Michel Foucault's Contribution to the Structure-Agency Debate - Literature review Example

CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF MICHEL FOUCAULT’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE STRUCTURE – AGENCY DEBATE Introduction In the social sciences, an ongoing debate continues regarding the extent to which individual behaviour is the outcome of external forces such as social, political or economic on the one hand, or that of internal, individual and self-determined expressions on the other (Cote & Levine, 2002: 9). This controversy is termed as the “structure-agency debate” which has been defined as “the disagreement as to whether human behaviour is determined and constrained by normed social structures” or is the result of an individual’s characterisitcs and will (Cote & Levine, 2002: 223). Most sociologists, from Durkheim to Talcott Parsons and Radcliffe Brown focus on the standard structures of societies for explaining behaviour patterns. The wider acceptance of the social-structural explanations of identity is attributed to the fact that unlike an individual’s characteristics, social structure is represented by an elaborate conceptual framework (Cote & Levine, 2002: 46). However, it will be seen that sociologists such as Cooley, Blumer, Goffman and Garfinkel emphasise the significance of agency, the symbolic nature of human interaction and the ways in which humans negotiate roles and meanings on an on-going basis. This paper proposes to critically assess Michel Foucault’s contribution to the structure-agency debate, as against the perspectives of other sociologists on this controversy. Discussion According to Foucault, modern society is highly differentiated and fragmented. Power is not a commodity which can be acquired, nor is it the property of an individual or class, it is rather a structural phenomenon, an extensive network which is all-encompassing. Foucault’s view of modernity is that there exist many centres of power, and connections between various areas of power. This approach is in contrast to the Marxist emphasis and focus on the class struggle and the state, as the centres of power. Further, the mode of production, the work and the industrial sphere that Marx identified as central to power, is different from the Foucaultian view of power as existing in several different social settings and locations (Layder, 2006: 125, 126). Power and Knowledge as Essential Dimensions of Individual Agency The intellectual movement of the eighteenth century, termed as the Enlightenment developed the concept of “modernity” along with a range of disciplines which constitute the social sciences, forming the modern conception of knowledge (Billington, 1998: 6). Dawe (1970: 208) states that to solve the problem of social order the Hobbesian approach to human nature, which is: “in the absence of external constraint, the pursuit of private interests and desires leads invevitably to both social and individual disintegration” was taken into consideration. Sociological imagination is the capacity to see the connection between the most impersonal transformations in history with the most intimate features of an individual’s biography. Men now hope to understand the impact of the happenings in the world on themselves; as the “minute points of intersection of biography and history within society” (Mills, 1956 a: 7). The sociological imagination helps to distinguish between the personal troubles of one’s immediate environment in which self also plays a part, as against the public issues related to social structure which influence social and historical life. According to Mills (1956 b: 3), only some men, the power elite, belonging to the higher circles in society have positions of power which facilitate their rise above the environments of ordinary people. Michel Foucault’s (1926-1984) work has extensively affected the teachings of several disciplines, and his theories always focus on the underlying mentalities and psychology of human life (Foucault, 2001: 393). From a Foucaultian perspective, the key to understanding an institution are the ideas and concepts that support its legal character, class composition, patterns of behaviour and the institution itself (Bevir, 1999: 352). In Foucault’s wide field of study was the consistent significance given to power and knowledge, and how they functioned together through the medium of language (Foucault, 1994: 12). Bourdieu (1999: 502) supports this view, stating that linguistic exchange, related to “communication between a sender and a receiver, based on enciphering and deciphering, the implementation of a code or a generative competence is also an economic exchange”. In this, a symbolic relation of power is established between the producer who expresses certain linguistic capital, and the consumer who is capable of obtaining some material or symbolic profit, from the exchange. The minute power relations within society is exemplified by the disciplining carried out in the penal system, in which three hundred years ago punishment was carried out through violence and torture (Foucault, 1995: 4). From the era of feudal judges rose the neutral but authoritative judicial order which was backed by public power, and was meant to resolve disputes fairly. Foucault describes the nature of power in society, that of powerful individuals, repressive institutions, and more widely prevailing mechanisms all of which reach unobtrusively into the very fabric of society, into individuals, affecting their actions and attitudes, speech, and all aspects of their everyday lives (Foucault, 1980: 6). The Body in Relation to Identity Like the significance of power and knowledge, the body also plays an important role in Foucault’s conception of an individual’s identity or agency. Increasingly, sociological and cultural literature have attempted to focus on how the body has been constructed by social forces (Woodward, 1997: 78). A different approach to the importance of embodiment were the social constructionist approaches which explain the significance of the body by social causal factors and ignore the importance of the physical body as a reason for inequalities, thus taking an incomplete approach (Woodward, 1997: 78). Among the most influential constructionists are Foucault and Goffman, who in their respective analyses of disciplinary systems and interaction order, have given the body central importance. Sociology has traditionally adopted a dual approach towards the body, enabling the interpretation of Foucault and Goffman in a variety of ways. Foucault’s perspective regarding the body is as an entity that remains stable throughout history as a product of constructing discourses (Woodward, 1997: 79). Thus, the body is always ready to be constructed by discourse and is equally available for being constituted by and for receiving meaning from external forces. Further, Foucault has consistently believed in the changing ways in which the body and the social institutions related to it have entered into political relations. For example, in the nineteenth century the body was increasingly treated as a thing, or objectified (Foucault, 1984: 10). As compared to Foucault, Goffman’s approach gives an in-depth view of how linguistic and symbolic classification systems affect our views of human physicality. Goffman asserts “that the body mediates the relationship between people’s self-identity and their social identity” (Woodward, 1997: 80, 81). Goffman does not consider the body as an integral part of human agency. As with Foucault, the meaning of the body is inscribed in the mind. Thus both Foucault and Goffman’s views on the body are based on varieties of social constructionism, and the body as an integral part of human agency is regarded as vital in determining human behaviour. The Self and Self-Identity According to Layder (2004: 157), poststructuralists have believed that individual selves exist only in language and discourse, and outside these dimensions they do not exist. The approach of this discourse analysis is that individuals with their own intentions, desires, thoughts and purposes do not exist separately from the social discourses that support them. Later, social constructionists also shared the same idea, though they specified that emotions, motives, reasons and intentions are not internal states of individual selves, but are exterior characteristics. Postmodernism emphasizes that the self is ephemeral, fragmented and discontinuous. The concept of a central core self which remained unchanged has been replaced by the view that the self and the narratives of lives can be endlessly re-created and revised. However, Layder (2004: 158) stresses on the realistic view that personal identity is not simply a social construct, is partly independent of social forces and has an individual existence. Foucault’s approach towards the importance of identity as compared to structural factors is endorsed by the fact that the central place in social analysis should be accorded to the individual and his vibrant subjective interior, along with social factors. Similarly, though self-identity can change according to circumstances, it cannot be viewed as something that can be revised or re-created, since that would undervalue individual capabilities and underestimate the formative influence of social forces. Talcott Parsons’ approach towards the relationship between society and personality was that “the individual had to be understood in sociological terms as institutionalized individualism” (Robertson & Turner, 1991: 8, 9). Parson depended heavily on Durkheimian tradition, conceiving the institutionalized individual as the product of changes in the social structure. This was followed by Michel Foucault’s development of the idea of “technologies of the self” and the “cultivation of the self” which focused on identity and personality. It is seen that like Foucault, Cooley (1983: 22) believed in the individual being the chief reason behind the manifestation of behaviour. A derivation of this concept is presented by Garfinkel (1973: 89), who studies the identity change that a deviant is made to undergo by the external force of a public degradation ceremony. A new discredited identity is forced upon the individual, and the outcome is the deviant’s spoiled identity in the eyes of society as well as to his own self. Structuration The term structure refers to “an ordered arrangement of parts or components” (Radcliffe-Brown & Kuper, 1977: 19). The units of social strucuture are people. Social structure may be defined as an arrangement of persons in institutionally defined relationships. An institution is an established norm of conduct recognized as such by a distinguishable social group, and an organization refers to an arrangement of activities. Radcliffe-Brown & Kuper (1977: 27) use the term social structure to denote the network of actually existing relations. Further, all mutual social relations and the differentiation of individuals and of classes by their social role are included in social structure. There is a general relation between social structure and language as observed in speech communities with a connected set of speech usages. This approach is not supported by Blumer (1966: 543) who states that interaction should be viewed as interaction between people and not between roles, and should be open-ended and active. The key concept of the Giddens’ structuration theory is the duality of structures. The theory refers to an extremely wide range of topics, the nature of everyday interactions, the development of the nation state, citizenship rights, evolutionary theories of society, class analysis and many more (Layder, 2006: 157). Human actions are not only a part of, but are constrained by the structural contexts within which they originate and develop. Habitus is the term used for the durable set of dispositions that people acquire as a result of social experience, in particular backgrounds and circumstances, which predisposes them to approach the world with the knowledge and interactional resources acquired. Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice, through the concept of habitus, attempts to forge a link between the analysis of objective social relations with that of social agency (Layder, 2006: 195, 193). One of the important features of Giddens’ structuration theory is its concern with human agency. Similarly, Foucault’s approach to give significance to the self and not to social forces, is an inadequate approach. Several sociologists (Goffman, Turner and Mouzelis) endorse the mutually constitutive relation between agency-structure (Layder, 2006: 265). Thus, both social structure and agency are vital determinants of human behaviour. Conclusion The structure-agency debate on the extent to which an individual’s identity as compared to social structure determines his/ her behaviour, continues to be discussed by late modernists. The development of a social-psychological analysis of identity and structure as viewed by various sociologists is compared to Foucault’s approach. This paper has critically assessed Foucault’s contribution, revealing that his concepts on how power worked in society, and the role of individuals in the social scientific sphere explain the structuration of modern society. It is observed that Foucault attributed an individual’s behaviour to his identity, concept of self and agency, and did not consider social structure as a causal factor. This marginalization of the significance of structure is seen to detract from the wholeness of his viewpoint. Foucault understood discourses as the source of knowledge frameworks, and he consequently held the role of institutional and social practices as subordinate. By this, he leaned towards theory more than practice. With Foucault’s discovery of the concept of power, which he believed to permeate throughout the social structure, there was found to be a shift in his approach, by favouring practice over theory (Barrett, 1991: 135). However, it is concluded that both sociological and psychological perspectives are found to be essential in analysing human behaviour which is the manifestation of both external-social and internal-agentic factors (Cote & Levine, 2002: 54). References Barrett, M. 1991. 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