Agency as embodied participation - or the other way around?

work in progress (sudmann and henriksbø)

Our contribution to the new volume on Participation in community work will illuminate agency and embodied participation. Agency can be construed as the mode of being in action, based on the understanding of the situation at hand, or as the socio-cultural capacity to act. When agency is exercised, by individuals or by collectives, the actors’ bodies literally mediate agency. Moreover, their bodies are a site for presentation of self, for creation of hierarchies and social injustices, and a site for negotiation and presentation of a community of interests or a collective identity. As such, the impact of structural enablers and constraints on face-to-face interaction must be explored – and exploited in community work. The social scientists aim at understanding the preconditions for human agency and social change in their studies. The community worker aims at facilitating human agency to promote social change, inter alia by applying social science.

This contribution to the book will take a closer look at institutional preconditions; exploring how social institutions as gender and age, both enable and constrain individual and collective agency. Even though social institutions as gender, age, ethnicity, class or family, seem rock solid and represent “the natural order of things”, they are rife with conflicts and gradually change over time. Social institutions change when people participate in the rounds of daily life or in social movements. People participate in social interaction for a wide range of reasons, the difference between compliance or subversion is not easily spotted.

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Tobba Therkildsen Sudmann is a Norwegian physiotherapist and sociologist, PhD. She has been head of Department of physiotherapy, Haukeland University Hospital, and assistant professors at Department of physiotherapy, Bergen University College, BUC, Norway. At present she is associated professor and head of the Master's programme in Community work, Bergen University College. Her research interests comprise studies of agency, gender, studies of social order as embodied practices, studies of laughter and embarrassment, and social participation at the margins of a Norwegian welfare society. Tobba T Sudmann is one of three co-ordinators of the research group Productive Disruptions at BUC. Publications include (En)gendering agency and body politics. Physiotherapy as a window on health and illness. Berlin: VDM, 2009

Kjell Henriksbø is a Norwegian social worker and political scientist. He is presently affiliated to the Master’s programme in community work at Bergen University College, BUC, Norway. He worked as a social worker in a diverse range of fields, before he started teaching at Department of social education and social work at Bergen University College. Kjell Henriksbø is involved in an international e-learning programme in community work. His research interests are related to community work, particularly studying how community workers construct and present their knowledge. He has been involved in establishing the Master’s programme in community work at BUC.