julia-vorholter--2024-agency-cea

Agency in Anthropology

Definition: Agency is the socio-culturally mediated capacity to act and influence or change lifeworlds.
Other concepts connected: Practice Theory, understanding how individuals create society while being shaped by it.
Agency does not align solely with Western notions of personal choice and autonomy; it varies across cultural contexts.
Recent interest in networked, relational, and more-than-human forms of agency (spirits, nature, art).

Emerged in the 1980s, closely associated with practice theory.
Initially viewed positively, seen as a capacity to resist oppressive structures and instigate change.
Shift in recent times: recognized limits of human agency; contemporary issues like climate change and pandemics contribute to feelings of powerlessness.
Growing exploration of alternative concepts like 'patiency' and 'non-mastery'.

The main question of agency: relationship between social change and stability. How do societies fundamentally change despite reinforced structures like class and gender?
Philosophers like Max Weber vs. Émile Durkheim debated the structure-agency dichotomy.
- Weber: humans possess capacity for rational decision-making.
- Durkheim: individual choices are shaped by social structures.
Giddens' Structuration Theory: Agency and structure are interrelated; society is created through individual actions.

Prior to 1980s, anthropology often regarded societies as stable entities, neglecting individual actions and historical change.
Dominant approaches included: structural functionalism, French structuralism, and symbolic anthropology, which lacked focus on social change.
The concept of agency shifted anthropology's focus from abstract societal forces to individual actors and their motivations.

Agency of Intentions: How individuals or collectives design and enact life projects.
Agency as Power: How these individuals perform or resist domination.
In neoliberal contexts, agency often connotes self-determination but varies significantly across cultures.

Different societies conceptualize and value agency in diverse ways.
Example: Sherpa mountain climbers give meaning to their agency and actions based on local religious beliefs despite being in a subordinate position to international climbers (Ortner, 1997).
Agency is culturally constructed; hence, both local and dominant models may coexist in a single context.

Influenced by speech act theory: language can change social realities.
How language reproduces or transforms agency is a central concern.
- Analyzes relationships between intentions, actions, and effects.
Example: In Samoan political discourse, emphasis is on role expectations rather than individuals' intentions (Duranti, 2015).

The turn to agency in anthropology was influenced by 1960s and 1970s social movements.
Feminist anthropologists struggle to balance portraying women as victims while acknowledging their agency within patriarchal contexts.
Mahmood (2006): women's piety movement illustrates how women enact agency through traditional norms without necessarily contradicting patriarchal structures.

Discussion around agency has shifted towards relational and distributed forms.
Agency is viewed as interconnected with non-human actors and artifacts.
Example: Actor-Network Theory (ANT) explains social situations through the interactions of human and non-human actors, challenging traditional distinctions.
Concepts of non-mastery and entangled agency offer nuanced frameworks for understanding complex relational dynamics in social contexts.

Discussions surrounding agency have evolved, moving beyond simplistic notions of resistance or autonomy.
Current anthropological explorations emphasize relationality, complexity, and the role of the non-human in agency.
The traditional view linking agency to liberal concepts of choice is critiqued as inadequate, advocating for more contextually sensitive understandings.

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