Structure and agency: a debate for community development?

An orthodox dichotomy has come to dominate and shape debates regarding agency and this has led to a number of difficulties in articulating a coherent theory of practice for community development. If by asserting agency one adopts a methodological individualism, particularly as expressed by an increasingly predominant rational actor theory, behaviour is reduced to the pursuit of self-interest by relatively atomized individuals, and the notion of community and society appears to dissolve. In contrast, if social structures are to provide the starting point for analysis and practice, there may be little justification for recognizing the agency of individuals and communities, because these explain the causal forces shaping social outcomes. A resistance to this false dichotomy in part explains why many in community development have been attracted to situated and networked theories of agency that seek to dissolve the structure-agency dichotomy. However, a note of caution is needed before the theory and practice of community development draws exclusively on situated and pluralistic perspectives. Any 'rediscovery' of agency, for example in the context of the UK Coalition Government's Big Society agenda, should not only seek to resolve the rather strained debate between structure and agency, but offer forms of praxis resistant to attempts to co-opt community development work. This can be found in the theory and practice of those who maintain an analytical dualism where agents are seen as being both potentially constrained and enabled by the social relations they occupy.