Define biographical society

Changes in vocabularies since the s to a certain extent replaced the traditional micro-macro pair of concepts with those of agency and structure. From a theoretical point of view, the relationship between the two levels micro-macro, agency and structure, or biography and history, is not clear cut, hence the many debates over the issues. In the next sections debates in general sociology about these distinctions are set in relation to historical contexts in which they gained prominence in discussions.

After briefly addressing the micro-macro distinction, important theoretical contributions are examined in relation to notions of structure and agency. A characteristic of the writings in general theory is that the gendered aspects of agency and structure are rarely mentioned as part of the mainstream theoretical landscape. Thus a section on thoughts about gendered dimensions of agency sets the debates within their period specific contexts.

Another section is devoted to the discussion of the differences between the structure-agency divide on the one hand, and the history-biography dynamic on the other. Specific attention is given to the wide variety of conceptualisations of the combined structure-agency relationship over different periods. Approaches to the history-biography dynamic have varied in biographical life course research, and these are addressed and discussed in relation to the Millsian starting point.

An important dividing line in discussions about the individual-society divide used to be, and still is, a distinction between micro and macro perspectives on societies. Alexander and Giesen for instance, discussed this divide in a larger perspective starting from the philosophical roots in writings about the differentiation between individuals and the state in late medieval society.

They gave an overview of the classics Marx, Durkheim, Weber as well as of thinkers from American pragmatism and their approach to this divide. They were critical of some of their contemporaries in the interactionism camp who presented Mead and his writings as purely on the micro side. The micro-macro divide could, according to these authors, best be approached as different levels of empirical reality in research.

Collins came to similar conclusions when he addressed the discussions about this theme in the late s. Whilst the micro-macro distinction was more debated in earlier days it is still a terminology that has relevance in some areas of sociological research. The notion of structure has many definitions, not all of them compatible with a processual view, even in life course theory.

The emphasis here was on stability and not on change. The definition thus showed resemblance to many others in the general sociological literature that often drew on functionalist theory and saw structure as a kind of grid or skeleton upon which social processes unfold Settersten and Gannon Agency, biography and individual are terms that have different connotations but are nevertheless often used interchangeably in life course discussions.

Whereas the term individual is intuitively understood, agency and biography demand closer definition. Agency is associated with action; individual purposive action. However, these terms not only differ in definitions, they are also associated with different theoretical traditions that have been influential in various historical periods Giddens ; Mills He bemoaned the dualism associated with the distinction between agency and structure,.

Barnes , p. Agency is a complex term and has been widely debated in sociology see e. Archer ; Barnes ; Emirbayer and Mische ; Giddens He dismissed a simplistic view of this notion that merely suggested the independent power of individuals. In doing this he was highly critical of the premises upon which the individualisation thesis rested.

He was likewise critical of rational choice theory and the idea that individuals are single, isolated entities operating from rational motives in a calculative manner. Footnote 4 In a discussion about how individual motivations can be understood in relation to agency, Barnes drew heavily on a paper Mills published in Here Mills discussed different ways of approaching and discussing motives for action and he described how in different times and societies varying vocabularies—sets of terms and concepts—were accepted as standard for explaining motives.

This way of thinking about sociological terms is helpful in many instances. Based on pragmatist thought they defined agency as,. The temporally constructed engagement by actors of different structural environments—the temporal-relational contexts of action—which, through the interplay of habit, imagination, and judgment, both reproduces and transforms those structures in interactive response to the problems posed by changing historical situations.

This definition of agency is helpful in discussions of the concept in relation to biographical research because of its sensitivity to temporality. But whilst both Barnes, and Emir Bayer and Mische, discussed agency within a theoretical framework and with reference to theoretical debates, in biographical life course studies agency is inextricably related to structure, and as the concepts are used in empirical analyses definitions from this level are included here.

Footnote 5 The contextualist life course approach that Elder formulated came from the historical sensitivity that Mills suggested sociological studies ought to rest on. Social interaction, as defined by Herbert Mead, was a prerequisite for society as well as for individuality. Thus interacting individuals form societies, and one cannot exist without the other.

History and biography are part of the same whole in a dynamic relationship. There are a variety of ways of considering this dimension in research where life course data are analysed. They observed that agency as a theoretical notion on the one hand, and as an empirical dimensions in life course research on the other, were out of synch.

Whilst the theoretical conceptualisations were complex and manifold, they maintained that empirical attempts to address agency did not pay enough attention to temporal dimensions and hence presented static descriptions of the level of individual actions. Another study by Schoon and Lyons-Amos addressed notions of agency and structure from the viewpoint of empirical analyses of the transition to adulthood.

They examined the role of agency in terms of decision making and choice within structural frameworks for diverse transition pathways. They suggested that investigating the diversity dimension was crucial for conceptualising varieties of agency during transitions. When agency and structure are discussed separately and singled out as discrete units or processes that each need addressing in their own right, much insight into theoretical ideas and social processes at either level can be gained.

However, other aspects of social life may come to the fore only when the two are looked at simultaneously and in relation to one another. For example, gender and social class are aspects of life that are part of the structural features and thus impacts on agency in all societies. As the two examples above from empirical research demonstrate, as well as the discussions from the theoretical field, structural elements such as gender were not made a concern in either of these debates.

Agency has been much debated in feminist philosophy and in feminist studies generally. These discussions have often been framed within the cluster of concepts such as agency, autonomy and independence Code The oppression of women in history, throughout all known cultures, is an important basis for this framing of the discussions. In the general theoretical writings cited above, agency was discussed in genderless terms.

In the feminist literature discussions about the set of concepts agency belongs in, have taken hue of the historical contexts of debates; what particular themes that had definitional, or framing, power in particular periods. Benhabib for instance, discussed notions of gender and agency in relation to the fierce debates within feminism at the time Footnote 6 that involved questions about essentialism and postmodern theories.

In this paradigm notions of action were often considered in terms of resistance to dominant norms, which according to McNay would need more specific and varied accounts of agency in order to be effective. She therefore suggested a need for contextualising agency within power relations and called for a regenerative theoretical framework which included temporal aspects of subjective formation, and hence of notions of agency.

Footnote 7. In current debates of the topic of gender and agency other concerns than postmodernism have gained prominence. The notion of agency has become a much more frequently used term in general writings, in both the public and the academic domains. In the social sciences the past decade has seen attention turned towards the increase in social inequalities, both globally between countries and regions as well as within nation states.

These issues have also become more prevalent in feminist theories where notions of identity are often paired with those of agency. Footnote 8 When relating to the social inequality theme agency as a concept has been criticised for its atomistic overtones. These theoretical discussions have not made the historical context a specific and explicit topic.

It has rather been referred to implicitly by setting debates into a contemporary terminology when addressing issues of the day such as exemplified here. However, gendered notions of agency are relevant for biographical life course studies referring to any society and across historical periods. Variations in ways in which agency is gendered are what matter and these are closely connected to the interweaving of structure and agency or history and biography.

Examples of empirical studies, my own and those of others, where these dimensions have been given prominence will be referred to throughout the chapters in this book. This pair of concepts were used in complex ways in their study. The concepts were criticised during the Appraisal proceedings in Blumer for their lack of specificity and clarity.

These conceptualisations were nevertheless important at the time because it was the first attempt to bring empirical biographical material into a discussion of a topic that had mainly been given theoretical and philosophical attention. Whichever definition of agency is subscribed to, this aspect of human action does not take place with isolated individual entities.

It always involves interactions at different temporal and societal levels. In life course and biographical research, the processual element introduced by time is crucial. Following Mills, a terminology that refers to the history-biography dynamic rather than the agency-structure divide, is helpful for understanding the relevance of historical sensitivity and process.

We have come to see that the biographies of men and women, the kinds of individuals they variously become, cannot be understood without reference to the historical structures in which the milieux of their everyday life are organized. Historical transformations carry meanings not only for individual ways of life, but for the very character — the limits and possibilities of the human being.

The focus was to be on both structure and agency, from a processual approach. They sought to investigate the boundaries of an approach that included both aspects in a study of social mobility, a topic which has clear processual qualities attached to it as such mobility over generations happen in historical time,. We have attempted to demonstrate that socio-structural components may be found in those decisions and acts apparently most clearly powered by will: and conversely, that praxis may be found in the very heart of what, viewed from afar, seems to be pure reproduction by direct transmission.

The structural side of the agency-structure relationship has been approached from a variety of perspectives depending on period specific debates in the social sciences. As Roberts stated , it was an approach that brought a sociological perspective to a field that in the s was dominated by psychology. In the s there was a debate within sociology between those who favoured a focus on human action on the one hand, and those who advocated social structures as the main object of study for the discipline.

Roberts said of the relationship between structure and agency, the terminology used in the transitions paradigm, and that of opportunity structures that had changed considerably over the decades since his first writing about it:. The constituents of opportunity structures have all changed interactively, and young people have not been agents of change but have had no choice but to exercise individual agency within their reshaped opportunities.

Go to my saved videos. All search filters on the page have been cleared. Your search has been saved. Summary Contents Subject index Documents of Life was originally published in and became a classic text, providing both a persuasive argument for a particular approach and a manifesto for social research. Show page numbers Hide page numbers. Vladimir: They all speak at once.

Estragon: Each one to itself … Vladimir: What do they say? Estragon: They talk about their lives. Shaw in [ 6 ] and The biographical approach influence was felt mainly in the study of deviance. In , Aaron Victor Cicourel published a case study on the life history of a boy named Mark, that received special attention in the discipline of social work.

Cicourel's study explored in detail how a criminal career was constructed through police interrogation , individual and distorted interpretations, and institutional documents. Since the s, biographical research gained momentum in the wake of a growing interest for qualitative social research. This development was supported by a tendency to shift the sociological focus from system and structure to the lifeworld , the everyday life , and the resurgence of phenomenological approaches in sociology under the influence of Edmund Husserl.

The sociology turned to the reconstruction of biographical cases and individual life courses as a form to gain insight on social processes. With the increasing pluralization of life-worlds , modernization , and differentiation in Postmodern societies , the dissolution of traditional values and the conference of meaning, the biographical approach proved useful to study these social phenomena of the turn of the millennium.

The actor became an intersection of different and sometimes divergent determinants, logics, expectations, normative models, and institutionalized mechanisms of control see Georg Simmel 's chapter "The Intersection of Social Circles" [ 10 ]. The "normal biography" broke up and prompted the individual to manage his life course on his own and to find solutions amongst different and contradictory influencing factors and figurations.

In this situation, the self-discovered biographical identity with its endangered transitions, breaks, and status changes becomes a conflict between institutional control and individual strategy. The reconstructive approach in biographical research, which is connected to the phenomenological and Gestalt approaches, was methodologically developed by the German sociologist Gabriele Rosenthal.

Rosenthal used principles of the method of objective hermeneutics and the reconstructive analysis of Ulrich Oevermann , and the Gestalt and structure considerations proposed by Aron Gurwitsch and Kurt Koffka to develop a method for the reconstruction of biographical cases. In the context of qualitative researches, the biographical research is to be seen as a case-reconstructive approach.

The decision to reconstruct cases is in itself an approach to the field rather than a specific research method. Biographical research does not use a single method for data analysis. Many use content analysis to analyze the biographical data. The diversity of biographical sources turns an inductive approach , as used in quantitative social research, unfruitful.

The logic of an abductive reasoning process is preferred by many researchers that use the biographical approach. The principles of a grounded theory as in Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss [ 13 ] are often applied alongside a biographical research. The questions regarding the possibility to use individual cases to create scientifically valid generalizations arise from the use of the abductive reasoning.

This is the question of the sustainability of abductive conclusions as in Charles Sanders Peirce. The abductive conclusion that biographical cases are socially relevant and bear general patterns of behavior , action , and interpretation in them is common in sociological practice, although some think that it is not yet fully developed.

Different approaches to the development of typologies exist, as well as for the contrastive comparison between types in order to allow for theoretical generalizations see Uta Gerhardt, ; Gabriele Rosenthal, ; [ 11 ] and Susann Kluge, [ 14 ].

Define biographical society

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