Modernity and Postmodernity

1. Order versus Fluidity

2. Clear Distinctions versus Negotiable Meaning
3. Predictability versus Uncertainty
4. Rational Progress versus Playfulness
5. Control versus Uncertainty
6. Future-orientation versus Present-orientation
7. Production versus Consumption
8. Experts versus Gurus
etc. etc

Is there a Third Way?

 The Sociological Tradition(s)

Sociology is the study of:

1. persisting patterns or structures external to
individuals re Marx, Durkheim, Foucault, Bourdieu
etc etc power and constraint

OR
2. The purposeful actions of human beings re Weber,
Simmel, ethnomethodology etc etc meaning and
decision-making

Is there a Third Way

 Lord Anthony Giddens (1938-)
1. A globally recognised British social theorist

2. Considerable political and cultural influence

3. Typically associated with attempts to reconcile

apparently opposed ways of thinking in both
Sociology and practical politics

4. Still alive

5. The Third Way?

 Structuration Theory - Topics

1. Action and Structure

2. Key Term - Agency

3. Key Term – Structure

4. Key Term – Structuration (agency+structure)

5. Consciousness & Society

6. Time & Space

 Structuration Theory -goal

To overcome the opposition between the two

traditions. This requires:
1. Action is not equated with individual human
activity: re. Weber
2. Structure is not identified with external
constraint: re. Durkheim

Men make their own history but not in

circumstances of their own choosing: Marx
 Key terms – not action but agency

AGENT = any social unit that is capable of making a

difference.
Source: Giddens
i.e. agent ≠ only human individuals

AGENCY the continuous flow of conduct.

Source: Dallmayr
i.e. agency ≠ events just in the here-and-now
 Key terms - structure

STRUCTURE(S): rules and resources, or sets of

transformation relations, organized as properties of
social systems
SYSTEM(S): reproduced relations between actors or
collectivities, organised as regular social practices
Source: Giddens, A ‘The constitution of society’ p.25

Structure is the “objectification of past actions of past

agents” (re Berger & Luckman)
Source: Dallmayr
 Key terms -Structuration
Agency and Structure (are therefore) mutually
dependant...Structure is the medium through which
(agency) is produced”
Source: Giddens Central Problems in Social Theory, page 69-70

Duality of Structures means that social structures are

both constituted by human agency and yet at the same
time are the very medium of this constitution
Source: Giddens New Rules of Sociological Method, page 121

Structuration (is a) connecting of human action with

structural explanation in social analysis
Source: Giddens Central Problems in Social Theory page 49
 Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

What is the relationship of an MP to their constituents?

x Delegate one who follows the instruction of others

√ Representative one who uses their judgement on

behalf of others to whom he/she is accountable.

Structuration Theory As agents we use our practical

understanding (phenomenology) and the resources of
the social structure (Bourdieu et al) to construct
social reality
 Instance – International Migration
Goss, J. Conceptualising international labor migration
International Migration Review 1995
1. Filipinos migrate overseas to seek work
2. They are obligated to assist their kin; remittances
3. They recommend their kin to employers
4. Therefore, kinship structure takes on a new
economic significance through the agency of
migrants
5. AND the agency of migrants is constrained by the
rules and relations (structure) of kinship
i.e. migration (agency) and kinship (structure) depend
upon and affect each other
 Instance: Managerial Innovation

Coopey et al Manager’s Innovations…

1. Changing the situation (agency)
2. in context of constraints, rules and resources
(structure)
3. through selecting among available courses of
action (structuration)
4. and in changing the situation managers
change their perception of themselves
(reflexivity)
 Consciousness and Society
1. Practical Consciousness; taken-for-granted raelity
2. Discursive Consciousness; legitimation
3. Unconscious; unacknowledged motivations
make possible
Reflexivity the knowledgeability of agents (informed
citizens/klever burgher)
but there is also
Sequestration the institutionalised hiding
away/separation of different spheres of personal life

Therefore,
intentional agency has unintended consequences
 Time & Space

1. Agency is constituted (constructed) through

time and space

2. Schutz on predecessors, contemporaries and

successors

3. The problem of ‘infinite regress’ in

structuration theory
 Modernity and Postmodernity

1. Order versus Fluidity

2. Clear Distinctions versus Negotiable Meaning
3. Predictability versus Uncertainty
4. Rational Progress versus Playfulness
5. Control versus Uncertainty
6. Future-orientation versus Present-orientation
7. Production versus Consumption
8. Experts versus Gurus
etc. etc

Is there a Third Way?

 High Modernity

Continues the processes of modernity eg

rationalisation, urbanisation, technological
advance etc (modern culture)

But, because of its own reflexivity, (self-

examination of its practices) high modernity
increases uncertainty through accelerating
change (postmodern culture)

High Modernity as Jagernnath (Reith lecture)

 Modernity & Time
High Modernity = a changed relationship to time
because modernity is institutionally reflexive

Cause: De-traditionalisation The loss of the legitimating

authority of tradition. This is part of the process of
modernisation. A respectful, deferential attitude
towards the collective past is replaced by a sense of
loss, ‘nostalgia’ and, re consumer images, ‘heritage’.
Source: adapted from Giddens, A. Consequences of modernity
Re also Bellah Habits of the heart
 Modernity and Space

High Modernity = a changed relationship to

space which both expands and contracts

Cause: Disembedding the "lifting out" of social

relations from local contexts and their
rearticulation across indefinite tracts of time-
space
Source: Giddens 'Modernity & Self-Identity' p.18
 The Problem of Order as the Problem of Trust in High
Modernity

Ontological Security A sense of continuity and order in

events, including those not directly within the
perceptual environment of the individual
Source Giddens, A Modernity and Self-identity p.243 (emphasis
added)
Trust trust in others ….is at the origin of the experience
of a stable external world and a coherent sense of self-
identity. It is 'faith' in the reliability and integrity of
others that is at stake here…trust, interpersonal
relations and a conviction of the 'reality' of things go
hand in hand in the social settings of adult life
Source: Giddens 'Modernity & Self-Identity' p.51-52
 Trust & Expertise

expert systems bracket time and space through

deploying modes of technical knowledge which
have validity independent of the practitioners
and clients who use them
Source: Giddens 'Modernity & Self-Identity' p.18
That is, we no longer trust persons but
systems of which we know little
 High Modernity as Risk Society

In the charged reflexive settings of high

modernity, living on 'automatic pilot' becomes
more and more difficult to do
Source: Modernity & self-identity p.125

living in the "risk society" means living with a

calculative attitude to the open possibilities of
action, positive and negative, with which, as
individuals and globally, we are confronted in
a continuous way
Source: Giddens 'Modernity & Self-Identity' p.28
 Risk and Hazard

Giddens (possibly) confuses these terms

Risk = likelihood of particular outcomes
Hazard = damage of particular outcomes

Arguably:
Traditional societies = high risk, low hazard
High Modernity = low risk, high hazard
 Risk Society

A society organised (structure) around the

management of man-made (agency) risks

We attempt to control (structure) risk through both

personal and institutional risk assessment (agency)
but this itself is inherently risky (i.e. less than
reliable)

The Risk Society produces and distributes both

‘goods’ (things, commodities) and ‘bads’ (risks
resulting from, in part, the production of goods)
(Beck)
 Giddens & Beck

Giddens typical focus is on the risks of intimacy

and the fragility of contemporary self-identity

Beck’s typical focus is on the risks of large scale

processes e.g. environmental degradation,
nuclear disaster

Re-opening the agency/structure divide?