Abstract

AbstractThis paper reflects on the ways in which the concepts of agency, time, and morality can be linked together. It does so by considering how the kind of thinking which goes on in social anthropology and economic anthropology can contribute to our understanding of ‘agency’. It then relates the discussion of agency to the concepts of time and morality. The mode of reasoning in social anthropology can be described as cyclical: social theory generates general questions that can be asked of a human society in particular times and places. Those questions stimulate empirical investigation, which results in a descriptive analysis of human social reality – known in social anthropology as ethnography. In turn, ethnography often challenges existing paradigms in social theory, because it throws up puzzles about human social interaction that can only be resolved by revising existing theory. Thus, there is a cycle in which theory stimulates ethnography, which throws up puzzles that can only be resolved by revising or changing theory. The same cycle can be discerned in economic anthropology, that sub-branch of social anthropology which understands ‘economy’ as a holistic social process interweaving production, exchange, and consumption (Narotzky 1997). The ethnography of micro-economic reality has provided rich evidence about human decision-making that can be used to address general theoretical questions. From its origin in studies of gift exchange (eg., Malinowski 1922) to contemporary studies of money and debt (eg., Graeber 2011), economic anthropology, like its parent discipline, has been preoccupied with theoretical questions like the tension between ‘agency’ and ‘structure’, ‘individual’ and ‘society’.

Highlights

  • Bourdieu argues that competency in the different kinds of social interaction operates by individuals not thinking about how they act

  • There have been notable efforts in social anthropology to outline theories that do stress the importance of agency

  • In this essay I will concentrate on the arguments of Terry Evens in his 2008 volume, Anthropology as Ethics, because he ranges so widely across philosophy and social theory

Read more

Summary

Agency in Social Anthropology

In a lucid short essay on the history of agency in anthropological theory, Nigel Rapport shows how ideas of agency have emerged from debates over the connection between individuals and social structure. These debates explored the nature of individual consciousness and its freedom from external determination. Bourdieu argues that competency in the different kinds of social interaction operates by individuals not thinking about how they act His key concept of habitus – ‘the system of durable dispositions, predisposed to act as ... I contrast Bourdieu’s weak idea of agency as limited, structured change in a social system, with Evens’ strong concept of agency as self-conduction in responsibility to others

The Argument
An Ethnography of Economic Action
Theoretical Implications of Ethnography for a Theory of Agency
Implications for the Study of Global Markets
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call