Abstract
This article argues why core classical sociological notions that are still extremely influential in global sociological thinking need to be reviewed and reconceptualized, as well as to present an example of how this might be done. The discussion is in two parts. First, the article outlines what the author suggests is a major problem of social and sociological theory: the common articulation between modernity, social theory and sociological research, and its negative effects for the production of knowledge in other regions, such as Latin America. The author considers some of the contemporary strategies devised to deal with the difficulties arising from this articulation and proposes a complementary way of overcoming the problem posed. Second, the author backs her argument with a critical analysis of the concept of individualization, one of the earliest and central notions of social theory, based on the results of three empirical studies carried out in Chile over the past decade.
The main objective of the sociologist is to contribute to the understanding of societies. By participating critically in the forms that social life acquires, sociology serves individuals in sustaining themselves collectively or personally, whether by adapting to such forms or seeking to transform them. From this perspective, sociological theory is primarily a source of tools (concepts, notions, theories) with which to perform the tasks we are responsible for as sociologists.
Therefore, social theory – its validity and relevance – must be judged not only by its coherence but also by its capacity to allow us insight into the phenomena that confront us as social scientists. Its value depends considerably on the tools it provides us and on their power to generate knowledge that has acuity and is pertinent to our scientific objectives.
However high its level of abstraction and generalizing power, as various scholars have rightly emphasized social and sociological theory starts from the basic work of systematizing information, evidence, observations, and controlled experiences about the forms of organization, ways of life, and production of meaning that emerge in a specific space and time (Alexander, 1987a; Giddens, 1987; Joas and Knöbl, 2009; Swedberg, 2015). An important consequence of this understanding – as many social scientists have insisted, including those from a historicist tradition, from Marx to Touraine – is this: although social theory is often seen as a product of conceptual elaboration leading to increasing levels of abstraction and generalization, such theoretical tools originate in situated social realities that are produced by groups or collectives in their search for particular solutions as they shape social life. Seen from another perspective, which social reality has been the source of information, evidence or observations is hardly a matter of no consequence. As pointed out in recent epistemological debate, if there can be no knowledge without concepts or theories, neither can we dispense with reality in establishing their limits and limitations (Dreyfus and Taylor, 2015).
Nonetheless, mainstream social and sociological theory (that is, the set of tools considered to possess a high degree of scientific legitimation sufficient to explain their wide diffusion) has been mainly, if not exclusively, produced in so-called North-central societies, as different scholars and especially those representing postcolonial and decolonial thought have vigorously pointed out (Connell; 2007; Costa and Boatcă, 2010; de Sousa Santos, 2016; Lander, 2004; Patel, 2006; Quijano, 2000), as have others from different perspectives (Ramos, 2014). Consequently, mainstream social and sociological theory – that we, sociologists from the South or non-central societies use (and are expected to use) and that we mobilize in our analysis due to their supposed scientific legitimacy – are tools produced to comprehend the specific socio-historical challenges faced by central Western societies.
Taking account of these facts, we social scientists or sociologists working in or from peripheral or Southern societies face a real problem: how fitting are the notions and theories available in mainstream social or sociological theories for our study objectives? Those social scientists working in and from North-central societies also have a problem: how generalizable can knowledge be that is produced with the use of these concepts and theories? Indeed, a real problem arises for us all: how reliable is the toolbox offered by mainstream social and sociological theory for grasping societies and their relations in a plural and diverse world (Arjomand and Reis, 2013)?
This article is intended as a contribution to this discussion. It seeks to argue why core classical sociological notions that are still extremely influential in global sociological thinking need to be reviewed and reconceptualized, as well as to present an example of how this might be done. To achieve this, I propose, first, to underscore the importance of putting to the test core social theory concepts, i.e. those that have gained weight historically as its undisputed and foundational basis; second, to offer a way of achieving this task by prioritizing a form of reconceptualization based on empirical research and inductive procedures developed at the national level; and, third, to exemplify this argument by presenting the results of a research program that over the last decade has focused on the empirical study and theoretical review (in the case of Chile) of one of these core classical sociological notions, that of individualization.
The discussion is in two parts. First, I outline what I suggest is a major problem of social and sociological theory: the common articulation between modernity, social theory and sociological research, and its negative effects for the production of knowledge in other regions, such as Latin America. I consider some of the contemporary strategies devised to deal with the difficulties arising from this articulation, the scope and the limits of such strategies, and I propose what I consider a complementary way of overcoming the problem posed. Second, I back my argument with a critical analysis of the concept of individualization, one of the earliest and central notions of social theory (Schroer, 2000), based on the results of three empirical studies carried out in Chile over the past decade. 1
Social theory and sociological research: A research program
The hegemony of knowledge output and theory from Europe and the United States can be observed from the fact that scientific scholars in Latin America make 90.1% of their references to authors from Europe or the United States, while the latter countries make less than 1% of their citations to Latin American authors (Ramos, 2014: 708). It may also be seen in the fact that the sociological field has until now been deeply influenced by the work of the so-called classical authors of sociology (Alexander, 1987b), all of whom are from Europe or the US. Their influence is both indirect and direct. These authors are still a mandatory reference in current theory building (Joas and Knöbl, 2009). Their works are typically considered compulsory reading in the academic formation of young sociologists. Finally, most of the so-called ‘trend concepts’ (Domingues, 2014) which emerged from their contributions (secularization, differentiation, or individualization) have remained undisputed core notions for sociological thought globally (Curato, 2013).
The so-called classical sociological authors were driven by the transformations their societies were experiencing. Faced with rapid social change, or a ‘whirlwind’ as Berman, following Rousseau, called it (Berman, 1983), they understood that their duty was to provide an interpretation of this new historical condition (Martuccelli, 2005; Nisbet, 2004), of the new bases of social organization (modes of production, social reproduction, etc.) that were emerging, of the new meanings and senses about the world and the self, and the reconfiguration of forms of social coexistence. These classical works had two simultaneous and mutually reinforcing effects. First, they produced the basis for sociology, at that time a discipline in formation. A set of concepts and theories were developed that arose out of the observations, information and evidence collected when scholars sought to understand the changes occurring. In addition, as a result of these authors’ claims to a universalistic science and their blindness to other social realities, the theoretical frameworks and conceptual tools they created became a hegemonic model (Boatcă, 2016). Connell (2007), for example, has discussed how Australia, which had been a data-mine for the ‘Metropole’ (a ‘site of difference’) in the nineteenth century, became a field for the application of theories and methods provided by the latter (a ‘site of similarities’) in the second half of the century that followed. As the author stresses in a historical description that is valid for many peripheral or semi-peripheral countries, local realities were understood through the lens of central-global categories.
Furthermore, the so-called classical authors of sociology contributed to the creation of a canonical narrative for the emerging era, one that became widely accepted via the notion of modernity. In the process, what was the contingent outcome of a very specific historical path was exported and generalized as having a universal scope. Through the dissemination of concepts and theories built upon the historical subsoil of North-central societies, modernity (as a diagnosis of a historical era as well as a theoretical model of social life) assumed a normative character. It ended up being made, first, into a reference for comparison; second, into an ideal measure for value judgments; and third, into a hegemonic analytical model (Araujo, 2017). As a result, as critics of modernization theory have clearly shown (Knöbl, 2007), the normative and interactive solutions to the problem of coexistence based on these societies’ experience have worked frequently as definitions of what should be ‘expected’ or even ‘desirable’ in other societies.
Several critical approaches have been developed to deal with this fact. One of the most important has been to treat the scrutiny and renewal of the notion of modernity as one of the basic priority tasks for social theory and current sociological research. Multiple modernities (Arjomand, 2010; Arnason, 2003; Eisenstadt, 2000, 2002) and postcolonial and decolonial studies (inter alia, Bhambra, 2007; Boatcă, 2013; Chakrabarty, 2000; Mignolo, 2000, 2007; Randeria, 2009), in spite of their differences, 2 have all enriched this discussion. But postcolonial and decolonial studies in particular have contributed to denouncing and examining the epistemic consequences of the relationship between the so-called North-central and peripheral societies.
Following this argument, both problems – the universalistic/hegemonic notion of modernity and the theoretical monopoly of the theories and categories promoted from central Western societies – have been analytically linked. Whether using the term ‘Eurocentrism’ (Bhambra, 2007; Costa and Boatcă, 2010; Mignolo, 2000, 2007; Quijano, 2000) or ‘Northernness’ (Connell, 2007), many authors have critically exposed the role played by knowledge in maintaining Northern hegemony and colonial power (Patel, 2006). From this point of view, the Eurocentric character of knowledge was achieved by assigning distinct values to differences (Mignolo, 2000), but also by reinforcing belief in the universality of the tools or methods of knowledge production developed in this region (Boatcă, 2016; Chakrabarty, 2000). Thus, studies on the consequences of coloniality, critical studies on the history of ideas or disciplines, or different but complementary strategies to confront the geopolitics of knowledge have been implemented to counteract the consequences of Eurocentrism (Boatcă, 2013: 389).
Some limitations of these studies have been pointed out. Among them, critics maintain that their proposals are still too vague or insufficient in specifying, and especially influencing social sciences, as well as in identifying concrete problems of theory production (Domingues, 2009, 2014; Knöbl, 2007). Of course, there are some very important recent contributions which contest the aforementioned criticism, 3 but as Julian Go has underscored they must still be seen as exceptions (2016: 12).
Thus, a review of these decolonial and postcolonial postulates, but also of their limits, suggests the need for an added commitment to review and challenge the basic categories, concepts, and theories that have functioned until now as the legitimate tools we deploy in our sociological tasks. Specifically, it challenges us to carry out a critical research program aimed at constructing or re-constructing those undisputed core classical notions that are cornerstones of social and sociological theory, and continue to provide the foundations for the production of sociological knowledge globally.
The latter is especially important given the serious consequences of the hegemony discussed above, which are linked to the potential of such tools to distort the understanding and interpretation of other societies.
A perception of Latin America that is based on a deficit narrative is a good example of the negative consequences of this hegemony. A common feature of this sociological tradition is to emphasize analytically the gap between how these societies are seen to function and how they should function according to the tradition’s theory-generated normative expectations. As different authors have noted (inter alia, Araujo, 2012; Martuccelli, 2010; Mascareño, 2010), frequently Latin Americans are not considered to be true individuals at all because they do not possess the traits that the Northern-central discourse considers they should have; Latin American societies are considered problematic because they lack the expected degrees of differentiation and complexity modern societies should possess; or they are seen as transgressive and severely deficient with respect to individuals’ relationship with the norms, because their dynamics and social logic do not mesh with a theory of society in which the introjection of norms is held to play the central role in defining and making social life possible.
Hence, how to conceive a critical research program? In my view it entails developing exploratory empirical research programs, which should be strongly informed theoretically: programs aimed ultimately at comparing the capacity of backbone hegemonic theoretical notions to account for the realities under study. Above all, they should contribute to a theoretical reconstruction of these skeletal notions in a conversation that must inevitably go beyond one specific region, and should therefore involve a three-step path. First, is to identify by means of empirical research the contingent and specific ways in which socio-historical groups face the tasks they are confronted with (modes of production and reproduction, sociabilities, etc.). Attendant on its indispensable exploratory character, such research must follow a bottom-up strategy and observe inductive procedures. Second, and based on this information, the pertinence and acuity of hegemonic concepts or analytical categories theoretically central to sociology (e.g. individualization, secularization, or differentiation) in interpreting these social realities must be evaluated. Third, and finally, is the need to undertake the re-construction of such concepts, categories and theories in a broader dialogue between different regions.
In what follows I will try to illustrate these points by discussing a particular case, that of the concept of individualization.
Crossroads and divergent paths: Individualization, individuation and the individual
The concept of individualization has long been part of the sociological tradition. The interpretations of the so-called sociological classics, as well as the hegemonic historical narrative of modernity, placed this process at the heart of our understanding of modern societies (Kron, 2000). Nevertheless, the notion has some important conceptual and heuristic limits.
To begin with the concept has been, and is still, deeply ambivalent. On the one hand, the concept of individualization has been used to designate a historical process, one characterized by the increasing adoption by institutions or modes of organization in which individuals occupy the central axis. At the same time, real world actors would be more and more compelled to accentuate the construction of their individuality. Yet, individualization has also been used as a concept that provides an account of how actual subjects are produced in a historical society and the core characteristics they are driven or encouraged to acquire – that is, strictly speaking, processes of individuation. This semantic entanglement lies behind a confusion between the generalization of a historical trend and the simultaneous generalization of one particular version of how individuation processes are achieved. If this lack of clarity is already problematic because it obscures debate in this field of studies, it is even more so as it has helped cloak and conceal other modalities of individuation, such as the one I will discuss in what follows. That is, the notion of individualization installed a specific modality of individuation as integral to the hegemonic theoretical model of individualization processes. Therefore, to approach our subject it is important to keep this distinction in mind. In what follows the focus of the analysis will be on individuation processes.
A hegemonic model of individuation processes
To start with, classic sociology described the emergence of the individual in Western civilization associated with different structural factors (social differentiation, secularization, urbanization, rationalism, industrialization, and so on). Nevertheless, it must be recognized that from the beginning social differentiation has been regarded as having played a central role.
Differentiation and individualization are two trend concepts, to use the notion coined by Domingues (2014), that are closely related to the aim of explaining core processes in the ongoing formation of modern societies. However, their relationship is a hierarchical one. Differentiation has been identified since the so-called sociological classics (Durkheim, Weber or Simmel) as one of the most important structural features of the emergence of modern societies and at the same time of the modern individual. Thus, theoretically, individualization appears from the start to be a consequence of differentiation. This means that, on the one hand, the relationship between the structural features of a society and the production of individuals was always at the heart of sociological thought, to the point of establishing a general interpretative model. But, it also means, and this is more problematic, that the conception of this relationship was reduced to the very specific way in which not only structural change processes but structural features themselves were conceptualized. In this way, a spurious generalization of a very specific historical path took place. This, as we will see, had three important and interrelated consequences for the study of non-central Western societies.
First, based upon social morphology, meaning strictly speaking society’s level of differentiation, classical sociology determined whether individuals existed or not in a society. There were to be no individuals in societies in which differentiation processes had not taken place and even in those in which they had not fully taken place. This underlies Durkheim’s distinction between organic and mechanical solidarity (1996), as well as Dumont’s conception of holistic and individualistic societies (Dumont, 1983, 1985), to give just two examples. This is also precisely what can be found as an underlying premise of a long discussion in Latin America about whether individuals exist or not in Latin societies – a premise that gave birth to different versions of the notion that individuals are deficient in such non-central societies (i.e. a moral deficit to be found, for example, in ‘the transgressive Latin American individual’ thesis; see García Villegas, 2009; Nino, 2005).
Second, from the structural morphology point of view, this interpretation associated differentiation with complexity. As we know, this sociological account argues that differentiation is linked to the specialization of societies, finding expression in increasing heterogeneity and consequently leading to greater social complexity. Complexity and differentiation became intertwined concepts, but furthermore, complexity was held to derive solely from differentiation. At a stroke, other forms of social complexity (such as kinship bonds, cultural and ethnical diversity, the relationship with invisible entities, the relevance of sociability and informal networks, etc.) were dismissed. Thus, empirical actors from other societies or from the same societies before they became modern were not perceived to be individuals. This status-denial contributed also to obliviousness of the fact that in these undifferentiated societies actors had always recognized their irreducible individuality, and that there also existed truly individual role models (heroic, exemplary, eccentric, etc.) (Lozerand, 2014).
Third, and especially due to evolutionary and functionalist theory’s embrace of the notion of differentiation (Knöbl, 2007), and more specifically to the contributions of Parsons, the structural features of a society were linked too closely to its institutional design. Therefore, following this author, the most important factor for individualization was held to be institutional action: institutions were the obligatory explanatory reference for individualization (as a historical trend) but at the same time for individuation processes. Thus, institutional individualism came to be the key concept when conceptualizing how individuals are produced in societies transforming their traditional social architecture. It also became a core concept when approaching the social production of the individual (Bourricaud, 1977; Parsons, 1951, 1964). According to this thesis, as we know, in modern societies the most important institutions (work, school, family, etc.) were specifically and explicitly geared to the production of individuals. Thanks to the implementation of a recognizable institutional program instituted in the eighteenth century, the individual became the essential subject model that actors were supposed to embody (Dumont, 1983, 1985; Le Bart, 2009). Thus, the individuation process in modern Western societies was related to a set of social representations – to the active presence of an ideology of individualism – and the central role of institutions and the mechanism of interpellation. The interpellation of actors as subjects is an essential component of this model. This can be seen in contributions on the consequences of the institutional subjection mechanisms, as discussed by Foucault (Fassin and Memmi, 2004; Memmi, 2003), or, from a very different theoretical perspective, on subject models and individualism (Bellah et al., 1985). Institutions were supposed to produce them through interpellations or prescriptions, but also to provide them the necessary support to incarnate this model. This can be seen, for example, in discussions about the importance of the Welfare State in individualization and individuation processes (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Therborn, 2009) and the role it plays in support of the individual (Castel, 1995), but also in the relationship between the degree of support and the capacity to respond to institutional prescriptions (Ehrenberg, 2008).
Briefly, based on the theoretical equivalence chain (differentiation = social complexity = institutional diversification) and the central role given to differentiation in the production of individuals, three theoretical assumptions attached individualization and individuation to central-Western societies. Appealing to this conceptualization, and contingent on the diagnosis of semi-peripheral or peripheral societies as not, or at least not fully, differentiated (from modernization theory to Luhmannians’ recent approaches, see Mascareño, 2010), for a long time the social sciences affirmed the non-existence or insufficiencies of individuals in these societies (Araujo, 2009a; Martuccelli, 2010).
Therefore, any analytical and critical work on individualization or individuation processes must test these assumptions. For space reasons I choose to focus in this article on addressing the third assumption, the central role of institutions and interpellation within individuation processes. Based on the results of empirical studies on individuation processes carried out as part of my research over the last 15 years in Chile as a non-central society, I question the centrality of institutions 4 and the mechanisms of institutional interpellation or prescription in understanding individuation processes (a brief warning before proceeding: while several studies will be referenced, I will not use fragments of empirical material to support my argument, as is customary. Instead, I will refer in each case to the publications in which these studies were presented and their results discussed).
Counter-evidence
Chilean society is historically characterized by three important traits. The first of these is the hierarchical nature of the social bond (Bengoa, 1996): that is, the pre-eminence of a conception of the social bond in which what articulates the relationship between individuals, groups and social domains has been marked by top-down hierarchical formulas. This hierarchy has been historically reproduced in very different ways: for example, until the 1960s with the promise of protection and personal favors, as in the case of the traditional figure of the landowner (Morandé, 1984); since the nineteenth century and still today, as an indispensable requirement for the maintenance of social, political or moral order in imagined response to the fear of social chaos (Araujo, 2016; Jocelyn Holt, 1999).
The second trait is a strict segmentation and segregation supported by the naturalization of superiority. A naturalization that was attached, and still is, to ascribed traits such as surnames, physical appearance, or skin color, for example (PNUD, 2017).
Third is the tutelary character of pillar institutions over individuals. A capacity for decision and action, and the autonomy of the governed, was never considered a decisive element by the elites. The self-established tutelary role of central institutions, such as the church or the army, persisted in these societies until very late in the twentieth century (Nugent, 2001).
These traits were often related to the absence of a cultural tradition of individualism anchored in a strong institutional program of individualization, such as is found in modern central-Western societies. The former fed the conviction held by the social sciences, but also by politics or public opinion, that the individual in Chile and in Latin America as a whole was nonexistent or insufficient: to be recognized as an individual implied possessing the traits the sociological notion created in Europe or the United States attributed to the individual. One of these was autonomy. Obviously, it was very hard to find such individuals in a society where tutelary institutional imaginaries are ever-present, and personal interdependence is so deeply interwoven and so very explicitly recognized (Lomnitz, 1994), where family or informal supports have played such a fundamental role in social life (Barozet, 2002; PNUD, 2017) and continue to do so. Consequently, the study of the individual in this region was obliterated or, worse, most of our diagnosed social or political challenges (populism, poverty, underdevelopment) were (and continue to be) explained precisely in terms of the absence of ‘true’ autonomous (empowered) individuals or people’s incapacity to embody ‘true’ individuals. 5 It was precisely in order to interrogate this conviction and tackle the absence of studies on the question of the individual in the region that we developed a research program in Chile comprising a series of empirical studies.
The results of a preliminary study allowed us to cast doubt on the alleged nonexistence of individuals or their defective character, as well as on the theoretical importance attributed classically to institutions in the process of individuation. This qualitative and strongly inductive research was carried out in Chile between 2007 and 2010 (Araujo and Martuccelli, 2012). Instead of asking comparatively to what extent the actors could be considered ‘individuals’ (how great was the gap between these actors and the central-Western ideal model of an individual), we wanted to understand how individuation processes took place in this society’s specific historical conditions. The question, in other words, was: how can we describe the modalities assumed by real-life actors in response to the constant and ordinary challenges they have to meet due to the structural traits of the society in which they live (Martuccelli, 2006). Hence, the theoretical assumption was that a study of the specific path taken by the individuation process was inseparable from the specificity of the structural traits. But, unlike other perspectives in the study of individuation processes, firstly, we did not conceive the type of individual produced by a historical society to be the direct outcome of the action of structures, but rather the result of interaction between structural demands and how individuals face them. Secondly, our interest was not in identifying the impact of the macrostructural upon individual experiences, character or personality (Gerth and Mills, 1953): what interested us was to describe the main shared traits that characterized these individuals when facing social life. Thirdly, instead of defining in a pre-established way the structural traits (culture, politics, economy, etc.), as is the custom, the empirical work was to allow us to reconstruct inductively which structural traits defined social organization, forms of life and modalities of individuals in the case studied.
Our results revealed that Chile’s current historical condition was a product of the intersection of the so-called neoliberal economic and social model (i.e. the privatization of social protections; the flexibilization and precarization of the labor market; the expansion of the ideal of competition and merit; the valorization of social actors as ‘owners’ or ‘proprietors’, among others) and a very important drive for the expansion of democratic principles (equality, the human rights paradigm, etc.) to very different social domains and relations (among them gender, intergenerational relationships and the family). These social changes present new demands in facing social life, to which actors have reacted partly by deepening historical strategies (for example, with the intensive use of family and informal networks), as we shall see, as well as by reinforcing old and new abilities and resources. These social changes have also acted as a very strong drive for the reconfiguration of the traditional principles that once governed social relationships, and that, as discussed above, are still active in social life. What emerges is a tense, contradictory and febrile social scenario.
In this context, our study showed empirically that the individual in Latin America does exist, and of course is not inadequate as an individual. It is just that we have another type of individual (a relational hyper-actor). 6 These results revealed that institutions had a much weaker role in setting up individuals and in giving them support to embody and present themselves as individuals.
The findings of this research led to a new conceptualization of individuation processes. As has already been discussed, the institutional individualism thesis (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; Parsons, 1951), based on European and North American experience, had long suggested that individuals set themselves up based on their capacity to adhere to a prescriptive institutional program. What we found is that in our case study, individuals set themselves up based more on their capacity for ‘doing’ and their interpersonal relationships (as relational hyper-actors) than on their capacity for embodying an institutional model, as expected in the theory.
Being an individual is not understood to be the result of incarnating the traits of an institutional subject model, but follows instead from the traces of their ‘doing’ in the social world. Each is impelled to face social life, and in doing so is sustained as an individual: for example, by giving consistency to the social position occupied (when continuously threatened by different contingent factors), by using strategies such as those of simultaneous multi-employment; trying to articulate social ideals about partner relationships that are particularly dissimilar; defining in isolation legitimate boundaries and limits for consumption and indebtedness in the absence of a collective normative construction and given the lack of clear institutional safeguards; or, as Robles (2000) has pointed out, doing temporary work, subcontracting, working at home or engaging in clandestine work as a forced means of subsistence due to the inadequacies of the formal labor market.
Being an individual in Chile, then, is measured by the capacity to confront the trials of social life successfully by relying on one’s abilities (to seize opportunities, to avoid institutional obstacles, etc.), but also by the strength of informal and family networks and the abilities needed to maintain and use them. The individual is a hyper-actor but a relational one, as evidenced by the centrality of networks of influence in their image of society and in their practical ways of facing social life (to get a job, to access privileged information) or by the basic role of family support (in solving problems of housing, health, or even support in bringing up children). The individual might be seen as a relational vortex and a weaver of relationships. The idea of an individual sustained from within and independent of their surroundings is not a hegemonic figure here unlike the case of many countries of the North (Araujo, 2009a; Martuccelli, 2010). Individuals in Chile never manage to completely ignore either relevant others or collectives. They receive. They give. They mobilize support. They cultivate networks or regret not doing so when they see them as necessary. They accept, for example, the statutory requirements of the family in exchange for support.
In this context, support is not found mainly in institutions but must be produced (or at least sustained and recreated) by the individual. The actor, while ‘dependent’ on institutions, is conceived at a ‘distance’ from them. Actors not only perceive themselves to be unprotected by institutions, they often believe that they have to protect themselves from their abuses, such as, for example, being encouraged to consume and face the serious consequences of getting into debt; 7 their expectations of having to work-without-end; 8 the failure to recognize individual merits while maintaining privileges associated with family, class and social networks in the labor market. This explains, at least partially, why Chilean individualism should not be understood as institutional individualism but rather as an agentic individualism.
Two further studies allowed us to probe the second grand affirmation of classical sociological theory on individuation processes: the pivotal role of the mechanism of interpellation. Within the classical theoretical framework, the production of individuals as subjects is essential, and, as already pointed out, mechanisms of interpellation are how this is achieved. Whether these interpellations are thought of as being normative, as defining attributes or modalities (Foucault, 1995; Parsons, 1951) or, as discussed by Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2002), they are open mandates that oblige one to choose between a set of attributes, each member of society must adapt themselves to a model proposed by institutions. The individual as a subject is, thus, always a consequence of institutional models or disciplinary principles or mechanisms. Within this framework, an individual is somebody who is compelled by institutions to successfully incarnate the subject model of ‘individual’.
On the one hand, this conception attributes to institutions the capacity to influence individuals’ conduct without exercising explicit and persistent coercion, an attribution bound up since Weber (1978) with the problem of authority and legitimacy. On the other hand, it supposes the capacity of institutions to influence individuals effectively, and individuals’ willingness to adhere to institutional prescriptions due to the functions of institutions in assuring or sustaining individuals in their social lives. This is clearly shown for example, in Castel’s work on social supports, and his reduction of social supports to institutional supports (2009).
These two assertions are far from accurate for our case study.
First, as the results of a study of the exercise of authority showed, 9 relationships with institutions are conceived as being mediated by a large number of direct constraints and coercions. This is an expression of a modality of the exercise of authority that is transversal and widespread in Chilean society, one that makes the exhibition of real or virtual strength and power of the exerciser crucial to its exercise. Punishments, penalties or rewards are real and concrete elements that decide conducts in everyday social life, but also conducts toward institutions. This is linked to the fact that mistrust and distance are central components of people’s relationship with institutions. Exposure to different forms of abuse and excessive or even irrational demands are what people frequently expect of institutions, thereby diminishing the latter’s power to influence individuals’ actions in a non-coercive manner. Obedience or compliance is normally based on unreconciled consent. Hence, more than a stable belief in the authority of institutions (Weber, 1978), what is at stake in the relationship with institutions is a constant, contingent, rational and emotional evaluation of each situation. This evidently involves normative principles but is mostly guided by a pragmatic evaluation based on criteria of effectiveness.
Second, from a recent study on how actors deal with their social lives and constitute themselves as subjects in the process, 10 we can affirm that institutions in Chilean society hardly exist in actors’ narratives; rarely are they seen to be effective social and existential supports. As this research showed, they are of course seen as a resource that can be mobilized to achieve goals, but for the most part – except in one case, that of the family – institutions are not seen as playing a very important role as supports for helping people manage their social lives. Actors do perceive themselves to be unprotected by institutions (and are extremely critical about it), but this fact is not read as a dramatic threat. Whether it is an accurate perception or not, institutions are not seen as the main support and emotional backup for individuals, compared to family relationships, close friends, or spirituality. Far from Robert Castel’s or Sennett’s (Castel, 1995; Sennett, 1998) conceptualizations of the weakening of individuals due to institutional abandonment, on the contrary, in Chile institutional weakness is linked to individual strength by stimulating the development of a capacity to act on one’s own, as well as the active handling of one’s personal networks. As earlier studies had found and this study confirmed, individuals receive more guidance in their attitudes and actions in the social world by what their social experience has taught them than by normative ideals (Araujo, 2009b). What this means is that, while institutions in Chile evidently mobilize normative mandates, individuals tend to generate mechanisms to distance themselves from them, while adopting forms of adherence that are always partial and often purely instrumental.
Individuals are not, therefore, primarily a product of institutional interpellation. Thus, they are not to be found reflected in their efforts, failures or frustrations in incarnating the ideal model. Individuals can be traced in the narration of what has been faced and especially how it has been faced while inhabiting the social world in which they must live. Facts, anecdotes, analogies, detailed concrete accounts are some of the narrative tools that give an account of individuals and they can only be made visible by tracking their steps.
Conclusions
Our findings show that two essential premises of the understanding of individuation processes in classical social theory are not confirmed in the case study. On the one hand, they suggest that the conception of the individual mainly as a result of institutional work (as suggested by the institutional individualism thesis) must be thoroughly revised. At a general theoretical level, they also suggest that the idea that structural traits of a society are mainly absorbed and accompanied by institutional forms may be mistaken. Our results show that in some societies the effects of structural dimensions are not primarily or even mainly absorbed by institutional programs. Moreover, institutional programs may contradict the concrete structural challenges actors face. On the other hand, they invite us to question a model in which interpellation or prescription are held to be the main mechanisms for the production of individuals.
Hence, empirical research conducted in a particular societal setting has provided evidence that supports our view that the institutional individualism thesis is not broad enough to account for the diversity of individuation processes.
Our findings show that the individual was never the problem, as the Latin American and Chilean debate had presumed. The problem was that researchers were paying too much attention to the models embedded in hegemonic theories and concepts. Their interpretations were over-influenced by these theoretical assumptions, a problem that has distorted an understanding of these societies in very different ways (Martuccelli, 2010).
By questioning the institutional individualism thesis based on empirical evidence, I wanted to stress that the challenge of renewing social theory in a plural world involves the essential task of questioning the cornerstone concepts of social theory. This entails testing their pertinence and acuity for the study of societies different from those in which they were created.
Such a task, as I have suggested, should be undertaken based on empirical research, not only mainly in historical sociology but especially from a synchronic/diachronic comparative perspective. This research must be essentially inductive. By questioning and reshaping our analytical concepts, and by using inductive empirical methodologies to study non-central societies, we can avoid hegemonic concepts and theories establishing by default the frames from which we build and interpret our data. In their place we can allow concepts and theories – until now mainly derived from the global North – to spring from the rich and diverse realities we encounter.
But this task entails a further step. As proposed in this article, after a critical review that needs to be both empirical and theoretical, these cornerstone sociological concepts and theories must be re-evaluated and/or reconstructed in a broad, collegial and horizontal dialogue between scholars from different world regions. With the article I hope to stimulate and contribute to this indispensable shared endeavor.
Footnotes
Funding
The author acknowledges partial support from FONDECYT through grant 1180338 Project Problematizaciones del Individualismo en América Latina, as well as partial support from the Millennium Scientific Initiative of the Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism of Chile, grant ‘Millennium Nucleus Center Authority and Power Asymmetries’.
