studies across many academic fields but has also attracted serious criticism The authors trace the origin of the concept in a convergence of ideas in the early 1980s and map the ways it was applied when research on men and masculinities expanded Evaluating the principal criticisms, the authors defend the underlying concept of masculinity, which in most research use is neither reified nor essentialist However, the criticism of trait models of gender and rigid typologies is sound The treatment of the subject in research on hegemonic masculinity can be improved with the aid of recent psychological models, although limits to discursive flexibility must be recognized The concept of hegemonic masculinity does not equate to a model of social reproduction; we need to recognize social struggles in which subordinated masculinities influence dominant forms Finally, the authors review what has been confirmed from early formulations (the idea of multiple masculinities, the concept of hegemony, and the emphasis on change) and what needs to be discarded (onedimensional treatment of hierarchy and trait conceptions of gender) The authors suggest reformulation of the concept in four areas: a more complex model of gender hierarchy, emphasizing the agency of women; explicit recognition of the geography of masculinities, emphasizing the interplay among local, regional, and global levels; a more specific treatment of embodiment in contexts of privilege and power; and a stronger emphasis on the dynamics of hegemonic masculinity, recognizing internal contradictions and the possibilities of movement toward gender democracy

Joint Commitment: How We Make the Social World

Abstract: CONTENTS PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS SOURCES INTRODUCTION PART I SHARED AGENCY Ch. 1 Acting Together Ch. 2 Considerations on Joint Commitment Ch. 3 Who's to Blame? Ch. 4 Rationality in Collective Action Ch. 5 Two Approaches to Shared Intention PART II COLLECTIVE ATTITUDES Ch. 6 Belief and Acceptance as Features of Groups Ch. 7 Collective Epistemology Ch. 8 Shared Values, Social Unity, and Liberty Ch. 9 Social Convention Revisited Ch. 10 Collective Guilt Feelings PART III MUTUAL RECOGNITION, PROMISES, AND LOVE Ch. 11 ": a contractual model Ch. 12 The problem of promisees' rights Ch. 13 Three dogmas about promising Ch. 14 Mutual Recognition PART IV POLITICAL LIFE Ch. 15 A Real Unity of Them All Ch. 16 Pro Patria: an Essay on Patriotism Ch. 17 De-moralizing Political Obligation Ch. 18 Commands and Their Practical Import BIBLIOGRAPHY OF AUTHOR'S WORKS INDEX

Towards a Sociology of International Courts

Abstract: This paper first outlines how classical sociological theories have contributed to the understanding of international courts (ICs) and society. It then explores the original law and society stance on legal institutions, and outlines a recent scholarship, which draws on law and society and contemporary sociology for explaining ICs and their link to global society. The final part of the article identifies a set of key questions with respect to understanding ICs using both classical and contemporary sociology. It considers the question of institutions from a sociological perspective; the place of agency in studies of ICs; and the notion of legitimacy as it is found in both classical and contemporary sociology and its implications for studying ICs.

Understanding the (Re)Creation of Routines from Within: A Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

Abstract: Drawing on symbolic interactionism, we propose a process model for the creation and recreation of routines. Our model extends the performative perspective by exploring how routines, as collective accomplishments, are (re)created from within. In particular, we examine the mutual constitution of routines' constituent parts (performative and ostensive) through interaction, and we develop endogenous explanations of routine (re)creation grounded on the actions and understandings of mutually susceptible participants. Mead's concept of role taking, with its strong emphasis on the relational aspect of agency, enables us to account for the fitting together of individual lines of action (performative) and the sharing of participants' schemata (included in the ostensive) as mutually constituted processes that occur as participants develop distinct selves in the context of a routine. Moreover, we account for the content and structure of the ostensive aspect and propose a conceptualization that does justice to it as a...

A Narrative Perspective on Entrepreneurial Opportunities

Abstract: The article discusses entrepreneurial opportunities from a narrative perspective that is based on actor-network theory. The article notes the narrative perspective on entrepreneurial agency and entrepreneurial opportunities suggests there is an entrepreneurial journey in which discovery and creation are dynamic forces and meaning making results from an interaction of relational space and durational time when the past, present, and future are intertwined. The argument is supported with references to related research on topics such as the narrative inquiry research method and the source of emerging ideas.

Inhabiting Institutions: Critical Realist Refinements to Understanding Institutional Complexity and Change

Abstract: This paper builds on recent contributions to understanding conditions of institutional complexity by developing a theoretical framework to elaborate the interdependencies between actions, contexts and institutional logics. Our aim is to refine existing explanations of how actors inhabit complex institutional settings. Drawing on a critical realist ontology, we treat agency and structure as analytically distinct phenomena to advance our understanding of conditioned action. This is subject to relational analysis in order to explain the structural conditioning that shapes particular socio-historical contexts, the potential ‘action options’ contained within these contexts and the processes through which actors draw upon these. This reading of institutional reproduction and transformation allows us to reassess the ‘paradox of embedded agency’ by advancing understanding of the historically grounded and multilevel nature of structures and agency in institutional processes. Our approach offers conceptual refinements, a new sensitizing framework and methodological insights to guide studies of the ways actors inhabit complex institutional settings.

Agency and the Foundations of Ethics: Nietzschean Constitutivism

Abstract: Introduction 1. Three Challenges for Ethical Theory 2. Normativity as Inescapability 3. Constitutivism and Self-Knowledge 4. Constitutivism and Self-Constitution 5. Action's First Constitutive Aim: Agential Activity 6. Action's Second Constitutive Aim: Power 7. The Structure of Nietzschean Constitutivism 8. The Normative Results Generated by Nietzschean Constitutivism 9. Activity, Power, and the Foundations of Ethics Appendix: Is Nietzsche Really a Constitutivist? References

Studying the Origins of Social Entrepreneurship: Compassion and the Role of Embedded Agency

Abstract: The article presents the authors' comments on critiques of their research on the process of social entrepreneurship in which economic theories are applied to social problems. Topics include the role of compassion in the origins of social entrepreneurship; social entrepreneurs as an embedded agent with individual motivations; and the combination of a social mission with the methodology of a business venture.

Agentic Capacities and Capacious Historical Materialism: Thinking with New Materialisms in the Political Sciences

Abstract: In this article, I note that the idea of a new materialist turn has recently been gathering steam. The first part considers some of the signature elements of the new materialisms. The most distinctive aspect identified here is the invocation of a generative or vital ontology of immanence. Following discussion of some of its principal claims, the article draws out its implications for reconceptualising agency, in particular regarding the way agentic capacities are recognised to be distributed across animate, and perhaps also inanimate, entities. The significance of this development for the political sciences is then explored. In a second part, I suggest that the new materialism entails a normative project. Here, ethical overtures towards a new sensitivity predicated on vital materialist insights are contrasted with a renewed critical theory. The latter is commended as a material reckoning of the 21st century: a project provisionally labelled a capacious historical materialism.

Transformative agency and desistance from crime

Abstract: This article provides a discussion of human agency, conceptualized as a transformative aspect of desistance from crime. It is argued here that existing conceptualizations of agency are vague or und...

Peacebuilding and the politics of non-linearity: rethinking ‘hidden’ agency and ‘resistance’

Abstract: This article reflects upon the shift away from linear understandings of peacebuilding, which assumed that Western ‘blueprints’ could be imposed upon non-compliant elites. Today, it is increasingly suggested, in both policy and academic literatures, that there should be a shift towards non-linear approaches. Rather than focusing upon Western policy prescriptions intra-elite bargaining and formal institutional structures, these understandings stress non-linearity, hybridity, local societal processes and practices and the importance of ‘hidden’ agency and resistance. This article highlights that, while these approaches set up a critique of liberal linear approaches, they tend to reify hybrid, non-liberal or non-linear outcomes as the product of local inter-subjective attachments. In this way, they reproduce the voluntarist and idealist understandings of liberal peace, locating the problems or barriers to peace and development at the cognitive or ideational level rather than considering the barriers of economic and social context.

Thinking About the Politics of Inclusive Development: Towards a Relational Approach

Abstract: Moving beyond the mantra that ‘politics matters’, a range of conceptual approaches have recently emerged within international development thinking that seek to capture the specific ways in which politics shapes development. This paper critically assesses whether these approaches, including work on ‘limited access orders’ and ‘political settlements’, can underpin research into how developmental forms of state capacity and elite commitment emerge and can be sustained. It suggests that these new approaches offer powerful insights into certain elements of this puzzle, particularly through a focus on the relational basis of elite behaviour and institutional performance. However, these approaches are also subject to serious limitations, and insights from broader and (in particular) more critical forms of political theory are also required in order to investigate how the politics of development is shaped by ideas as well as incentives, popular as well as elite forms of agency, transnational as well as national factors, and in dynamic as well as more structural ways. The paper proposes an initial conceptual framework that can be operationalized and tested within a programme of primary research to be established by the Effective States and Inclusive Development Research Centre.

The social aesthetics of eligibility: NGO aid and indeterminacy in the Greek asylum process

Abstract: On the porous EU border of Greece, where both fiscal and migration management are said to be in a state of crisis, NGOs figure crucially in the provision of legal and social aid to asylum applicants. I explore the dialogical engagements underpinning the determination of client eligibility at one such NGO in Athens. As workers and aid candidates coproduce “pictures” of lives eligible for protection, profound uncertainties and indeterminacies emerge. I argue that this indeterminacy gives testament to an often overlooked form of agency: how aid candidates and service providers alike reshape and even refuse dominant images of deservingness, victimhood, and vulnerability from within systems of aid distribution.

Organization and organizing : materiality, agency, and discourse

Abstract: INTRODUCTION : Materiality, Agency and Discourse in the Constitution of Organization PART I - THEORETICAL DEVELOPMENTS PART II - EMPIRICAL EXPLORATIONS With contributions from: Barbara Czarniawska Bruno Latour Linda L. Putnam Anne M. Nicotera Robert McPhee Joel Iverson Boris H.J.M. Brummans Haridimos Tsoukas Consuelo Vasquez Isabelle Piette Mathieu Chaput Viviane Sergi James R. Taylor

What sort of a practice is eating

Abstract: The close of the 20th century witnessed a renewal of interest in theories of prac­ tice, an interest sufficient to make possible the rhetorical announcement of the birth of The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory (Schatzki et al. 2001). The move has had some considerable significance, even if Omar Lizardo (2009: 714) may have overstated the case when proclaiming that ‘It can be said without much danger of exaggeration that practices now play as central a role in socio­ logical thinking as values and normative patterns did during the functionalist period.’ Some foundations had been laid three decades earlier. In a widely cited article about trends in theory in anthropology, published in 1984, Sherry Ortner (1984: 127) observed that ‘a new key symbol of theoretical orientation is emerging, which may be labelled “practice”’ (or ‘action’ or ‘praxis’). She described its emergence from the intersection of theoretical schools in anthropology formed in the 1960s, and inter-disciplinary Marxism and political economy in the 1970s. The principal authors credited with the development were two sociologists, Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens, the anthropologist, Marshall Sahlins and the social theorist, Michel Foucault. A primary common objective was to account for action in a manner that was complementary to the study of systems and structures (Ortner 1984: 147-8). In European sociology, the legacy of struc­ turalism figured strongly in the intellectual context in which the problem of con­ ceptualizing the relation between structure and agency was given proirity. The concept of Praxis played a central role, and was conceived as a bridging device between equally flawed holist and individualist explanations. Nevertheless, holism was more comprehensively attacked than was individualism; discomfit­ ure with a previously rampant structuralism always threatened that agency might be allowed to dissolve into personal autonomy, a temptation to which many suc­ cumbed. In the process, despite the positions adumbrated in works like Outline of a Theory of Practice (Bourdieu 1972) and The Constitution of Society (Giddens 1984) being seminal for social theory and inspiring empirical studies, the orientation towards the analysis of practice per se palled. It was left to a second generation of advocates to re-centre the concept of practices.

Fashion founded on a flaw The ecological mono-deterministic fallacy of Hofstede, GLOBE, and followers

Abstract: Purpose – To comment on Brewer and Venaik’s review of the misapplication of the national culture dimensions of Hofstede and GLOBE at the individual and other sub-national levels This paper supports and extends their critique Design/methodology/approach – The implausibility of deterministic claims about the multi-level power of national culture is described and discussed by drawing on a wide range of disciplines (including anthropology, geography, sociology, and historiography) Findings – Descriptions of the characteristics and origins of sub-national level behaviour based on a priori depictions of national culture values are invalid and misleading Practical implications – There are important implications for practitioners The paper highlights the unsoundness of descriptions of the sub-national (individuals, consumer segments, organizations, and so forth) which are derived from national-level depictions of culture and the dangers of ignoring the independent causal influence of non-national culture and non-cultural factors Originality/value – The ecological fallacy in the national culture literature is located within a wider and long-standing critique of that fallacy The paper is the first to show that the fallacy in the national culture literature is often an extreme causal version It not merely supposes cross-level equivalence, as in the standard version, but more aggressively, it attributes deterministic power to national culture thus excluding other independent influences and agency

Audience Participation and Neoliberal Value: Risk, agency and responsibility in immersive theatre

Abstract: This article identifies a value set shared between the neoliberal ethos and modes of audience participation frequently promoted in immersive theatre: values such as risk-taking, individual freedoms and personal responsibility. The promotion of self-made opportunity, premised either on opportunistic risk-taking, or the savvy attitude that comes with experience and familiarity with immersive theatre participation, will be addressed as valorising another shared value: entrepreneurialism. A participatory mode will be introduced that I call ‘entrepreneurial participation’: a kind of audience participation privileged in much immersive theatre performance identifying the enactment of neoliberal value. While entrepreneurial participation may be deliberately deployed by audiences as a participatory tactic, it will be argued that this particular participatory mode is frequently expected of audiences, or at least privileged as a means of engaging with performance. Work by the British immersive theatre company Punchd...

From secret agents to interagency

Abstract: Some scientists who study animals have emphasized the need to focus on the “point of view” of the animals they are studying. This methodological shift has led to animals being credited with much more agency than is warranted. However, as critics suggest, on the one hand, the “perspective” of another being rests mostly upon “sympathetic projection,” and may be difficult to apply to unfamiliar beings, such as bees or even flowers. On the other hand, the very notion of agency still conveys its classic understanding as intentional, rational, and premeditated, and is still embedded in humanist and Christian conceptions of human exceptionalism. This paper seeks, in the first part, to investigate the practical link between these two notions and the problems they raise. In the second part, following the work of two historians of science who have revisited Darwin's studies of orchids and their pollinators, it will observe a shift in the meaning of the concept of agency. Indeed, creatures may appear as “secret agents” as long as we adopt a conventional definition of agency based on subjective experience and autonomous intention. However, when reframed in the terms of “agencement” — an assemblage that produces “agentivity” — agency seems to be much more extensively shared in the living world. We will then explore some of the concrete situations in which these agencements are manifested, and through which creatures of different species become, one for another and one with another, companion-agents.

Precarious work: Economic, sociological and political perspectives:

Abstract: This article brings together labour relations, sociological and political perspectives on precarious employment in Australia, identifying local contexts of insecurity and setting them within the economics of regional supply chains involving the use of migrant labour. In developing the concept of precarious work-societies, it argues that precarity is a source of individual and social vulnerability and distress, affecting family, housing and communal security. The concept of depoliticisation is used to describe the processes of displacement, whereby the social consequences of precarious work come to be seen as beyond the reach of agency. Using evidence from social attitudes surveys, we explore links between the resulting sense of political marginalisation and hostility to immigrants. Re-politicisation strategies will need to lay bare the common basis of shared experiences of insecurity and explore ways of integrating precarious workers into new community and global alliances.

The myth of cognitive agency: subpersonal thinking as a cyclically recurring loss of mental autonomy.

Abstract: This metatheoretical paper investigates mind wandering from the perspective of philosophy of mind. It has two central claims. The first is that on a conceptual level, mind wandering can be fruitfully described as a specific form of mental autonomy loss. The second is that most of what we call “conscious thought” is better analysed as a subpersonal process that more often than not lacks crucial properties traditionally taken to be the hallmark of personal-level cognition, such as mental agency, explicit, consciously experienced goal-directedness, or availability for veto control. I claim that for roughly two thirds of our life-time we do not possess mental autonomy (M-autonomy) in this sense. Empirical data from research on mind wandering and nocturnal dreaming clearly show that phenomenally represented cognitive processing is mostly an automatic, non-agentive process and that personal-level cognition is an exception rather than the rule. This raises an interesting new version of the mind-body problem: How is subpersonal cognition causally related to personal-level thought? More fine-grained phenomenological descriptions for what we called “conscious thought” in the past are needed, as well as a functional decomposition of umbrella terms like “mind wandering” into different target phenomena and a better understanding of the frequent dynamic transitions between spontaneous, task-unrelated thought and meta-awareness.. In an attempt to lay some very first conceptual foundations for the now burgeoning field of research on mind wandering, the third section proposes two new criteria for individuating single episodes of mind-wandering, namely, the “self-representational blink” (SRB) and a sudden shift in the phenomenological “unit of identification” (UI). I close by specifying a list of potentially innovative research goals that could serve to establish a stronger connection between mind wandering research and philosophy of mind.

Theories of action in the field of child participation: In search of explicit frameworks

Abstract: The article explores child participation from the perspective of the sociology of action Despite the important literature on child participation following adoption of the UNCRC, a consistent theory of child participation is still missing The distinction between the child as a subject of rights and the child as a social actor draws attention to the cumulative and systemic nature of action Applications of a new model going in this direction are presented They foster discussion on children’s agency and give insights for assessing implicit theories of action lying behind child participation

Agency as vulnerability: accounting for children's movement to the streets of Accra

Abstract: This paper considers the agency of children moving to the streets of Accra, Ghana's capital city. A much used but largely unexamined concept, agency is nevertheless commonly deployed in childhood studies as a means to stress the capacity of children to choose to do things. In the literature on street and working children, and a cognate area of study concerned with children's independent migration, this has involved accounts of children's agency made meaningful by reference to theories of rational choice or to the normative force of childhood. It is our argument that both approaches leave unanswered important questions and to counter these omissions we draw upon the arguments of social realists and, in particular, the stress they place on vulnerability as the basis for human agency. We develop this argument further by reference to our research with street children. By drawing upon the children's accounts of leaving their households and heading for Accra's streets, it is our contention that these children do frame their departures as matters of individual choice and self-determination, and that in doing so they speak of a considerable capacity for action. Nevertheless, a deeper reading of their testimonies also points to the children's understandings of their own vulnerability. By examining what we see as their inability to be dependent upon family and kin, we stress the importance of the children's perceptions of their vulnerability, frailty and need as the basis for a fuller understanding of their agency in leaving their households. © 2013 The Author. The Sociological Review © 2013 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review.

Sustainable development, environmental education, and the significance of being in place

Abstract: This paper begins by locating Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the context of education more broadly and identifies some key concepts that form a backcloth to understanding it and some tensions and curriculum issues to which it gives rise. The paper examines some of the strengths and problems of different interpretations of ESD and argues that its future as force for good depends on it becoming disentangled from the scientism that characterises much modern and late-modern thinking. It is further argued that this can be achieved by a focus on the character of our engagement with place and that this can reveal what is truly environing, including the intrinsic normativity, agency and value of transcendent nature.

The extended religious phenotype and the adaptive coupling of ritual and belief

Abstract: In this paper, we consider the idea that religion is a transsomatic adaptation. At the genic level, the religious system constitutes an extended phenotype that has been fashioned by natural selection to overcome socioecological challenges inherent in human sociality, primarily problems of cooperation and coordination. At the collective level, the religious system constitutes a cognitive niche. We begin our discussion focusing on the former and concentrate our attention on the “sacred coupling” of supernatural agency and ritual behavior. We detail the complex connections between genes, cognitive faculties, and their expression in religious contexts, followed by a discussion of how religious ritual functions to maintain relative social order. We conclude with a discussion about the relevance of niche construction theory for understanding the adaptive nature of religious systems.