The dilemma of ‘the capable actor’ and the case of disrupted lives

Abstract

This article considers the notion of ‘the capable actor’, a prevalent figure in social theory which contemporary people in Western societies are expected to embrace. The question of agency is approached by looking at the phases of life in which people ‘fail’ to perform individual agentic capacities. The article draws on studies on biographical disruption caused by the loss of a spouse and serious illness on one hand, and on prenatal testing and the loss of an expected child on the other. The article challenges the individualistic notion of agency and shows how action is relationally accomplished through a wider figuration of actors. While persons going through disruptive life events are unable to actualise their personal freedoms and self-management as individuals, they nevertheless strive for autonomy and personal space. The article suggests that the figure of ‘the capable actor’ poses a dilemma which conditions the experiences of contemporary people. As such it challenges social scholars to consider the co-existing impossibility and immanent presence of individual agency, which is itself relationally enacted.