The Morphogenetic Approach
摘要
The morphogenetic analysis is a form of realist social theory that seeks to understand and explain change by analyzing the conditioning, interactive, and elaborative processes that temporally occur between structure, culture, and agency. Grounded in a critical realist paradigm, this approach asserts that structure, culture, and agency (which are emergent powers) are all real, causally efficacious, and irreducible to one another. Social reality and outcomes cannot be attributed solely to one of these emergent properties at the exclusion of, or through the conflation of, the others. A key element of this approach is agentic reflexivity, or the internal conversation that occurs within an agent as one reflects on the relationship between one’s current contextual realities and their ultimate concerns, the projects they pursue to achieve these concerns, and the practices that accomplish these goals. Agentic reflection contributes to action which may activate structural and cultural enablements and constraints. In turn, this influences the emergence of either a morphostatic (the status quo) or morphogenetic (change) outcome.