Agency can be habitual, deliberate, or distributed across several co-acting social actors.
Evidence
Such a definition of agency does not require that social action be intentional, but it allows for that possibility; habitual actions accomplished below the level of conscious awareness act upon the world no less than those carried out deliberately. Likewise, agency may be the result of individual action, but it may also be distributed among several social actors and hence intersubjective. The phenomenon of what could be called distributed agency, though not as well documented as that of distributed cognition (Hutchins, 1995), has begun to receive attention in some areas of sociocultural linguistics, often under the label of joint activity or co-construction (e.g. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 1992; C. Goodwin, 1995; M. Goodwin, 1990; Ochs and Capps, 2001). — Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall, Identity and Interaction, 115
Categorization
- DEFINE: Introduces the concept of ‘distributed agency’ as parallel to distributed cognition — the micro-mechanism by which identity gets built jointly in interaction.
- XREF: connects to: Agency is better understood as accomplished social action than as individual autonomous intent. — Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall, Identity and Interaction: A…, 114; Human agency operates through individual, proxy, and collective modes — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 126; Coordinated collective action requires others’ co-action, not just identification — John Drury and Rupert Brown and Roberto González and Daniel Miranda, Emergent social identity and observing…, 113 (+1 more)
Related
- Human agency operates through individual, proxy, and collective modes (similarity 0.85)
- Agency is better understood as accomplished social action than as individual autonomous intent. (similarity 0.85)
- Agency is best theorized as accomplished social action, not individual autonomy. (similarity 0.83)
Broader Connections
- Human agency operates through individual, proxy, and collective modes
#expands(0.90) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 126 - Coordinated collective action requires others’ co-action, not just identification
#corroborates(0.88) — John Drury and Rupert Brown and Roberto González and Daniel Miranda, Emergent social identity and observing…, 113 - Collective coordination and efficacy depend on others’ co-action, unlike one-to-one support.
#corroborates(0.85) — John Drury, The role of social identity processes…, 114