Agency (philosophy)

About: Agency (philosophy) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 10461 publications have been published within this topic receiving 350831 citations. The topic is also known as: Thought & Human agency.

Mediatisation of religion: A critical appraisal

Abstract: Media as a context for shaping religion in modern society has generally beenoverlooked in the mainstream sociology of religion. This article discusses therelevance of the thesis of a mediatisation of religion presented by StigHjarvard for studying religious transformation in a modern, Western society.Though the theory contributes to sociology of religion through its focus onhow the characteristics of modern mass media relate to the processes ofsecularisation, the narrow approach to religion and to the interplay betweenmodernisation and religion in the thesis so far limits its validity. This articlesuggests two starting points for the development of a theory to better graspthe implications of mediatisation of religion in the contemporary world; first,an understanding of religion that better acknowledges the complexities ofmodern religion and second, an understanding of mediatisation that alsoacknowledges the agency of religious actors to take part in the shaping ofmedia as well as modern society.

Sustainability cultures and energy research: An actor-centred interpretation of cultural theory

Abstract: The energy cultures framework has had widespread use in studies of the energy-related implications of habitual behaviour and behaviour change, and to other topics including mobility, water and carbon-related outcomes. As a heuristic that has become widely used because it helps researchers to make sense of how cultural formations influence sustainability outcomes, it is timely to explore its relationship to cultural theory. I discuss the origins and applications of the framework and elaborate its underpinning concepts about the relationship between cultural formations and sustainability outcomes. I contrast these concepts with cultural theory and conclude that the sustainability cultures approach has similar roots to practice theory, but diverges at several key points. The actor-centred articulation of cultural attributes and their outcomes, with its main focus on actors’ agency in cultural change, contrasts with practice theory’s view of actors as ‘carriers’ of routine practices. It aligns most closely with Bourdieu’s habitus although more substantial theoretical enquiry is needed to explore linkages to Bourdieu’s interest in praxis. Sustainability cultures offers an approach to investigating the significant cultural changes that will be required for a sustainable future.

Gender on the Edge: Transgender, Gay, and Other Pacific Islanders

Abstract: Transgender identities and other forms of gender and sexuality that transcend the normative pose important questions about society, culture, politics, and history. They force us to question, for example, the forces that divide humanity into two gender categories and render them necessary, inevitable, and natural. The transgender also exposes a host of dynamics that, at first glance, have little to do with gender or sex, such as processes of power and domination; the complex relationship among agency, subjectivity, and structure; and the mutual constitution of the global and the local. Particularly intriguing is the fact that gender and sexual diversity appear to be more prevalent in some regions of the world than in others. This edited volume is an exploration of the ways in which non-normative gendering and sexuality in one such region, the Pacific Islands, are implicated in a wide range of socio-cultural dynamics that are at once local and global, historical, and contemporary. The authors recognize that different social configurations, cultural contexts, and historical trajectories generate diverse ways of being transgender across the societies of the region, but they also acknowledge that these differences are overlaid with commonalities and predictabilities. Rather than focus on the definition of identities, they engage with the fact that identities do things, that they are performed in everyday life, that they are transformed through events and movements, and that they are constantly negotiated. By addressing the complexities of these questions over time and space, this work provides a model for future endeavors that seek to embed dynamics of gender and sexuality in a broad field of theoretical import.

‘Social Mix’ and Neighbourhood Revitalization in a Transatlantic Perspective: Comparing Local Policy Discourses and Expectations in Paris (France), Bristol (UK) and Montréal (Canada)

Abstract: The longstanding debate around the merits of promoting social class mix in urban neighbourhoods has taken a new twist in recent times. A transatlantic and neoliberal convergence of policy advice, supported by the 'neighbourhood effects' thesis, makes a case for addressing deep poverty by spatially deconcentrating it, inter alia, by gentrification. While developing trenchant critiques of this approach, critical urban scholarship has tended to take a 'top-down' view of urban neoliberalism, giving insufficient consideration to the agency of local governance actors in policy design and implementation, as well as to differences in national and local reference points with regard to what social mix connotes. We present findings of a comparative study of the meanings and effects attributed to social mix by key local policy actors across three 'distressed' neighbourhoods: in inner-city Paris (France), Bristol (UK) and Montreal (Canada), targeted for neighbourhood revitalization involving planned residential social mix in two cases and diversification of local retailing and its consumer base in all three. We find that while local actors' rationales for social mix do reflect a neoliberal turn, this is not embraced unequivocally and a strong home-grown element, drawing on national or local 'myths', persists. Our study sheds light on the expectations that local policy actors have on the incoming middle classes to make the mix 'work' by supporting community; pointing to the paradoxes and limitations of such a perspective.

Chasing the Rainbow: The Non-conscious Nature of Being.

Abstract: Despite the compelling subjective experience of executive self-control, we argue that ‘consciousness’ contains no top-down control processes. We propose that ‘consciousness’ involves no executive, causal or controlling relationship with any of the familiar psychological processes conventionally attributed to it. In our view all psychological processing and psychological products are non-conscious. In particular, we argue that all ‘contents of consciousness’ are generated by and within non-conscious brain systems in the form of a continuous self-referential personal narrative that is not directed or influenced in any way by the ‘experience of consciousness’. This continuously updated personal narrative arises from selective ‘internal broadcasting’ of outputs from non-conscious executive systems that have access to all forms of cognitive processing, sensory information and motor control. The personal narrative provides information for storage in autobiographical memory and is underpinned by constructs of self and agency, also created in non-conscious systems. The experience of consciousness, is seen as a passive accompaniment to the non-conscious processes of internal broadcasting and the creation of the personal narrative. In this sense personal awareness is analogous to the rainbow which accompanies physical processes in the atmosphere but exerts no influence over them. Though at an individual level it is an end-product created by non-conscious executive systems, the personal narrative serves the powerful evolutionary function of enabling individuals to communicate (externally broadcast) the contents of internal broadcasting. This in turn allows the recipients to generate potentially adaptive strategies, such as predicting the behavior of others and underlies the development of social and cultural structures, that promote species survival. Consequently, it is the capacity to communicate to others the contents of the personal narrative that confers an evolutionary advantage – not the experience of consciousness (personal awareness) itself.