Structuration

Structuration theory is a broad-ranging sociological ontology in which social practices are postulated as the basic constituents of the social world. Sociological ontologies differ from ontologies in the philosophical sense of the term. Whereas philosophical ontologies derive from primordial metaphysical questions such as what is the ultimate nature of being and existence, sociological ontologies begin more modestly by asking questions about the generic (i.e., transcultural and transhistoric) properties of social life subject to sociological inquiry. Prior to structuration theory, two antithetical positions dominated ontological thinking in sociology. On the one hand, individualism maintained that the social world is constituted by actors impelled to behave in certain ways by their own interests or motives or by their interpretations of their situations. On the other hand, collectivism maintained that the social world is constituted through the effects of social groups that shape, channel, and constrain social action. Structuration theory develops a third approach to sociological ontology that is neither individualistic nor collectivist, although it incorporates key insights from each.

Structuration theory maintains that social praxis is the most basic property of all phenomena of sociological interest. Social praxis is simply the generic term for practices of all kinds in the same sense that the individual is a generic term for actors of all kinds. Structuration theory's emphasis on praxis begins from the intuitively appealing insight that whatever types of social events or forms of structured collectivities may arise or change in a given culture or historical era, these types of events or forms of collectivities are generated in the course of social conduct and through the consequences of this conduct. Long-lasting forms of events and enduring collectivities that maintain their structural features for extended periods of time result from the reproduction of broadly similar forms of praxis. Conversely, [Page 812]when new forms of events or features of collectivities arise, we can be sure that these changes are driven by widespread transformations in social praxis. For example, when capitalism supplanted the political economy of feudalism as the prevailing mode of European production and exchange, the transformation pivoted on newly devised practices of labor, trade, investment, and consumption. Similarly, the new form of political culture that developed in the late eighteenth century in the United States was generated by numerous shifts in praxis, including new forms of political gatherings, political language, and even new forms of public interaction that generated what we now term civil society. It is true, of course, that individuals and collectivities also changed during these transformative periods. However, from a structurational standpoint, without the changes in praxis, these other changes would not have come about.

Structuration theory originated in the writings of the British social theorist Anthony Giddens during the period from 1976 to 1991 when Giddens was on the faculty at the University of Cambridge. Giddens had become interested in sociologies of praxis during several trips to North America in the early 1970s. In his first book on structuration theory, Giddens (1976) began to synthesize points of emphasis from American theories of praxis, including ethnomethodology, social phenomenology, and Erving Goffman's accounts of the interaction order. Continuing his synthetic approach, Giddens found that these American theories shared common ground with British and Continental conceptions of praxis, including works inspired by the later philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the hermeneutic philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Jürgen Habermas's early writings on critical theory.

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