Metamorphosis of the agency/structure debate

The aim of this chapter is to furnish an updated cartography of the agency/structure debate. As a first step we will outline the ongoing theoretical and epistemological discourse surrounding this debate within sociology, exploring the possibility for a re-theorization that extends beyond a dualistic approach. As a second stage, we will present a brief cartographic analysis of the main new theoretical inputs within this debate, which mainly concern feminism and ecofeminism, postcolonialism and STS approaches. Finally, we will analyse the characteristics of the agency/structure debate in the current environment of neoliberalism, individualization and individualism, as new forms of constraints, as tacit assumptions of definition of agency and personal autonomy, where self-management can also be a form of self-confinement.