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).

Historical Context of Agency

• 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'.

Theoretical Tensions

• 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.

Evolution of Agency in Anthropology

• 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.

Types of Agency

• 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.

Cultural Constructions of Agency

• 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.

Anthropological Approaches to Agency and Language

• 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).

Agency in Feminist Anthropology

• 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.

Distributed Agency

• 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.

Conclusion: Ongoing Debates

• 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.