Sociology Jan 30 Structure Agency Agency Will Power Negative and positive examples Agency and blame Agency and social structure Structure Agency in Connected To what extent is Allison an agent Agent 1 The condition of being in action operation 2 One that acts or has the power or authority to act 3 One empowered to act for or represent another Cannibalism in North Korea shows a lack of agency for they are resorting to horrific acts just to stay alive Agency is Desire intention and creativity It is Inherent in all humans and formed by available cultural schemas and resources It varies culturally and historically Agency depends on the structure that limits or enhances it Orwell is an Agent because he takes his ideas and writes a book about things out of his own mind and the books effects others He causes change instead of just reflecting it Protestors are strong examples of Agents because they put themselves and lives at steak to make a change in society and for what they believe in Rosa Parks is a good example of a protestor who stood for what she believed in and caused a huge movement from her actions Agency and Blame Cat playing with a string example This stimulates the sensations of attacking a squirrel so Im happy that he decided to throw this my way I hope we play again in the future The cat probably doesn t have agency and is thinking kill and prey instead of past present and future You cannot blame a cat for not having agency like destroying earphones An understanding of Agency allows us to gauge the actions of certain people or things It also allows us to blame or praises certain figures of our society The Relationship between Structure and Agency Empowered to act Knowledge and access Control of resources Capacity to reinterpret and mobilize structures Dialectic process of change in which a concept or its realization passes over into Structure and Agency are directly related With the circumstances that you are dealt you are able to do certain things and act in certain ways Social Structures consist of many things All the way from government families organizations laws and income Laws may be one of the main concepts of structure in our lives We may want to do anything we want but laws form our structures and limit to what we can and cannot do Speed limit 24 hours in a day laws economy 1 We determine the structure of our network Who we hang out with and who are in our friend groups We shape it to how we like it We can also shape where we are in the network with relationships 2 Our network shapes us 3 Our friends affect us We control how central we are within the social network Are you the life of the party Are you somebody on the outside According to Fowler a social network is different from a group of people because It requires a specific set of connections among people in the group Discussion Jan 31 Degrees of Separation Within Three degrees of separation most individuals are connected to 80 000 people Dyad Two people with a connection who know eachother Hyperdiatic spread transitivity spread along to multiple people and how all of them influence each other A social network is a type of structure and shapes who we are and what we do We also shape the members of our social structures and have major influences on them and their lives February 4 Durkheim Believes societies bond together and perform certain tasks to get things done Emile Durkheim 1858 1917 developed social solidarity in that social groups have common beliefs that hold them together The group comes up with what is important to them and what aspects in life they want to live by Two types of social solidarity Society as consensus Durkheim Anomie A state of alienation Being separate from the group and having no purpose or compulsion to stay in the group Small towns are good examples of having strong social solidarity and a low level of anomie As societies become more complex there is greater anomie because there are more variables to make people become separate and have different beliefs Solitary confinement prisons create anomie and individuals loose worth in them and drive away from feeling like being in a social group Collective conscience is the set of shared beliefs and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society Its wrong to hit someone unprovoked Reaffirming the collective conscious could be stranger just repeating something that the society agrees on like Don t you think the Sandy Hook incident was just Horrific Collective effervescence is a perceived energy formed by a gathering of people as might be experienced at a sporting event a carnival a rave or a riot This perception can cause people to act differently than in their everyday life People talk about large events in society and emotions are displayed as they agree and give their insight on the situation and perform rituals such as the national anthem or clapping when their team does well which makes people bond and strengthens our social solidarity Becoming part of the Crowd Mechanical and organic solidarity Mechanical Going through similar experiences with the same threats and having to survive and act in the same way Social solidarity is made because they all have common rituals and practices the same beliefs Based on resemblances predominant in less advanced societies Segmental type first clan based later territorial Little interdependence social bonds relatively weak Relatively low volume of population Relatively low material and moral density Organic Having to rely on other people because they have different specialties and traits that you do not have but have to use Society has interconnections and interdependencies so society forms chains to get things done One person cannot be specialized in everything Based on division of labour predominately in more advanced societies Organized type fusion of markets and growth of cities Much interdependency social bonds relatively strong Relatively high volume of population Relatively high material and moral density Functionalism All of Durkheims concepts add up to form a function in which shows how societies act and why they do what they do February 6 13 Arenas of conflict Class Ethnicity and race Region Gender and sexuality Religion Does capitalism promote class equality Karl Marx s 1818 1883 Used the social classes to show relationships throughout history and how they different classes clash with on another Primitive accumulation master slave feudalism lords serfs capitalism