STRUCTURATION

by John Parker

Structuration A Central Debate in Social Science. Human agents shape social life within existing structures, yet theorists disagree on how structure and agency relate. John Parker compares views of Bourdieu, Giddens (duality), and post-structurationists Archer, Mouzelis (dualism). Giddens' theory is outdated, but post-structurationists offer valuable insights for understanding historical cases. This debate impacts explanations of social structures' production and transformation, benefiting students and researchers across social sciences.

Hardcover

First published January 12, 2000

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Reviews

[Naeem · Rating 4 out of 5]

At a quick 125 pages and 9 chapters, Parker's book is an excellent introduction. The novelty here is to first place Giddens (and Bourdieu) in a historical context of the 50s and 60s. He then goes onto explicate their theories with a clear bare bones analysis. Another novelty is that Giddens and Bourdieu are subjected to a thorough critique through Lockwood, Archer, and Mouzelis -- all termed "post-structurationists."

In Parker's hands these post-structurationists sound quite convincing. The knock against Giddens is that his "duality of structure" turns the flow of dialectics into a "flat" and "smooth" process. Flatness is a problem for at least 2 reasons: it is inaccurate regarding the hardness (but not immutability) of actual structures; and, therefore it favors a kind of Parsonian order as well as favoring a subjective constructedness that looks too much like invidualism. Parker and the post-structurationists perfer not "duality of structure" but a return to a "dualism of sturcture." In sum, Giddens "flow" is wrong ontologically and conservative politically. This is news to me about Giddens because I favored him precisely because I thought his structuration was a dialectical via media -- a connection to he tradition of dialictics (there is a small section on dialectis, (24-5). It turns out that it is perhaps not. In Parker's hands Giddens turns into a version of Parsons.

Through Lockwood, Archer, and Mouzelis, Parker favors a kind of social theorizing that I assumed structurationism to be. Namely, one in which structures change as a result of human actions, human actions are limited and enabled by structures, and in which space/time specificty can be heard to make their clicks, squeaks, and tumbles. Especially the description of structures as, in my language, "bumpy" attracts me.

What troubled me and what I did not like was a too easy assumption about the ontological actually of reality outside of concepts. And therefore a theoretically tinged call for a kind of empirical analysis. That strikes me as too close to a return to positivism.

All in all the strategy of placing these theorist in their historical context and suggesting that structurationism and post-structurationism are responses to perennial problems in philosophy and social theory really appeals to my history of thought bent. I am still not sure I like the label "historical sociology" -- which is what Parker calls for. This strikes me as to English and too imperial.

Good book; worth a re-read.

[Jacob Moltke]

very nice book! the shifting between the socialtheories of Bourdieu to Giddens was amazing and helped me alot in an assignment about obesity in the late modern society.

Thank you, John Parker!