Agency, power, modernity: A manifesto for social theory

Reed, Isaac Ariail; Weinman, Michael

doi:10.1080/23254823.2018.1499434

Cited by 13 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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Section: Problematising Agency and The Welfare Subjectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Distinguishing between action and agency, Reed and Weinman (2019: 10) argue that while action entails an engagement with future projects, agency implies a high probability of bringing such projects to fulfilment. Success, they suggest, is enhanced by the ability to enlist others as one’s agents , thus constructing an ‘agency chain’ (2019: 14). However, in the case of welfare reform, such ‘fulfilment’ requires co-option of the welfare subject, whose own agency – shaped and constrained by their principles, interests, capacities and obligations – comes into play.…”

Section: Problematising Agency and The Welfare Subjectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Incentives, caps and coercion thus reflect the institutional conception of agency as it appears in the welfare context. This, Giddens would argue, amounts to more than a consensual backdrop but conveys a distinctive moral message fashioned by active policy agents – initiating what Reed and Weinman (2019) would term an ‘agency chain’. However, given the central objective of behavioural change, an understanding of how policy is experienced by claimants is crucial to its efficacy and its legitimacy, both in terms of the regulatory framework in operation and its mesh with the complexities of everyday life.…”

Section: Purposive Rationality and Practical Reasonmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Activating the Welfare Subject: The Problem of Agency

Morris

2019

Sociology

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While accepting Banton’s recently expressed view that sociology and social policy are distinct disciplines, this article argues that times of radical change can profitably bring the two into closer dialogue. Considering an argument from Emirbayer and Mische that agency becomes especially apparent in unsettled times, it focuses on conceptions of agency at play in the design and implementation of recent UK welfare reforms, and in subsequent legal challenges. Identifying a series of key measures in the Welfare Reform Act of 2012 and the Welfare and Work Act of 2016, this article examines the challenges that have ensued, and the way that agency is revealed as both a site of disciplinary control and as a focus for contestation, pitting the purposive rationality of welfare reform against the practical reason that emerges from claimant experience.

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Section: Problematising Agency and The Welfare Subjectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Problematising Agency and The Welfare Subjectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Purposive Rationality and Practical Reasonmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Activating the Welfare Subject: The Problem of Agency

Morris

2019

Sociology

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“…Power remains an important phenomenon within modern day social theory (Reed & Weinman, 2019) and a significant focal point of contemporary social work, clearly visible in notions of empowerment and anti-oppressive practice (British Association of Social Work, 2021; Thompson, 2016). Whilst such terms are discursively evident, the concept of power remains contested.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Power-informed practice in social work

Karim

2023

Journal of Social Work

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Summary This article reviews the existing literature on power within a social work context and extends the analysis to broader sociological understandings through which to rethink the ways in which social work professionals understand and work with power within everyday practice. Findings The review argues that prevailing dichotomies, which feature so centrally in theoretical conceptualisations of power, offering binary positions of power as ‘good or bad’, ‘positive or negative’ and ‘productive or limiting’ are limiting in themselves. It is argued that power must also be recognised as a construct which operates in a synchronous way; whereby it can impact in limiting and productive ways at the same time. Applications To support this position, the Power-informed Practice (PiP) framework, which recognises power at the individual, professional and structural levels is offered. The utility of the framework in providing a clearer understanding of power is then presented in relation to working with children who have experienced abuse. As a tool, the framework enables social workers to structure their analysis of power within all areas of contemporary social work practice, in order to promote and support processes of empowerment.

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“…Debates about agency in both sociology and philosophy tend to emphasize its distinction from constraint (Adams, 2011;Archer, 2000Archer, , 2003Meyer and Jepperson, 2000;Reed and Weinman, 2019;Sewell, 1992;Taylor, 1985). In other words, questions about agency are, whether implicitly or explicitly, also questions about the limiting power of larger forces, whether it is Augustine wondering how free anyone could be in a world preordained by God (Weaver, 1996), Kant worrying that Newtonian causation might make us all so many measurable phenomena (Westphal, 2017), or Pierre Bourdieu positing that our thoughts and actions are almost (though not entirely) reducible to field position (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Traces of the Dead, Actions of the Not-Alive: A Prologue to a Theory of Agentification

Guhin

2022

American Behavioral Scientist

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The author describes how sociological and philosophical discussions of agency tend to center questions of how or why people are agentic rather than who or what is agentic. In contrast, the author poses questions about the agency of things, the agency of non-humans, and the agency of dead humans, using three examples of historical traces—Washington’s refusal of a third term, Jenner’s development of the smallpox vaccines, and Smith’s publication of The Wealth of Nations—as historical examples to examine how non-humans and non-living-humans leave traces that can experienced as agentic. The author then analyzes six theories of agency that might provide explanations for these actions (actants, affordances, switchmen, residue, repression, and ghosts) before turning to his earlier work on the concept of “external authorities.”

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Agency, power, modernity: A manifesto for social theory

Cited by 13 publications

References 36 publications

Activating the Welfare Subject: The Problem of Agency

Activating the Welfare Subject: The Problem of Agency

Power-informed practice in social work

Traces of the Dead, Actions of the Not-Alive: A Prologue to a Theory of Agentification

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