Situations are structured in dominance but never fully determined by it.

Evidence

Hence situations, while “structured in dominance” (i.e., showing a systematic tendency to reproduce the hegemony of dominant definitions of the situation), are not determined by it. Conflict and contradiction, therefore, as well as consensus and social order, can be produced at the micro-level. Each encounter, therefore, puts the “structure in dominance” to the test: and the differing definitions of situation must struggle for dominance, win assent for their outlook against others, try to amplify definitions so as to favor the dominant perspective, etc. The level of signification, is, therefore, a privileged level with “relative autonomy” but it is neither fully determined by larger structures, nor free of them. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 879

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies Hall’s signature concept that even micro-level encounters are ‘structured in dominance’ yet remain genuinely open — neither determined by nor free from larger structures.
• XREF: connects to: The body is a situation shaping but never determining projects — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 105