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Structure and agency

About: Structure and agency is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1265 publications have been published within this topic receiving 63660 citations.


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TL;DR: The use of ego-documents allows us, in particular, to focus on a key issue that might conveniently be summarized as that of "structures and subjectivities".
Abstract: What is an ‘ego-document’? The answer might at first sight seem simple: a source or ‘document’—understood in the widest sense—providing an account of, or revealing privileged information about, the ‘self ’ who produced it. The term itself, which is of relatively recent coinage—just over half a century old—has variants: while it is a term originating in Dutch that works well in several languages including both English and German, some scholars prefer the notion of ‘self-narratives’ or ‘testimonies to the self ’ (Selbstzeugnisse), a term in use since the late nineteenth century, with corresponding differences in theoretical approach and emphasis from those who retain the notion of ego-documents.1 But the broader concept of texts which (mis)represent a self is far older; and, as the contributions in this area by Rousseau, Goethe and countless less well-known others indicate, the character of such sources and the uses to which they can be put are far more problematic and diverse than might at first glance appear. We are dealing here, then, with not just a particular type of source, but a source which uniquely serves to open up a wide set of theoretical issues and questions of history and historiography. The use of ego-documents allows us, in particular, to focus on a key issue that might conveniently be summarized as that of ‘structures and subjectivities’. There has for a long time been a sense that the ways in which key historical events and developments are subjectively experienced need to be brought into sharper focus. And conversely, scholars such as Max Weber and Norbert Elias, not to mention Karl Marx, registered the ways in which historical subjectivities are shaped and transformed by the structures through which people make their lives, long before ego-documents became a direct focus of analysis as a distinctive type of source. More recently, theorists from a wide range of perspectives have struggled not merely to reconnect structure and agency, but to look at the ways in which agency is itself historically constructed, coloured and inflected. But it is less easy to reach agreement on ways to achieve this using ego-documents in a sophisticated and theoretically selfaware manner. One of the most distinctive strands of German history to emerge during the past decade or so has been extensive research on such sources, which seem to allow insights

71 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argued that narrative criminology tends towards a problematic dualism of structure and agency, locating agency in individual narrative creativity and constraint in structure and/or culture, drawing on Bourdieu's notion of habitus.
Abstract: Starting from the premise that experience is narratively constituted and actions are oriented through the self as the protagonist in an evolving story, narrative criminology investigates how narratives motivate and sustain offending. Reviewing narrative criminological research, this article contends that narrative criminology tends towards a problematic dualism of structure and agency, locating agency in individual narrative creativity and constraint in structure and/or culture. This article argues for a different conceptualisation of narrative as embodied, learned and generative, drawing on Bourdieu’s notion of habitus. Social action, which here includes storytelling, is structured via the habitus, which generates but does not determine social action. This theorisation understands structures and representations as existing in duality, according a more powerful role to storytelling. The article concludes by discussion of the implications of such a shift for narrative interventions towards offending.

70 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The theoretical tension between structure and agency, a tension often mentioned but seldom explored in depth, was explored in this paper, where the authors examined how identity, structure, and agency might be defined by key thinkers in the social sciences.
Abstract: Against a backdrop of rapid global transformations, the ever-increasing migration of people across nation-state borders and a wide array of language practices, applied linguists, and language and intercultural communication researchers in particular, often include identity as a key construct in their work. Most adopt a broadly poststructuralist approach, drawing on the work of social theorists working in a wide range of areas such as cultural studies, gender studies and critical theory. However, the complexity of these sources poses challenges for these researchers and the aim of this paper is to discuss one such challenge: the theoretical tension between structure and agency, a tension often mentioned but seldom explored in depth. First, I examine how identity, structure and agency might be defined. Second, I then embark on a selective discussion of how structure and agency have been framed by key thinkers in the social sciences, ranging from Karl Marx to Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Pierre ...

70 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A possible alternative to dualism is the notion of duality, derived from Giddens's structuration theory, whereby the two elements are interdependent and no longer separate or opposed, although they remain conceptually distinct.
Abstract: Dualism ‐ the division of an object of study into separate, paired elements ‐ is widespread in economic and social theorising: key examples are the divisions between agency and structure, the individual and society, mind and body, values and facts, and knowledge and practice. In recent years, dualism has been criticised as exaggerating conceptual divisions and promoting an oversimplified, reductive outlook. A possible alternative to dualism is the notion of duality, derived from Giddens’s structuration theory, whereby the two elements are interdependent and no longer separate or opposed, although they remain conceptually distinct. This paper argues that duality, if handled carefully, can provide a superior framework to dualism for dealing with the complexity of economic and social institutions. Its main attraction is not its twofold character, which might profitably be relaxed where appropriate, but its ability to envisage a thoroughgoing interdependence of conceptually distinct elements.

68 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The relationship between tourism and processes of development and social transformation are more nuanced and varied than previous 'theo-theoretical' models in tourism have recognised as mentioned in this paper, and they are more complex and varied in the sense that there are relations of community, consumption, production and place.
Abstract: This paper outlines the case for the analysis of tourism, power and place in the development process from a critical sociological perspective. It draws on recent trends in the sociology of develop- ment to develop existing theoretical models in a manner which transcends the more rigid dualisms be- tween structure and agency on the one hand, and, the concerns of power and identity on the other. As in recent works from noted scholars such as Picard and Wood (1997), the relationship between tourism and processes of development and social transformation are more nuanced and varied than previous 'theo- retical' models in tourism have recognised. Hence, this paper examines the issue by considering four major thematic areas of relevance to the study of tourism and its diverse relationships to processes of social change: the relations of community, consumption, production and place.

68 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
202335
202288
202148
202039
201954
201859