Individual Agency is about the thoughts and activity done by the people who express their individual power. Whereas Social Structure is where people collectively work to mould set of social forces, relationships, institutions, and features of social structure which take action together to modify the thought, behaviour, experiences, choices and the direction of the life led by all the people. Whereas Agency is the power or the authority people have to think for their own selves and do things accordingly (Ostrom 2014 ). But from the very early period there is a controversy and debate among the two structures within the society (Black 2014). This assignment is about the genesis of the two theory in the society. The different attributes of two structures and their validity in the real life.
It can be considered the concept of individual agency and social structure in early sociological theory always diverted towards reductionist. It can be analyzed from the traditional Marxist theory is the agent of social transformation is collective. Thus, for this reason the collective behaviour is more acknowledgeable (Rapport 2014). The social collective structures history, human-beings because the social living being is the factor of the social change . The human essence is not obtained from only individual it can be gathered from the social collectivity only. Dialectical Materialism one of the theory of Marxism which embodies the fact that interaction occurs between the two classes which are mainly capitalist and proletariat class rather than between two individuals (Block 2013) .
Anthony Giddens, a sociologist brought out the tension and conflict with the social structure and individual agency. Basically this is the debate between Marxist and human perspectives in the growth of structuralism in the 1970s and 1980s. Whereas Giddens formulated a structure which is not only based on conventional concept of structure, but he differentiated between the terms the social structure, structures and structural properties ( Diani 2013) . He also said a fact these generic terms do not fall under the category of any form they just exists physically and thus it can be observed which gives a proper shape to the social life. According to Giddens structure is something which is not exterior to human beings. It is only there within the human being and it is expressed through the activities of each individual (Tilly 2015). Hence, he formulated the idea that structure is not out of agency and agency is not adherent to the individual person but its only the activities of the individual. The action of the individual is rather regulated by the laws , policies and customs by the society. Gidden suggests the structure is socially propagated and thus for this reason social practices are needed to learned and examined and the social practice changes from time to time. Practice symbolizes the connection between the structure and the action in other words practice is a ‘structured action’ (Ridley-Duff and Bull 2015) .
Individuals or individual person creates and initiates structure by taking actions but action also dissolves into the society. The activities which are repeated and believed are designated as social practice. For example- from the very early period after marriage women will go into her in laws house. It has now become a social practice as well as asocial norm, whereas it has not become a practice in one day , it has mainly occurred after repeated activities due to the deteriorating position of the women (Sztompka 2014). Hence this social practice has formulated this social institution. So, in that case it can be said that all social practices are not negative or not positive. Each individual must have the capacity to assimilate the depth of the institution and must have the ability to adapt it (Fink and Yolles 2001 ). A continued activity leads to social practices, which transforms into social institution. So, primarily the actions are regulated by the individual thoughts and reflections (Muller, Pfarrer and Little 2014). On the other hand the structure formulated by each individual , but if there is an shortcoming within the structure for example the class structure which always tends to exploit the people with poor background , at one point of time it has become a regulation. So basically both of them the individual agency and social structure are not separate things. They must be looked after as dependent and complementary attributes without which a society does not exist. Individual human activities and society must be observed and accepted as integrated part . Agency influencing the structure and structure is restricting the individual agency. In the society structures comes first which sometimes regulates and compels to change the thoughts of individual. It mainly happens in conservative society , in a liberal society individualism is given more importance.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that the society is broadly categorized into the advantageous and disadvantageous class. Advantageous class is basically the capitalist and the rich class who mainly modifies social decisions of the common people. They also regulates the social institution according to their own interests. It mainly happened in the early period. In the modern days there is a place of individual thoughts but still the people which comprises of the politicians, the business tycoons and other influential people constructs or give ultimate verdicts to the society. But now a days human rights activist, ngos and media restricts that power, they always try to safeguard not only the fundamental rights of the common people but many legislations and activities are also taken by them. Therefore the conflict between the social collective structure and individual agency has mainly risen from the existence of the class structure. Otherwise there would not have been any tension the two structures because both of them are complementary to each other because without the thinking of the individual social structure cannot exist. On the other hand individual is a part of the social collective structure.
References
Black, D., 2014. The social structure of right and wrong. Academic Press.
Block, D., 2013. The structure and agency dilemma in identity and intercultural communication research. Language and Intercultural Communication, 13(2), pp.126-147.
Diani, M., 2013. Networks and social movements. The Wiley-Blackwell encyclopedia of social and political movements.
Fink, G. and Yolles, M., 2015. Collective emotion regulation in an organisation–a plural agency with cognition and affect. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(5), pp.832-871.
Muller, A.R., Pfarrer, M.D. and Little, L.M., 2014. A theory of collective empathy in corporate philanthropy decisions. Academy of Management Review, 39(1), pp.1-21.
Ostrom, E., 2014. Collective action and the evolution of social norms. Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research, 6(4), pp.235-252.
Rapport, N., 2014. Social and cultural anthropology: The key concepts. Routledge.
Ridley-Duff, R. and Bull, M., 2015. Understanding social enterprise: Theory and practice. Sage.
Sztompka, P., 2014. Evolving focus on human agency in contemporary social theory. Agency and structure: reorienting social theory. Londres: Routledge, pp.25-60.
Tilly, C., 2015. Explaining social processes. Routledge.
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