Discuss the ways in which individuals and communities demonstrate agency in their lives - Essay Example

Agency facilitates the way the individual’s negotiates their lifestyle particularly through interpersonal dialogues. Some may however not use interpersonal dialogues but settle on constructing their lives “spaces” individually, and avoiding linguistic interactions and interpersonal dialogues entirely. Nevertheless, it is vital to note that individual’s demonstration of agency later on forms the building blocks of a community. This is because individuals are community agents since they express their thoughts on cultural matters to other people.

Through agency, people are able to carry out face-to-face conversations with people from other communities. This has an impact on either side of the communities since culture is a negotiated meaning (Gutman 5). Being a negotiated meaning, a cultural forum in which the culture is negotiated and re-negotiated is what makes and remakes the culture and the community. This therefore supports the earlier argument that through agency, individuals are not passive recipients of community outcomes. Through agency, individuals are able to engage in cultural construction (Gutman 6).

Another demonstration of agency is seen in babies. . This could also mean that the adults from the children could also be the same. Children therefore exploit the meaning they derive from the pre- existing culture to build their own understanding of the world that later on helps them or destroys them as adults. Based on this argument, it is evident that agency plays a vital role in shaping up the future of individuals. For instance, if an individual is given to express his/her opinion of an event, the person will be treated by the other based on the opinion.

There is also a probability that the individual may influence others in the process. The opinion may have been constructed from the way the individual views the society from his/her own small world. Agency also influences personal behavior among individuals. The various changes in personal behavior evolve with time and it determines the way people respond to different circumstances. The changes in individual behavior lead to changes in the culture of a society. Some individuals view them as suggestions meaning they can be ignored, circumvented or disregarded (Gutman, 6).

Through agency, cultural influences have no power over individuals unless they allow them to have power over them. Gutman (7) concluded that the depiction he had of Mexican men was wrong. This is because what he saw was different from what he had the society expected of Mexican men i.e. the men were hard drinkers and philandering macho men. This therefore shows that the men had evolved and developed their own views and goals different from the overall depiction of community as seen by outsiders.

The limiting factor in the argument above is the lack of empirical data to measure the extent of ignoring or circumventing the cultural influences in the above case. Furthermore, the