Structure and Agency

The critique of Parsonian Structural Functionalism by the interpretative sociologies of Ethnomethodolgy, Symbolic Interactionism and Social Phenomenology since the early 1960ies set the stage for an ongoing discussion trying to understand the dialectic of Structure & Agency in human action and behavior. What is free will, self-conscious and autonomous action or even resistance? And how is it related to phenomena of sociostructural and cultural patterning and constraints, incorporated habitual schemes and the power of the ones in power?

The course will study and discuss these questions from different perspectives of classic and modern approaches.

Teilnahmebedingungen/Scheinerwerb

Lektüre und Diskussion der Texte; Referat & Essays bzw. Hausarbeit

Einführende Literatur

Alexander, Jeffrey C., 1988, Action and Its Environments, in: Alexander, Action and Its Environments. Toward a New Synthesis, New York,: 301-333.

Bourdieu, Pierre, 2000, Pascalian meditations: 128-205.

Emirbayer, M.; Mische, A. (1998). What is agency? In: American Journal of Sociology, 103 (4), 962-1023.

Giddens, Anthony, 1984, The Constitution of Society: 1-40

Sewell, W.H., Jr., 1992, A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency, and Transformation. In: American Journal of Sociology 98 (1): 1-29.