[xmca] Structure vs. Agency

[David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>]

After they introduce the "boundary" concept Jahreie and Ottesen introduce two terms from mainstream sociology: "structure" and "agency". I'm not a sociologist, and I've only read a bit aroung the edges of this opposition. But I have the following questions, which are really "dubbio", suspicious doubts, rather than questions:
 
a) The ETHNOMETHODOLOGICAL, microgenetic "dubbio". If boundaries are "constructed in interaction" (in the ethnomethodological sense), can we say that they are "structure" as opposed to "agency"? Doesn't "constructed in interaction" imply the (microgenetic) emergence of structure out of agency? Or is there somehow a pre-existing blueprint implicit in interactions that can be made explicit, through, say, conversation analysis?
 
b) A CH/AT, ontogenetic "dubbio". Leontiev insists that society cannot be seen as confronting the individual as something hostile, something alien in psychological substance, something irreconcilable, and a lot of Vygotsky's objections to Piaget can be read in this light too (development cannot be seen as the red liquid of socialized thinking forcing out the white liquid of egocentric thinking). Doesn't this suggest that what we are describing here is boundary construction rather than development?
 
c) Finally, a GENERAL, methodological "dubbio". Andy suggests that we need to be pretty careful about what goes into our mouths and minds, because some concepts out there mean very different things from what we think they mean. As a foreign language teacher, I wholeheartedly agree with this (children who call me "David Teacher!" are actually TRYING to be very respectful, but you need to translate literally into Korean to understand that). Can we really use "structure" and "agency" in opposition to each other without CREATING the boundaries that we are supposed to be studying? Can we use these terms at all? Don't they imply EXACTLY the kind of ahistorical Saussurean view of a "system" that Wolff-Michael criticizes in his editorial (this issue)? 
 
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
 
David Kellogg



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