The Relational ‘We’ in Personal Morphogenesis

Beth Weaver

Why social relations?

• We ‘derive from a relational context, [are] immersed in a relational context and bring about a relational context’ (Donati, 2011: 14)

• 'We are our ‘relational concerns’, as individuals as well as social agents/actors, since we necessarily live in many different contexts that are social circles (like a family, a network of friends, maybe a civil association, up to a nation) which imply a collective entity’ (Donati, 2011: xvi).

Donati’s conceptualisation of social relations (SR)

• SR are the bonds maintained between people.• The practice of reciprocity (symbolic exchange) sustains

the bond of the relation (as distinct from transactional exchanges), motivated by the maintenance of emergent relational goods.

• SR as context (cultural and structural connections) and as interaction (emergent effect of interactive dynamics) refero, religo, relational effects.

• A given SR has defining relational characteristics but the form & shape of SR is neither pre-determined nor fixed.

Empiricising social relations(see Archer, 2010; Donati, 2014; Weaver, 2015)

Structural Conditioning [conditioning structures]

______________________________

T 1

Interactions in networks [black box: individual and relational contributions]

__________________________________

T 2 T 3

 

Structural Reproduction (morphostasis) (i.e persistence)

______________________________ Outcomes

T 4

Structural Elaboration (morphogenesis) (i.e desistance)

Individual contributions: the MGS applied to internal conversation

Structural Conditioning [conditioning structures] ME

______________________________

T 1

Social interaction [ Personal Reflexivity] I

__________________________________

T 2 T 3

 

Structural Reproduction (morphostasis) ___________________________________ YOU

T 4

Structural Elaboration (morphogenesis)

Weaver (2015)

Relational contributions: the MGS applied to social relations

Structural Conditioning [conditioning structures] I

______________________________

T 1

Interactions in networks [relational contributions] ME - WE

__________________________________

T 2 T 3

 

Structural Reproduction (morphostasis) ______________________________ YOU

T 4

Structural Elaboration (morphogenesis)

Weaver (2015)

Personal and relationalreflexivity• Margaret Archer’s internal conversation: we decide on

courses of actions by ruminating on ourselves, our concerns and social situations, imagining and pursuing projects/ practices that define who we are & which enable us to realize our concerns within constraints and enablements of conditioning structures.

• The temporal concepts of the self are engaged in a three staged dialogue (discernment, deliberation, and dedication)

• Donati: SR = context in which PR is brought to bear AND manner in which SR are configured by those-in-relation.

• Elaborating a new awareness of ‘we’ i.e. motivated by a shared concern to maintain emergent RG people make reciprocal adjustments to their behaviours / take necessary actions. ‘We’ reflexivity.

Reflexivity in action• SR i.e. friendship/ peer group can trigger reflexive evaluation

of individuals’ priorities, behaviours and practices.• Shifts in relational networks / associational belongings can

trigger evaluative and comparative review of the self and motivate behavioural – and in turn – identity change: the looking glass self (Cooley, 1922): personal reflexivity in a relational context.

• Observation of change in significant others in existing social group has this effect too: personal reflexivity in a relational context.

• Relational mode of reflexivity: reciprocal and mutual adjustments to behaviours and manner of relating so as to allow the relations (and relational goods) to endure.

• Need to recognise interaction with and between wider SR in accounting for change – change in outcomes and relational dynamics.

Social reciprocity, solidarity and subsidarity: the ‘we’• Individual behaviour is shaped by sets of SR but changed

behaviour is also an outcome of their reflexive evaluation of the meaning of these relationships, shifting relational expectations and rules, through lens of individual and relational concerns.

• How SR are configured (in T2-3) between those-in-relation depends on the a) context and form of SR; b) the normative expectation of the SR; c) the interactive dynamics of the SR – informed by for eg. cultural/class beliefs d)interaction with and influence of other SR.

• The manner of relating or the relational ‘we’ is key to understanding relational contributions to outcomes i.e. those relations characterised by solidarity and subsidarity (Donati 2009) and which imply interdependency were particularly influential.

Final thoughts• Individual and relational contributions to personal – social

morphogenesis are interconnected.• It is the manner of relating & the reciprocal orientation of those-in-

relation to maintenance of a given SR that are significant in understanding the relational ‘we’ in morphogenesis / change.

• The impact of a given social relation on individuals’ behaviour is attributable to:

– the bonds maintained between people that constitute their reciprocal orientations towards each other;

– the emergent effects of their interactive dynamics; – the interaction with and influence of other social relations within which people

participate; – and the chains of meanings, or relational characteristics, that a given type of

social relation, as opposed to another, entails for individuals (shaped by the internalized cultural, class or religious beliefs and the values they impute to it) who bring their own personal reflexivity to bear in a manner consistent with their ultimate concerns, goals or aspirations (Donati 2011).

For further discussion see:

Weaver, B (In Press) Offending and Desistance: The Significance of Social Relations. Routledge – view here: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781138799721/

Weaver, B and McNeill F., (2015) Lifelines: Desistance, Social Relations and Reciprocity. Criminal Justice and Behavior 42(1) pp.95-107.

Key Texts:

Archer, M., (1995) Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Archer, M., (2000) Being Human: The Problem of Agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Archer, M., (2003) Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Archer, M., (2007) Making Our Way Through The World: Human Reflexivity and Social Mobility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Archer, M., (2010) Routine, Reflexivity and Realism. Sociological Theory 28 (3) p.272-303.

Archer, M., (2011) Critical Realism and Relational Sociology: Complementarity and Synergy. Journal of Critical Realism 9 (2) pp.199-207

Donati, P., (2009) ‘What does “subsidiarity” mean? The relational perspective’, Journal of Markets and Morality, 12(2) pp.211-243.

Donati, P., (2011) Relational Sociology: A New Paradigm for the Social Sciences. Abingdon: Routledge.

Donati, P., (2014) Morphogenic Society and the Structure of Social Relations in Archer, M.S. (ed.). Late Modernity: Trajectories Towards Morphogenic Society. Lausanne, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. pp. 143-172.