Structure and agency

This chapter will consider how reproduction and change can be understood in complex social systems through a complexity lens. It will examine an abiding problem for social theory of describing reproduction in terms of shaping structures or alternatively as the active production of agents. The need to incorporate both is clear but difficult to achieve. The chapter will review work on structure and individual and collective agency particularly relating to Bourdieu and Archer. It will consider how each theorist develops an account of a recursive relationship, recognizing both habitual reproduction and reflexive action. Through a discussion of both structure and agency as embodied, it arrives at a configurational account that recognizes social reproduction in co-evolving, interactive systems with open outcomes. Archer’s internal conversation contributes to the discussion of reflexivity to complement Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and field. It acknowledges their emergent nature as open to explanation but not prediction.

Agency (philosophy) · Epistemology · Political science · Critical Realism in Sociology · Free Will and Agency · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science