Structure and Agency

by Mike O'Donnell

• ISBN13: 9781848600317
• ISBN10: 1848600313
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-06-15
• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd

Summary

The relationship of social structure to individual and collective agency has been central to sociology from the outset. It remains so in period in which poststructuralists have challenged the idea of stable social structures and even the usefulness in social science of the concept of structure itself. The historical trajectory of the debate about the respective importance of structure and agency and the relationship between the two provides the narrative context of this collection of articles.The point of arranging this collection of articles predominantly in historical sequence is not simply a matter of convenience. Historical context has a major impact on forming the concerns of sociologists and, equally significantly, on the way they perceive and theorise the social world.Volume One: Modernity, Sociology and the Structure/Agency DebateVolume Two: Postmodernity - An End to the Structure /Agency Dichotomy?Volume Three: Structure/Agency Theories AppliedVolume Four: Network Theory - Transcending the Traditional Limits of Structure/Agency

Table of Contents

Modernity, Sociology and the Structure/Agency Debate

Seminal Sources: Marx, Weber and Durkheim

On Class

Definitions of Sociology and Social

The Conflict between Methodology and Rationalisation in the Work of Max Weber

From "Suicide: A study in sociology

American Structural-Functionalism

Parson's Action-System Requisite Model and Weber's Elective Affinity: A convergence of convenience

Overcoming Structure and Agency: Talcott Parsons, Ludwig Wittgenstein and the theory of social action

Structure and Anomie

The Oversocialized Conception of Man in Modern Sociology

Symbolic Interactionism

From "Mind, Mind Self and Society: From the standpoint of a social behaviourist"

Goffman on Organizations

The Sociology of Self

Alfred Schutz and the 'Objectifying Attitude'

The Two Sociologies

Structuralism, Poststructuralism and the Cultural Turn

Desire and Drive in Researcher Subjectivity: The broken mirror of Lacan

The Power of the Imaginary in Disciplinary Processes

Agency: The internal split of structure

Born-Again Functionalism: a reconsideration of Althusser's structuralism

Structures, Strategies and the Habitus

Some Implications of Pierre Bourdieu's Work for the Theory of Social Self Organizations

Epistemology and Method: Althusser, Foucault, Derrida

Agency and Change: Re-evaluating Foucault's legacy

Bourdieu, Critic of Foucault: The case of rmpirical social science against double-game-philosophy

Critical Theory; Structuration Theory; Critical Realism; and Indentity Theory

Critical Theory: Adorno, Habermas, Marcuse

Reading Bourdieu with Adorno: The limits of critical theory and reflexive sociology

Pragmatism and Critical Theory

The self-empowered subject: Habermas, Foucault and hermeneutic reflexivity

Structuration Theory: The Dualism/Duality Debate

From "The Constitution of Society: Outline of the theory of structuration"

A Theory of Structure: Duality, agency and transformation

Institutional Responsibility and Hidden Meanings

Cultural Consumption Analysis: Beyond structure and agency

Social and System Integration: Lockwood, Habermas, Giddens

Radically Reconstituting the Subject: Social theory and human nature

Critical Realism

Morphogenesis versus Structuration: On combining structure and action

The Archers; a Tale of Folk (Final Episode?)

Challenging Dualism: Public professionalism in 'troubled' times

Refusing the Realism-Structuration Divide

Structure, Self, Agency and Identity

Identity as an analysis problem: who's who in 'pro ana' websites

What is Identity?

Performativity Identified

Narrating Human Actions: The subjective experience of agency, structure, communion and serendipity

Contingency, contestation and hegemony: The possibility of a non-essentialist politics of the left

Structure/Agency Theories Applied

Class

Structure, agency and Marx's analysis of the labour process

With a little class: A critique of identity politics

Violence and Revolutionary Subjectivity: Marx to Zizek

The Promising Future of Class Analysis: A response to recent critiques

Organizations and Employment

Implications of Self-Reference: Niklas Luhmann's autopoiesis and organization theory

The New Structuralism in Organizational Theory

Gender

Theorising Patriarchy

Structure and Agency in Socialist-Feminist Thought

Agency, Anticipation and Determinacy in Feminist Theory

Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the concept

'Race', Ethnicity and Agency

Women, Men and Class Revisited: An assessment of the utility of a combined schema in the context of minority Ethnic educational achievement in Britain

The Social Geographies of White Masculitinites

The Life Course

Identity and Agency in Emerging Adulthood: Two developmental routes in the individuation process

Women Growing Older: Agency, ethnicity and culture

Disability

Agency, Structure, and the Transition to Disability: A case study with implications for life history research

Love's Labour Lost? Feminism, the disabled people's movement and an ethic of care

The Body: Embodiment

The Undersocialised Conception of the Embodied Agent In Modern Sociology

'Sex' and the Problem of the Body: Reconstructing Judith Butler's theory of sex/gender

Network Theory, Globalisation Theory, Hegemony

Networks

The Network Society: From knowledge to policy

Reflexivity as Non-linearity

Internet and self-regulation in China: The cultural logic of controlled commodification

Globalisation, Social Movements

Simmel to Rokkan and Beyond: Towards a network theory of (new) social movements

The Gordian Knot of Agency-Structure in International Relations: A neo-Gramscian perspective

Culture, Identity and Hegemony: The body in a global age

Human Well-Being and Social Structures: Relating the universal and the local

The Crisis of Identity in High Modernity

Conclusion/Continuation

Conclusion/Continuation

The Paradox of the Two Sociologies: Hobbes, Latour and the constitution of modern social theory

Alexander and the Cultural Refounding of American Sociology

'Agency' as a Red Herring in Social Theory

Beyond Reform: Agency after theory

From Factors to Actors: Computational sociology and agent-based modeling

What is Agency?

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