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.

Cultural Studies, Public Pedagogy, and the Responsibility of Intellectuals

Abstract: Cultural studies seems to have passed into the shadows of academic interests, replaced by globalization and political economy as the new millennium's privileged concerns among left academics. Yet, cultural studies' longstanding interest in the interrelationship of power, politics, and culture remains critically important. Matters of agency, consciousness, pedagogy, and rhetoric are central to any public discourse about politics, not to mention education itself. Hence, this article argues that the promise of cultural studies, especially as a fundamental aspect of higher education, resides in a larger transformative and democratic politics in which matters of pedagogy and agency play a central role.

New Institutionalism Through a Gender Lens: Towards a Feminist Institutionalism?:

Abstract: New institutionalism (NI) may no longer qualify as being ‘new’, but since re-emphasizing institutions as a central explanatory variable in political analysis over two decades ago, it continues to provide scholars with a useful perspective through which to analyse political dynamics and outcomes that shape everyday life. The renewed focus on institutions has rebalanced the structure/agency scales back toward the former without losing important insights about the role and impact of political actors. NI has allowed for greater understanding about the co-constitutive nature of politics: the various ways in which actors bring about or resist change in institutions; and the way institutions shape the nature of actors’ behaviour through the construction of rules, norms and policies.

The Economics of Transnational Living1

Abstract: Migrants' long-distance economic relations with their homelands have been the subject of an extensive, albeit fragmented, multidisciplinary inquiry. Most existing studies have been primarily concerned with the north-south flow of monetary remittances that migrants send to their homelands. Using a transnational perspective informed by economic sociology tenets, this article argues that this north-south, monetary-centered approach is too limited, for it fails to heed the multiple macroeconomic effects of migrants' transnational economic and noneconomic connections and, thus, underestimates migrants' agency and their influence at the global level. Using the concept of transnational living, the study presents new vistas of transnational migration that question accepted notions about the relationship between labor mobility and capital mobility.

Surmountable Chasms: Networks and Social Innovation for Resilient Systems

Abstract: Complex challenges demand complex solutions. By their very nature, these problems are difficult to define and are often the result of rigid social structures that effectively act as “traps”. However, resilience theory and the adaptive cycle can serve as a useful framework for understanding how humans may move beyond these traps and towards the social innovation that is required to address many complex problems. This paper explores the critical question of whether networks help facilitate innovations to bridge the seemingly insurmountable chasms of complex problems to create change across scales, thereby increasing resilience. The argument is made that research has not yet adequately articulated the strategic agency that must be present within the network in order for cross scale interactions to occur. By examining institutional entrepreneurship through case studies and examples, this paper proposes that agency within networks requires specific skills from entrepreneurs, including ones that enable pattern generation, relationship building and brokering, knowledge and resource brokering, and network recharging. Ultimately, this begins to build a more complete understanding of how networks may improve human capacity to respond to complex problems and heighten overall resilience.