Social Construction - Essay Example

If reality is socially constructed, who built it Introduction The social construction of reality is a theme widely debated among the scholars of various hues. Since the systematic espousal of the perspective by Berger and Luckmann in their influential work 'Social Construction of Reality' in 1966, a number of theorists have undertaken deep going studies on the subject matter. Although, the assertion that realities are socially constructed has gained considerable consensus from the academic community, the question of the agency that builds the socially constructed realities is not adequately resolved. The agency or authorship of language, culture, social groups and macro structures in the making of the social construction of reality has been highlighted by theorists from radically different platforms. On the other hand, contemporary post structuralist perspective even goes to the extent to deny the very possibility of such an agency or authorship as it was clearly asserted in the famous assertion by Rolland Barthes that 'The Author is Dead'. Rather than posing the arguments on the agency of the social construction of reality by contesting schools against each other, the paper intends to examine the postulate of each school based on its own 'internal validity'. Here, it is important to note that social constructionism as an academic school is much diverse in itself. In other words, considering the internal stratifications within the social constructionist 'movement', it is particularly impossible to delineate a single essential position of social constructionism. The Agency of the Social Construction of Reality Berger and Luckmann (1967) are of the view that consciousness of human beings is always intentional. They argue that it is nothing but intentionality makes the human consciousness so distinct. Therefore, in their analysis, a well-construed notion of intentionality remains central. Here, consciousness is not necessarily considered as being part of either "an external physical world or an inward subjective reality" (Berger and Luckmann, 1967, p.26). Reality is diverse in itself. What is deemed as reality involves different spheres. The different spheres of reality are constituted by different objects. The existence of multiple realities is the defining characteristic of the conscious of the world. To exemplify, the reality of people in dreams and the reality of people in the factories are equally realities. It is believed to be normal and self-evident. The reality of everyday life is the only reality that is of par excellence. The tensions at the level of consciousness are fully expressed only at this level of reality. The reality of everyday life is ordered in specific ways. The style of ordering of a particular reality would determine its essence. Reality is nothing but objectification events in day to day life in a structured manner. In the social construction of reality, Berger and Luckmann (1967) see the important role of language as the supreme co-ordinates of life. Common sense too is a constituent factor of reality as based on it people generally interact with each other in everyday life situations. In other words, everyday life has normal and self-evident routines which are shared by people from the standpoint of commonsense knowledge. The reality of everyday life is not only constituted but also constructed by social interactions. Face-to-face is the most real form of the construct of social interactions. One's subjectivity is particular to oneself. Social relations are highly flexible. The better knowledge of multiple social realities could be achieved through reflection. Therefore, Berger and Luckmann (1967) refer at the social construction of reality as a process through which individuals produce and reproduce the world through social interactions. The very existence of human beings, for Berger and Luckmann, is essentially linked to language. They forcefully argue that the social world and its complexities cannot be understood without using the medium of language. Language is not the perfect but appropriate medium cognizing the social world and the realities of it. "The common objectivations of everyday life are maintained primarily by linguistic signification. Everyday life is, above all, life with and by means of the language I share with my fellowmen. An understanding of language is thus essential for any understanding of the reality of everyday life" (Berger and Luckmann, 1967, p.37). Not only the cognizance of reality, but also the constitution of reality is shaped by language. They attribute coercive powers to language in its effect on a person as a facility external to that person and thereby, the omnipotence language happens to acquire with relations to reality. Social construction of reality is a process, which is overdetermined. The overdetermination of reality is characterised by determination by multiple factors. It has been observed by many a theorist that language plays a pivotal role in the overdetermination of multiple realities. "As soon as an objective social world is established, the possibility of reification is never far away. The objectivity of the social world means that it confronts man as something outside of himself. The decisive question is whether he still retains the awareness that, however, objectivated, the social world was made by men-and, therefore, can be remade by them" (Berger and Luckmann, 1967, p.36). The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis too asserts the role of language in the making of the reality. It is argued that the reality in of one's experience is uniquely derived from his/her language situation. In other words, social reality is structured by the very language one consciously or unconsciously employs. It is through the medium of language one perceives the world. Therefore, differences in individual languages act as the basis of differences in perceived or constructed reality. Interactions refer at the actions of human beings which take place as a response to the actions of others. Interactions could also be the actions of a person which is anticipated or necessitated by the actions of others. Berger and Luckmann (1967) indicates that the meanings of social situations and events are assigned only through the medium of interactions based on which the construction of social reality itself is actualised. Arguing against Mead's symbolic interactionist philosophy, social constructivists assert that social agents are not merely to recognise, identify and respond to already existing or given meanings and significance of a situation. The ability of social agents to negotiate and contest given meanings and significance cannot be underestimated. The simple fact is that individuals do exist before social roles and norms. Social agents are not simply choosing between available social roles and rules but defining and redefining such rules and roles in order to place them appropriately in a social event or situation. The notion that society is objective cannot be true as it does not exist independently of social agents. Social agents, based on their shared understanding of the social situation and common approval of the roles and rules, continuously construct and maintain the social reality through the medium of interaction. The core postulate of social construction of reality formulation is the understanding that social institutions and social life are not natural, given or pre-determined. Social construction of reality thesis emphasises on the ways through which the realities pertaining to the social world are socially constructed. The claim of social constructivism is at the primary level nothing but trivial since it is so natural that the grasping of surrounding realities by human beings is essentially mediated by culture and language. However, without looking at the once prevalent Durkheimian conception of society as a pre-given reality, the significance and relevance of social construction of reality paradigm cannot be judged. Earlier, if the emphasis was on the constraining social elements to which individuals are subjected, social constructivists turned agency- structure relations upside down. According to social constructionism the vital point is to stress upon the practices of individuals aimed at the invention and reinvention of the social world. Most importantly, individuals are not merely confronting the given social contexts which they happened to be in. Rather, they actively conscientise the social settings which they are placed in and embodify them with personal elements. In other words, everyone personalises the social settings through his/her own reflexive praxis. "Reification is the apprehension of human phenomena as if they were things, that is, in non-human or possibly supra-human terms. Another way of saying this is that reification is the apprehension of the products of human activity as if they were something else than human products-such as facts of nature, results of cosmic laws, or manifestations of divine will. Reification implies that man is capable of forgetting his own authorship of the human world, and further, that the dialectic between man, the producer, and his products is lost to consciousness. The reified world is, by definition, a dehumanized world. It is experienced by man as a strange facticity, over which he has no control" (Berger and Luckmann, 1967, p.89). Primarily and most importantly, social constructionism challenges the rigid, artificial and reductionist dichotomy between individual agencies and societal institutions and structures. Society does not and cannot exist without individuals who are poised to bring changes about rather intentionally or unintentionally. Nonetheless, it is noted that while dealing with ontological questions, the social constructionist perspective is devoid of much theoretical rigour and precision. For instance, when one comes up with argument that there are occasions where social reality is necessarily determined by physical entities such as human body, natural phenomena and disorders, social constructionism cannot simply deny the paradigmatic weakness in its way of looking at the world. At this conjuncture, it would be useful to bear in mind the famous Foucauldian assertion that body is not a product of biology but a distinctive discursive formation mediated by micro power structures which permeate almost every social action. "The individual may dream up any number of institutional arrangements that might well be more interesting, perhaps even more functional than the institutions actually recognized in his culture. As long as these sociological dreams, so to speak, are confined to the individual's own consciousness and are not recognized by others, they will exist only as shadow like phantasmata. By contrast, the institutions of the individual's society, however much he may dislike them, will be real. In other words, the cultural world is not only collectively produced, but it remains real by virtue of collective recognition" (Berger and Luckmann, 1967, p.104). The social constructionist appraisal of technology in the making of social realities in world of extreme sophistication and mechanisation is critised from many corners to be inadequate. Grint and Woolgar (1997) is of the view that there lies an "opportunity to forge alliances that transcend the usual distinction between analyst and practitioner" in order to comprehend the social reality in its entire complexity" (Grint and Woolgar, 1997, p.140). However, the argument concerning the deterministic role of technology in the social construction of reality is a not considerably different from the technological determinism of some variants of Marxism. Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that technological developments are closely entwined with the existing and emergent social realities. The fact is that many a value conflicts embedded in social realities are directly or indirectly linked to technology and it management and distribution. As Grint and Woolgar categorically states that technology "exists only in and through our descriptions and practices, and hence it is never available in a raw, untainted state" (1997, p. 148). Here, it is meant that the content of technology with relations to social realities are redefined and modified by the users in the very act of making use of the technology. Conclusion The agency of the social construction of reality is always multiple. No single actor or the agency of a single variable can monopolise the social construction of reality. Each reality is socially constructed with in a historical assemblage of many factors through the process of overdetermination. The existence of every day life is purely self evident so that social reality cannot be subsumed to metaphysical logic. The reality of everyday life is constructed upon the actions of social agents alone, which, of course, differently influences by social factors such as language, culture, technology and ideology. It is the fallacy ideal types or pure theoretical constructs take account of social reality without looking at the conscious actions of social agents that make such realities possible. The disjunction between thought and reality manufactured by institutions of social oppression, especially the state institutions is leading the situation to the loss of common sense knowledge of the world simply derived from the perceptions of the 'real' people. Bibliography Berger, P. and Luckmann, T. (1967) The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Billig, M. (1996) Arguing and Thinking: A Rhetorical Approach to Social Psychology (2nd ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Billig, M., Condor, S., Edwards, D., Gane, M., Middleton, D., and Radley, A. (1988) Ideological Dilemmas: A Social Psychology of Everyday Thinking London: Sage, Ch. 1 Burr, V. (1995) An Introduction to Social Constructionism, London: Routledge. (See also 2nd ed.) Dant, T. (1991), Knowledge, Ideology and Discourse: A Sociological Perspective, London: Routledge Gergen, M. and Gergen, K. (eds) (2003) Social Construction: A Reader, London: Sage Grint, K. and Woolgar, S. (1997) 'What's social about being shot' in The Machine at Work: Technology, Work and Organization, London: Sage, pp. 140-168 Locke, S. (1999), Constructing 'The Beginning': Discourses of Creation Science. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Potter, J. (1996) Representing Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Construction, London: Sage. Potter, J. and Wetherell, M. (1989), Discourse and Social Psychology, London: Sage Seidman, S. (2004) Contested Knowledge: Social Theory Today (3rd ed.), Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 80-85. Read More