Situación en México de los parques eólicos

In this study I am bringing together two theorists from different research

paradigms – the critical realist Margaret Archer and the poststructuralist feminist philosopher Judith Butler. Both women produce what might be described as dense and difficult theory, and I am conscious of the fact that I am only a novice in approaching their work. I am referring to both in my study for two specific hermeneutic purposes: a) to acknowledge and discuss the agentic selves presented by my participants in terms of Archer’s theory of identity and agency; b) to contrast this with the challenges to agency represented by the power that gendered discourses exert on women’s identity, compatible with my feminist stance. I have described in Chapter 2 the specific aspects of both theoretical frameworks I have applied. However, a broader overview of critical realism and post-structuralism merits some discussion here.

In considering the possibilities of human agency critical realist perspectives are attractive. Critical realism suggests that there is a ‘real’ world, but that our knowledge and understanding of it is socially constructed. Unlike feminist discourses (Wickramsinghe, 2006) which suggest a symbiotic relationship between ontology and epistemology, critical realism rejects the conflation of ontology and epistemology, which Bhaskar calls an ‘epistemic fallacy’ (1998: 28). He proposes a stratified ontology which differentiates between the empirical (things that can be experienced), the actual (events that happen regardless of whether they are experienced), and the real (generative mechanisms that are independent both of mind and society).

Bhaskar’s model of critical realism (1998) defines agency as the scope the individual has in interactions with the forces of structure. He posits that people do not create society because it always pre-exists them and is a necessary

condition for their activity. Rather, society must be regarded as an ensemble of structures, practices and conventions which individuals reproduce or transform, but which would not exist unless they did so. Society does not exist

independently of human activity (the error of reification). But it is not the product of it (the error of voluntarism) (Bhaskar 1998:36). This is a criticism of the

poststructuralist notions of identity which understands the subject as being constructed mainly through discourse and therefore constrains the capacity for individuals to effect change.

In poststructuralist theory, discourses are situated and performative. That is, discourses represent particular systems of power and knowledge which are open to contestation, but they are also constitutive of both society and the self Although writers such as Foucault and Derrida provided a broad theoretical account of the production of discourses and how these might be deconstructed, Luke (199:52) suggests that both ‘assiduously avoided offering more than broad theoretical directions for the study of discourse in specific local institutions’. Post-structuralism is a useful device for highlighting the social and historical limitations of scientific claims to truth. It explains how individuals are constituted through discourse but not necessarily how individuals are part of discourse. There is a danger, for example, that the categories such as gender and race will be seen as simply discourses to be deconstructed rather than as the source of inequality and oppression. These concerns have been particularly evident in the feminist movement, where Clegg (2006: 315) notes that the ‘poststructuralist legacy continues to haunt attempts to think productively about agency’. One response has been to attempt to reconcile post-structuralism and feminism by exploring how agency is discursively produced. Butler’s (1999) work on

performativity and identity suggests that aspects of identity are enacted and re- enacted through performance. The subject is constantly in a state of becoming rather than being and there is therefore scope to perform identities differently. Clegg (2006) acknowledges the importance of poststructuralist thought to feminism, particularly in its deconstruction of the category of ‘woman’, however she argues that critical realism might provide a richer and more productive basis for theorising agency because of the scope for action and change.

Whilst Bourdieu’s work has increased in influence and seems to offer a radical resource in theorising multiple social identities (Reay, 2004), according to Archer (2000) his concepts insist on a break between practice, that has its own logic, and theoretical discourse. She also argues that habitus could be seen as over deterministic For Archer practice is supreme, and is the basis for

discourse. Archer (2003: 20) defines reflexivity as ‘a generative ability for internal deliberations upon external reality’, and human beings’ ability to reflect on their social situation is key to her theory of identity.

Archer (1995, 1996, 2000) is concerned with human agency, she argues against the upwards, downwards and central conflation in social theorising which obscure the real emergent powers of human agency. In her thesis:

 Downwards conflation over-emphasizes the role of society and confers no agency;

 Upward conflation over - emphasizes individualism – perhaps famously expressed by Margaret Thatcher: there is no such thing as society.

 Central conflation (as expressed by Giddens’ structuration theory (1979 limits the world to that which can only be seen in the actions of the present.

Archer argues that these conflations cannot sustain human agency, which then is either left to psychology, or needs a coherent account of the emergence of social agency from personal identity and self-hood. Clegg (2005:151-3) offers a helpful summary of Archer’s arguments concerning the development of a ‘full range of personal powers – those of self, agent, actor and particular person’ (Archer, 2000: 295)) and identifies a re-newed engagement with the notions of agency, which Archer considered had been abandoned by the academy. Clegg (2005) adheres to a critical realist perspective which recognises that as agents we all have emergent powers and understandings. Drawing on the work of Archer, she identifies that whilst postmodern theories do not offer individuals a role, still the problem of agency persists. We therefore need a better

understanding of the processes of theorising which are grounded in ‘more robust accounts of the ontological and epistemological status of subjects’

(Clegg, 2005: 151). She identifies the hub of the issue at which I began my study:

The question of how we theorise the mundane, therefore, requires a detour into issues of epistemology and ontology, and in particular a return to the vexed question of agency, in order to be capable of rendering intelligible our own mundane practices.

(ibid: 150) Archer argues that it is necessary for individuals to have a continuous sense of self in order to unite a variety of life experiences and expectations (Archer 1995: 284). This continuous sense of self is separate from, but may still influence, the social identity an individual may have. But it is the ‘core self’ which makes it possible for individuals to live through changes in structure and culture.

Hey, posits that the compulsive performativity of academic work is productive of academic identity as a state of being, but that it is capable of disruption

the de-ontologicalising of gender as a fixed in biology allows for the interrogation of the ways in which being an intellectual might become unfixed from particular forms of hegemonic masculinity (citation ref)

Butler concurs with this possibility but only within limits. Whilst she recognises that discourse operates on real embodied human beings, she has no way of theorising it (Hey (2006). Hey argues that performativity needs to pay closer regard to the audience for action – the ‘we’ not just the ‘I’.

Masculine femininities and feminine masculinities

The discourse of feminization is becoming heard in various fields of public life, and also in the academy, as girls are seen to succeed academically above boys, and women increasingly occupy large swathes of the academy in

teaching and support roles. With this comes the pressure for women to absorb ‘masculine’ behaviours of neo-liberal performativity.

The idea of female masculinity is highly problematic (Paechter, 2006) To reject femininity is to reject the disempowering attributes of ‘normal’ femininity. No such symmetry occurs in rejecting masculinity which does not imply any loss of power.

Poststructuralist deconstructon is useful because it allows us to think of various ways in which women might relate to various masculinities and femininities. – not as a fixed attribute of self but as performatively enacted in different

situations.

I have acknowledged in Chapter 2 the tensions between the two theoretical perspectives of Postructuralism and Critical Realism. I have justified my use of them in terms of their potential in my research to sustain a critique in exploring ways in which women enact their being in the academy.

The narratives which follow present stories of lived experiences through which stories of the construction of identity can be seen in terms of Archer’s modus

vivendi but will be discussed also in terms of Butler’s theory of gender identity