Gender, Feminism and Critical Realism

Exchanges, Challenges, Synergies

Lena Gunnarsson, Angela Martinez Dy, Michiel van Ingen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351401500
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This book marks a pivotal moment in the intensifying dialogue between the philosophical approach of critical realism and the fields of feminist theory and gender research. During the last three decades, these fields have been decisively influenced by poststructuralist perspectives. As such perspectives are increasingly being challenged, this book argues that critical realism is able to serve as a fruitful resource for carving out new paths for feminist theorizing and research. At the same time, it argues that feminist insights on gender and knowledge production have the potential to significantly enrich the field of critical realist philosophy as well. Hence, this book serves as a forum for a number of interventions that, in different ways, explore synergetic potentials as well as tensions between critical realist and various feminist perspectives. It engages in debates over the conditions of knowledge production and the relationship of knowledge to the world, offers new ways of understanding sex, gender and power, as well as the intersectional interplay of diverse power relations, and explores how critical realism relates to new materialist and postpositivist realist approaches. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Critical Realism.

Theorizing Agency and Domination through a Critical Realist Perspective on Gender Positionality

DIMITRI MADER

Feminist theory continues to struggle with the recurrence of the twin-problem of agency and domination: how can gender be conceptualized as a structure of domination that constitutes and restricts agency, without obscuring the possibilities for change and transformation through agency? To address this problem, I draw on the concept of agency developed by Margaret Archer. By elaborating on her notion of the structural shaping of the situation and combining it with elements of Thomas Wartenberg’s work, in this article I outline a concept of domination from a broadly critical realist perspective. I thus demonstrate how gender can be understood as a social structure that is constitutive of relations of domination. This framework draws attention to the limitations of ‘undoing’ gender on an interactionist micro level as well as to the concrete possibilities for agency due to situational contradictions and emergent subjective powers.

Introduction

In the theoretical and empirical literature on gender as well as in more practically oriented debates on feminism, a decisive role is played by the question of how gender, alongside its interactions with other categories of inequality such as class, race/ethnicity and body/sexuality, affects the agency of multiply-situated agents.¹ Yet there remains a diverse range of more or less implicit theoretical assumptions about what agency actually is, and how its relation to the social situatedness of action is to be understood. In addition, feminist theorizing, which for the most part sees itself as a critical social science, is built upon a normative nucleus that consists of uncovering and critiquing social injustices, represented by a variety of concepts such as inequality, discrimination, exclusion, oppression or domination. In this article, I contribute to these two important feminist social-theoretical ‘building sites’ (Knapp 2010; Kley 2013) by proposing a critical realist perspective on agency and domination.

With the concept of a domination-based shaping of the action-situation, I propose a specific perspective on gender, one that can also be understood as a framework for empirically analysing the ways gender — in interaction with other categories of inequality — conditions agency. To this end, the concept of agency developed by Margaret Archer serves as a general schema for conceptualizing the relation between structure and agency. I concentrate on one specific aspect of her theory, namely the structural conditioning of actions via the shaping of the situations in which agents find themselves. I build on the work of Thomas Wartenberg to steer Archer’s ideas in the direction of a theory of domination. The aim here is to have a concept of domination that is both precise enough to distinguish it from other related terms such as social inequality, but also broad enough to grasp modern forms of domination. Finally, I consider to what extent gender can be understood as constituting relations of domination which manifest themselves at the level of the action-situation.

Archer’s concept of agency and the structural shaping of the action-situation

‘Agency’ may, in general terms, be defined as the potential which agents have to bring about changes in the world and thereby be involved to some degree in the cause of their doings. We can distinguish three dimensions of human agency:² a causal dimension, an intentional-reflexive dimension and an evaluative dimension. Human agency therefore can be defined as: a power to act, situated within natural and social relations, which allows the individual, via their subjective capacities of reflexivity and emotional evaluation, to develop and pursue future-oriented plans of action directed towards the establishment of subjectively satisfying practices. Using this definition, two aspects of the social-theoretical problem of agency and its relation to domination can be examined more closely: firstly, the problem of ‘structure and agency’, i.e. how the social situatedness of agency on the one hand, and the creative and formative potential of subjects on the other, are to be conceived together. Secondly, since domination may be understood as a specific form of restriction of agency, this definition enables the exploration of questions raised by theories of domination.

Archer’s agency theory provides a fruitful basis for addressing both sets of questions. The basic impetus of Archer’s early theoretical work³ involves challenging what she calls the fallacy of ‘conflation’ (1995, 33ff.), that is, the theoretical amalgamation of social structure and subjectivity. Archer finds one form of such a conflation (namely ‘central conflation’) in many theories of practice, in which I would include, for example, Candace West and Sarah Fenstermaker’s interactionist approach in their article ‘Doing Difference’ (1995). According to them, relations of social inequality such as gender, class and ‘race’ exist only in the moment of their instantiation, in the process of interactive ‘doing’. Such a view forecloses, from Archer’s perspective, a nuanced analysis of both the emergent powers of social and cultural structures which precede the respective practices, as well as the emergent powers of subjects which enable behaviour following a subject-intrinsic logic. By contrast, Archer understands social practice as a spatio-temporal process which takes place under always already given natural, social and cultural conditions, and produces relatively enduring effects. Social conditions are the preconditions of every practice, which confront the actor initially as involuntary and objective possibilities and constraints. Practices can then lead, within the structurally conditioned space of possibility, to the reproduction of encountered structures or to their transformation. Their result becomes once again the precondition for subsequent practices. Decisive for this perspective is the analytical distinction between social structures and acting subjects. While both sides are interconnected in the process of practice, one cannot be reduced to the other; each has a certain logic of their own or emergent causal powers.⁴

At the same time, the structural conditioning of action should not be taken as determination, because it is always mediated by the emergent powers of agents: ‘To condition entails the existence of something that is conditioned’ (Archer 2007, 10). People are able to distance themselves from and reflect upon their environmental conditions. Decisive for Archer here is the formation of a subjective-internal constellation of concerns against which individuals can judge social demands. The effects of social conditions are therefore always ‘refracted’ by an intrasubjective logic, which also includes the materiality of the body and emotionality. On the other hand, people develop the capacity for reflexivity. In our constantly flowing internal conversations we can reflect upon our thoughts, desires and environmental conditions and so take on a distanced and critical relation to them. Thus social structures work as spaces of possibility, as enablements and constraints, not as hydraulic causal forces. Archer summarizes this in her three-stage model of the mediation of structure through agency:

(1)	Structural and cultural properties objectively shape the situations that agents confront involuntarily, and inter alia possess generative powers of constraint and enablement in relation to
(2)	Subjects’ own constellations of concerns, as subjectively defined …
(3)	Courses of action are produced through the reflexive deliberations of agents who subjectively determine their practical projects in relation to their objective circumstances. (Archer 2007, 17, original emphasis)

For my following remarks on the shaping of the action-situation by gender-related forms of domination, Archer’s first point is of particular relevance. She emphasizes that social and cultural structures do not impact directly upon agents, but in a way that is mediated by shaping the situation: ‘[A]ll structural influences … are mediated to people by shaping the situations in which they find themselves … by moulding their circumstances, which were not of their making’ (1995, 196, 131). When we picture this structural shaping of the action-situation, it is important to identify two aspects: an action-situation arises, firstly, from a set of objectively given action alternatives, and secondly, from particular perceptions, interpretations and evaluations of those alternatives by the agent. ‘Social action’, as Reinhard Kreckel puts it, ‘always takes place under the conditions of an action-situation in which (and towards which) agents meaningfully orient themselves. Action-situations are always composed of material and symbolic situation-components’ (Kreckel 2004, 76).⁵ The ‘material’, or better, from the individual’s perspective, the objective component, arises from both the availability of scarce and socially valuable resources, as well as from the institutionalized and therefore expectable reactions of other agents. The former — one’s place in the social stratification of resources — Archer calls social position, while the latter — one’s location within the structures of normative institutions and organizations — she calls social role.

Whereas social roles, for example, that of teacher, judge or mother, are associated with normative expectations regarding the rights and duties of action, this does not apply (or applies only to a limited degree) to social positions, for example, to the privilege that goes along with large wealth.⁶ Taking on a social role shapes the action-situation of an agent in that each role is associated with particular collectively accepted powers, rights and duties whose observance or non-observance are sanctioned. The sanctionings associated with a role, which are to be expected if behaviour transgresses a norm (and can range from subtle disapproval to state-enforced punishment) objectively structure the set of action alternatives open to the role incumbent. They do so regardless of whether the agent themselves considers the norms to be legitimate or identifies with them. It is sufficient to have a reasonable expectation that other agents will follow the norm.⁷

A social position, by contrast, structures the action-situation, in that it grants (or denies) access to resources that are considered as valuable, endowing agents with a form of strategic power or powerlessness. Thus, ‘what you have determines what you get, and what you have determines what you have to do to get what you get’ (Wright 2000, 28). For example, having certain scarce qualifications can grant a privileged position in the labour market, and corresponding access to valued social roles within a certain company. Both forms of socio-structural location condition which courses of action are objectively possible in a given situation, and what costs and efforts are associated with pursuing them. ‘Objective’ in this context means that the set of possible courses of action is independent of the knowledge and interpretations an agent has of them; for example, whether or not they acknowledge it, agents without higher education and relevant experience, or agents holding outdated professional qualifications, have a relatively poor chance of obtaining a well-paid and satisfying job. However, these enablements and constraints are always subjectively interpreted, which leads us to the second, symbolic component of social situations. Social conditions have an action-guiding effect only mediated through agents’ perception and evaluation of them. What agents recognize as possible and valuable alternatives is a highly selective process, one that depends upon the interpretive operations of the agent in question. It is also known as the problem of the subjective ‘definition’ or ‘framing’ of the situation (Esser 1996). But even these individual ways of perceiving and evaluating are socially conditioned (not determined) by the cultural structures existing in a society at any given moment.

An important form in which culture conditions our ways of perceiving is social identity. I take social identities to be a subset of society’s cultural structure, namely sets of ideas that constitute certain ways of constructing the self and its relation to the world. Masculine and feminine identity would be examples of social identities; other examples are professional identities, religious or national identities. While roles deploy their action-conditioning effect through expectable external sanctions from other agents, social identities — as far as they have been internalized — involve internal sanctioning, in that behaviour which violates an adopted identity can trigger negative feelings in the agent themselves.⁸ Insofar as social identities are part of society’s cultural repertoire available to agents at a certain moment, they can likewise be understood as objective elements of the action-situation. However, social identities have to be adopted and internalized by subjects in order to be effective. As Archer emphasizes, a person’s self-understanding, their personal identity, is not to be equated with social identity (2000, 283ff.). Social identities, as with discourse generally, are to be understood as templates of meaning, which suggest particular interpretations (of the self and its place in the world) and make others less likely. They must be adopted by subjects in particular ways, a procedure that is mediated by personal properties and powers. But as social identities are part of a subject’s self-understanding, they play an important role in structuring the framing of social situations. The following will explore the question of how gender functions as a domination-like structuring of the action-situation. To achieve this, however, I first need to clarify what I understand by domination and how it expresses itself at the level of the action-situation.

On the domination-based structuring of the action-situation

The analysis and critique of social domination play a central role in the critical social sciences. This also applies to feminist research and theorizing of gender relations, which often sees gender (alongside other categories of inequality) as being part of social structures or systems which lead to domination or oppression. In many accounts, however, it remains unclear what exactly is meant by domination. It is often spok...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction – Critical Realism, Gender and Feminism: Exchanges, Challenges, Synergies
• 1 Theorizing Agency and Domination through a Critical Realist Perspective on Gender Positionality
• 2 Critical Realist and Postpositivist Realist Feminisms: Towards a Feminist Dialectical Realism
• 3 Comparing Critical Realism and the Situated Knowledges Approach in Research on (In)equity in Health Care: An Exploration of their Implications
• 4 Agency and Ontology within Intersectional Analysis: A Critical Realist Contribution
• 5 Queer Genes: Realism, Sexuality and Science
• 6 Beyond the Nature/Culture Divide? The Contradictions of Rosi Braidotti’s
• 7 Review – Pursuing Intersectionality, Unsettling Dominant Imaginaries
• 8 Review – The Feminine Subject
• Index