Culture and Agency
The Place of Culture in Social Theory

Revised edition of 1988 book, highly influential in debates about role of culture in social theory.

Margaret S. Archer (Author)

9780521564410, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 26 September 1996

384 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.56 kg

'A timely and sophisticated treatment.' Sociological Review

Margaret Archer's Culture and Agency was first published in 1988, and proved a seminal contribution to social theory and the case for the role of culture in sociological thought. Described in Sociological Review as 'a timely and sophisticated treatment', the book showed that the 'problems' of culture and agency, on the one hand, and structure and agency, on the other, could be solved using the same analytical framework. In this revised edition of Culture and Agency, Margaret Archer contextualises her argument in 1990s cultural sociology and links it explicitly to her latest book, Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach (Cambridge University Press, 1995).

1. The myth of cultural integration
Part I. Rejecting Cultural Conflation: 2. 'Downwards conflation': on keys, codes and cohesion
3. 'Upwards conflation': the duality of culture
4. 'Central conflation: the duality of culture
Part II. Reconceuptualizing Cultural Dynamics: 5. Addressing the Cultural System
6. Contradictions and complementarities in the cultural system
7. Socio-Cultural interaction
8. Elaboration of the Cultural System
9. Toeards theoretical unification: structure, culture and morphogenesis
10. 'Social Integration and System Integration'

Subject Areas: Social theory [JHBA]