Structuration theory

The theory of structuration is a social theory of the creation and reproduction of social systems that is based in the analysis of both structure and agents (see structure and agency), without giving primacy to either. Further, in structuration theory, neither micro- nor macro-focused analysis alone are sufficient. The theory was proposed by sociologist Anthony Giddens, most significantly in The Constitution of Society, which examines phenomenology, hermeneutics, and social practices at the inseparable intersection of structures and agents. Its proponents have adopted and expanded this balanced position. Though the theory has received much criticism, it remains a pillar of contemporary sociological theory.

Sociologist Anthony Giddens adopted a post-empiricist frame for his theory, as he was concerned with the abstract characteristics of social relations. This leaves each level more accessible to analysis via the ontologies which constitute the human social experience: space and time ("and thus, in one sense, 'history'." His aim was to build a broad social theory which viewed "[t]he basic domain of study of the social sciences... [as] neither the experience of the individual actor, nor the existence of any form of societal totality, but social practices ordered across space and time." His focus on abstract ontology accompanied a general and purposeful neglect of epistemology or detailed research methodology.

Giddens used concepts from objectivist and subjectivist social theories, discarding objectivism's focus on detached structures, which lacked regard for humanist elements and subjectivism's exclusive attention to individual or group agency without consideration for socio-structural context. He critically engaged classical nineteenth and early twentieth century social theorists such as Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, Alfred Schutz, Robert K. Merton, Erving Goffman, and Jürgen Habermas. Thus, in many ways, structuration was "an exercise in clarification of logical issues." Structuration drew on other fields, as well: "He also wanted to bring in from other disciplines novel aspects of ontology that he felt had been neglected by social theorists working in the domains that most interested him. Thus, for example, he enlisted the aid of geographers, historians and philosophers in bringing notions of time and space into the central heartlands of social theory." Giddens hoped that a subject-wide "coming together" might occur which would involve greater cross-disciplinary dialogue and cooperation, especially between anthropologists, social scientists and sociologists of all types, historians, geographers, and even novelists. Believing that "literary style matters", he held that social scientists are communicators who share frames of meaning across cultural contexts through their work by utilising "the same sources of description (mutual knowledge) as novelists or others who write fictional accounts of social life."

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