Editing Structuration theory (section)

== Main ideas ==

=== Duality of structure ===
Giddens observed that in social analysis, the term ''structure'' referred generally to "rules and resources" and more specifically to "the structuring properties allowing the 'binding' of time-space in social systems". These properties make it possible for similar social practices to exist across time and space and that lend them "systemic" form.<ref name="The constitution of society" />{{rp|17}} Agents—groups or individuals—draw upon these structures to perform social actions through embedded memory, called ''memory traces''. Memory traces are thus the vehicle<!-- need a word here that is not metaphorical. I thought maybe "means" but later "modality" gets that definition. --> through which social actions are carried out. Structure is also, however, the result of these social practices. Thus, Giddens conceives of the ''duality of structure'' as being:
{{Blockquote|...the essential recursiveness of social life, as constituted in social practices: structure is both medium and outcome of reproduction of practices. Structure enters simultaneously into the constitution of the agent and social practices, and 'exists' in the generating moments of this constitution.<ref name="Central problems">Giddens, A. (1979). ''Central problems in social theory: Action, structure, and contradiction in social analysis.'' Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.</ref>{{rp|5}}}}

Giddens uses "the duality of structure" (i.e. material/ideational, micro/macro) to emphasize structure's nature as both medium and outcome. Structures exist both internally within agents as memory traces that are the product of phenomenological and hermeneutic inheritance<ref name="Structuration theory" />{{rp|27}} and externally as the manifestation of social actions. Similarly, social structures contain agents and/or are the product of past actions of agents. Giddens holds this duality, alongside "structure" and "system," in addition to the concept of recursiveness, as the core of structuration theory.<ref name="The constitution of society" />{{rp|17}} His theory has been adopted by those with [[structuralism (sociology)|structuralist]] inclinations, but who wish to situate such structures in human practice rather than to [[Reification (knowledge representation)|reify]] them as an [[ideal type]] or material property. (This is different, for example, from [[actor–network theory]] which appears to grant a certain autonomy to technical artifacts.)

Social systems have patterns of social relation that change over time; the changing nature of space and time determines the interaction of social relations and therefore structure.<!-- huh? changing nature of s&t? --> Hitherto, social structures or models were either taken to be beyond the realm of human control—the [[positivistic]] approach—or posit that action creates them—the [[Interpretivism (social science)|interpretivist]] approach. The duality of structure emphasizes that they are different sides to the same central question of how social order is created.

[[Gregor McLennan]] suggested renaming this process "the duality of structure {{em|and agency}}", since both aspects are involved in using and producing social actions.<ref name="Critical assessments">McLennan, G. (1997/2000/2001). Critical or positive theory? A comment on the status of Anthony Giddens' social theory. In C.G.A. Bryant & D. Jary (Eds.), ''Anthony Giddens: Critical assessments'' (pp. 318-327). New York, NY: Routledge.</ref>{{rp|322}}

=== Cycle of structuration ===
The duality of structure is essentially a [[feedback]]–[[Feed forward (control)|feedforward]]{{clarify|date=May 2012}} process whereby agents and structures mutually enact social systems, and social systems in turn become part of that duality.{{citation needed|date=May 2012}} Structuration thus recognizes a social cycle. In examining social systems, structuration theory examines ''structure'', ''[[Modalities (sociology)|modality]]'', and ''interaction''. The "modality" (discussed below) of a structural system is the means by which structures are translated into actions.

==== Interaction ====
Interaction is the agent's activity within the social system, space and time. "It can be understood as the fitful yet routinized occurrence of encounters, fading away in time and space, yet constantly reconstituted within different areas of time-space."<ref name="The constitution of society" />{{rp|86}} [[Unspoken rule|Rule]]s can affect interaction, as originally suggested by [[Goffman]]. "Frames" are "clusters of rules which help to constitute and regulate activities, defining them as activities of a certain sort and as subject to a given range of sanctions."<ref name="The constitution of society" />{{rp|87}} Frames are necessary for agents to feel "ontological security, the trust that everyday actions have some degree of predictability. Whenever individuals interact in a specific context they address—without any difficulty and in many cases without conscious acknowledgement—the question: "What is going on here?" Framing is the practice by which agents make sense of what they are doing.<ref name="The constitution of society" />

==== Routinization ====
Structuration theory is centrally concerned with ''order'' as "the transcending of time and space in human social relationships".<ref name="The constitution of society"/> ''[[Institutionalization#Institutionalization|Institutionalized]] action'' and ''routinization'' are foundational in the establishment of social order and the reproduction of social systems. Routine persists in society, even during social and political revolutions, where daily life is greatly deformed, "as Bettelheim demonstrates so well, routines, including those of an obnoxious sort, are re-established."<ref name="The constitution of society" />{{rp|87}} Routine interactions become institutionalized features of social systems via tradition, custom and/or habit, but this is no easy societal task and it "is a major error to suppose that these phenomena need no explanation. On the contrary, as [[Goffman]] (together with [[ethnomethodology]]) has helped to demonstrate, the routinized character of most social activity is something that has to be 'worked at' continually by those who sustain it in their day-to-day conduct."<ref name="The constitution of society" /> Therefore, routinized social practices do not stem from coincidence, "but the skilled accomplishments of knowledgeable agents."<ref name="Structuration theory" />{{rp|26}}<!--this reads as though Bettelheim (routines are durable) contradicts Goffman (routines have to be "worked at"-->

''Trust'' and ''tact'' are essential for the existence of a "basic security system, the sustaining (in ''praxis'') of a sense of ontological security, and [thus] the routine nature of social reproduction which agents skilfully organize. The monitoring of the body, the control and use of face in '[[facework|face work]]'—these are fundamental to social integration in time and space."<ref name="The constitution of society" />{{rp|86}}

==== Explanation ====
{{Blockquote|When I utter a sentence I draw upon various syntactical rules (sedimented in my practical consciousness of the language) in order to do so. These structural features of the language are the medium whereby I generate the utterance. But in producing a syntactically correct utterance I simultaneously contribute to the reproduction of the language as a whole. ...The relation between moment and totality for social theory... [involves] a dialectic of presence and absence which ties the most minor or trivial forms of social action to structural properties of the overall society, and to the coalescence of institutions over long stretches of historical time.<ref name="The constitution of society" />{{rp|24}}}}
Thus, even the smallest social actions contribute to the alteration or reproduction of social systems. Social stability and order is not permanent; agents always possess a ''[[dialectic]] of control'' (discussed below) which allows them to break away from normative actions. Depending on the social factors present, agents may cause shifts in social structure.

The cycle of structuration is not a defined sequence; it is rarely a direct succession of causal events. Structures and agents are both internal and external to each other, mingling, interrupting, and continually changing each other as feedbacks and feedforwards occur. Giddens stated, "The degree of "[[systemness]]" is very variable. ...I take it to be one of the main features of structuration theory that the extension and 'closure' of societies across space and time is regarded as problematic."<ref name="The constitution of society" />{{rp|165}}

The use of "patriot" in political speech reflects this mingling, borrowing from and contributing to nationalistic norms and supports structures such as a [[police state]], from which it in turn gains impact.

===Structure and society===
Structures are the "rules and resources" embedded in agents' memory traces. Agents call upon their memory traces of which they are "knowledgeable" to perform social actions. "Knowledgeability" refers to "what agents know about what they do, and why they do it."<ref name="The constitution of society" /> Giddens divides memory traces (''structures-within-knowledgeability''<ref name="Structuration theory" />) into three types:
* Domination (power): Giddens also uses "resources" to refer to this type. "Authoritative resources" allow agents to control persons, whereas "allocative resources" allow agents to control material objects.
* Signification (meaning): Giddens suggests that meaning is inferred through structures. Agents use existing experience to infer meaning. For example, the meaning of living with mental illness comes from contextualized experiences.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Zanin|first1=Alaina C.|last2=Piercy|first2=Cameron W.|date=2018-07-19|title=The Structuration of Community-Based Mental Health Care: A Duality Analysis of a Volunteer Group's Local Agency|journal=Qualitative Health Research|volume=29|issue=2|pages=184–197|language=en|doi=10.1177/1049732318786945|pmid=30024315|url=https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/1808/27631/1/Zanin_2018.pdf|hdl=1808/27631|s2cid=51700414 |hdl-access=free}}</ref> 
* [[Legitimation]] (norms): Giddens sometimes uses "rules" to refer to either signification or legitimation. An agent draws upon these ''stocks of knowledge'' via memory to inform him or herself about the external context, conditions, and potential results of an action.

When an agent uses these structures for social interactions, they are called ''modalities'' and present themselves in the forms of facility (domination), interpretive scheme/communication (signification) and norms/sanctions (legitimation).

Thus, he distinguishes between overall "structures-within-knowledgeability" and the more limited and task-specific "modalities" on which these agents subsequently draw when they interact.

The duality of structures means that structures enter "simultaneously into the constitution of the agent and social practices, and 'exists' in the generating moments of this constitution."<ref name="Central problems" />{{rp|5}} "Structures exist paradigmatically, as an absent set of differences, temporally "present" only in their instantiation, in the constituting moments of social systems."<ref name="Central problems" />{{rp|64}} Giddens draws upon [[structuralism]] and [[post-structuralism]] in theorizing that structures and their meaning are understood by their differences.

===Agents and society===
Giddens' agents follow previous [[psychoanalysis]] work done by [[Sigmund Freud]] and others.<ref name="The constitution of society" /> Agency, as Giddens calls it, is human action. To be human is to be an agent (not all agents are human). Agency is critical to both the reproduction and the transformation of society. Another way to explain this concept is by what Giddens calls the "reflexive monitoring of actions."<ref name="Modernity and self-identity">Giddens, A. (1991). ''Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age.'' Cambridge: Polity Press.</ref> "Reflexive monitoring" refers to agents' ability to monitor their actions and those actions' settings and contexts. Monitoring is an essential characteristic of agency. Agents subsequently "rationalize," or evaluate, the success of those efforts. All humans engage in this process, and expect the same from others. Through action, agents produce structures; through reflexive monitoring and rationalization, they transform them. To act, agents must be motivated, must be knowledgeable must be able to rationalize the action; and must reflexively monitor the action.

Agents, while bounded in structure, draw upon their knowledge of that structural context when they act. However, actions are constrained by agents' inherent capabilities and their understandings of available actions and external limitations. ''Practical consciousness'' and ''discursive consciousness'' inform these abilities. Practical consciousness is the knowledgeability that an agent brings to the tasks required by everyday life, which is so integrated as to be hardly noticed. Reflexive monitoring occurs at the level of practical consciousness.<ref name="Ordinary consumption">Ilmonen, K. (2001). Sociology, consumption, and routine. In J. Gronow & A. Warde (Eds.), ''Ordinary Consumption'' (pp. 9-25). New York, NY: Routledge.</ref> Discursive consciousness is the ability to verbally express knowledge. Alongside practical and discursive consciousness, Giddens recognizes actors as having reflexive, contextual knowledge, and that habitual, widespread use of knowledgeability makes structures become institutionalized.<ref name="The constitution of society" />

Agents rationalize, and in doing so, link the agent and the agent's knowledgeability. Agents must coordinate ongoing projects, goals, and contexts while performing actions. This coordination is called reflexive monitoring and is connected to ethnomethodology's emphasis on agents' intrinsic sense of accountability.<ref name="The constitution of society" />

The factors that can enable or constrain an agent, as well as how an agent uses structures, are known as ''capability constraints'' include age, cognitive/physical limits on performing multiple tasks at once and the physical impossibility of being in multiple places at once, available time and the relationship between movement in space and movement in time.

Location offers are a particular type of capability constraint. Examples include:
* Locale
* [[Regionalisation|Regionalization]]: political or geographical zones, or rooms in a building
* Presence: Do other actors participate in the action? (see [[Dynamic awareness theory#Presence|co-presence]]); and more specifically
* Physical presence: Are other actors physically nearby?

Agents are always able to engage in a ''dialectic of control'', able to "intervene in the world or to refrain from such intervention, with the effect of influencing a specific process or state of affairs."<ref name="The constitution of society" />{{rp|14}} In essence, agents experience inherent and contrasting amounts of autonomy and dependence; agents can always either act or not.<ref name="Structuration theory" />

===Methodology===
Structuration theory is relevant to research, but does not prescribe a methodology and its use in research has been problematic. Giddens intended his theory to be abstract and theoretical, informing the hermeneutic aspects of research rather than guiding practice. Giddens wrote that structuration theory "establishes the internal logical coherence of concepts within a theoretical network."<ref name="Structuration theory" />{{rp|34}} Giddens criticized many researchers who used structuration theory for empirical research, critiquing their "en bloc" use of the theory's abstract concepts in a burdensome way. "The works applying concepts from the logical framework of structuration theory that Giddens approved of were those that used them more selectively, 'in a spare and critical fashion.'"<ref name="Structuration theory" />{{rp|2}} Giddens and followers used structuration theory more as "a sensitizing device".<ref name="Turner 1986">Turner, J.H. (1986). Review essay: The theory of structuration. ''American Journal of Sociology'', ''91''(4), 969-977.</ref>

Structuration theory allows researchers to focus on any structure or concept individually or in combination. In this way, structuration theory prioritizes [[ontology]] over [[epistemology]]. In his own work, Giddens focuses on production and reproduction of social practices in some context. He looked for stasis and change, [[Expectation (epistemic)|agent expectations]], relative degrees of routine, [[tradition]], behavior, and creative, skillful, and strategic thought simultaneously. He examined spatial organization, [[Unintended consequences|intended and unintended consequences]], skilled and knowledgeable agents, [[explicit knowledge|discursive]] and [[tacit knowledge]], dialectic of control, actions with motivational content, and constraints.<ref name="Structuration theory" /> Structuration theorists conduct analytical research of social relations, rather than organically discovering them, since they use structuration theory to reveal specific research questions, though that technique has been criticized as [[Cherry picking (fallacy)|cherry-picking]].<ref name="Structuration theory" />

Giddens preferred ''strategic conduct analysis'', which focuses on contextually situated actions. It employs detailed accounts of agents' knowledgeability, motivation, and the dialectic of control.<ref name="The constitution of society" />