Culture and agency: the place of culture in social theory

Abstract

People inescapably are shaped by the culture in which they live, while culture itself is made and remade by people. Human beings in their daily lives feel a genuine freedom of thought and belief, yet this is unavoidably constrained by cultural limitations -- such as those by language spoken, the knowledge developed and the information available at any time. This is a revised edition and a seminal contribution to social theory and the case for the role of culture in sociological thought. Described as a timely and sophisticated treatment, the book shows that the problems of culture and agency and structure and agency could be solved using the same analytical framework.