One of the core questions addressed by my PhD has been what I’ve termed ‘the biographical dimensions of social change’ and the methodological implications of how personhood is conceptualised for how these theories are deployed in practice. I’ve argued that one of the (many) problems with the ‘individualization’ and ‘detraditionalization’ literature is that in the absence of an account of reflexivity as mediating between structure and agency, the use of this body of ideas to make sense of empirical data will tend to simply amalgamate the macro and the micro rather than linking them in an explanatory way. One of the most obvious signs of this is a tendency to vacillate between the particular and the general, with concrete states of affairs contextualised in terms of broader processes but not specifically explained in terms of them. I’m increasingly framing my point here in terms of cognitive micro-foundations. My problem with the detraditionalization literature is because it is founded upon Giddensian cognitive micro-foundations, which leave no real space between depth psychology and social practices. This leaves it construing the ‘biographical dimensions of social change’ in terms which are over or under socialised. I’m wondering if I should go back and reframe my opening chapters in these terms or if this is a potential time waster. I do think it would make the thesis hang together more coherently than it does at present.
Raiding the inarticulate since 2010
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Mark Carrigan 