McNay and generative theoretical framework

McNay puts forward a framework that through “dialogical understanding of the temporal aspects of subject formation” (McNay, 2000: 4) overcomes symbolic determinism, and understands female subjectivity as having productive potential rather than negativity. Drawing on the recent work of Bourdieu, McNay (2000) considers the differences that the hermeneutic perspective makes to understanding certain temporal dimensions within subject formation and agency. Within the active dimensions of agency, Bourdieu suggests the “temporalized understanding of habitus” (McNay, 2003: 143). As discussed above, habitus refers to a set of acquired schemes of dispositions, perceptions and appreciations including

tastes, which orient our practices and give them meaning (Bourdieu, 1992). According to Bourdieu, habitus, or the construction of the body within socio-cultural norms, is understood not simply in unidirectional terms of the body’s maintenance of externally imposed norms, and is not to be conceived as a principle of determination but also in terms of the anticipatory dimension of possible events, or the living through of those norms, which allows individual agency (Bourdieu, 1992). Bourdieu argues that although these ‘embodied schemes’ (Bourdieu, 2000: 467) are products of collective history, they are acquired within individual history and function in practice.

McNay suggests that the significant implication of the generative framework for a theory of agency is that it enables “an understanding of a creative or imaginative substrate to action” McNay, 2000: 5). Only through conceptualisation of those ‘creative’ and/or ‘productive’ aspects of agency can we explicate individuals’ responses in unexpected and original ways which may obstruct, support or bring about social change (ibid). This conceptualisation also yields new ideas of “autonomy and reflexivity, understood as the critical awareness that arises from self-conscious relation with the other” (McNay, 2000: 5). The generative framework, however, does not reformulate an account of subjectification, but reconfigures it by rearranging the relations between: “the material and symbolic dimensions of subjectification; the issue of the identity or coherence of the self; and, finally, the relation between psyche and the social” (McNay, 2000: 6). The generative framework allows for a more differentiated account of agency to explain various motivations, creativity and ways in which individuals and groups confront, appropriate and transform cultural meaning. Drawing on this idea, new forms of subject formation and agency can be observed to emerge, bringing about change in individuals’ action. This, in turn, results in increasingly complex, plural and uncertain gender relations.

Studies from a number of countries illustrate transformation in power dynamics in the processes of negotiation of sexual relationships, providing evidence that some girls are active agents and resist male control (Bledsoe and Cohen, 1993; Mensch et al., 1999; Leach et al., 2003), demonstrating the imagination and creativity suggested by McNay’s framework. Luke and Kurz (2002) uncover the bargaining aspect of the sexual relationship in which adolescent girls achieve their preferences and appear to have a high degree of control over partnership formation and continuance. Some girls are able to choose the number and type of partners with whom they want to be involved. For example, a study of secondary school girls in

118 Uganda shows that they used explicit negotiation strategies and ways of manipulation in achieving the ‘prize’ (Nyanzi, et al., 2000). Other research (see for example, Komba- Malekela and Liljestrom, 1994; Luke and Kurz, 2002) indicates that girls often find innovative ways to mislead their partners by making false promises that delay sexual relations. This manoeuvre helps them to take full advantage of their partners and to dispense with those they do not want (Nnko and Pool, 1997; Stavrou and Kaufman, 2000). The evidence also suggests that girls in these studies have considerable control over relationship continuance. ‘No money – no sex’ is a frequent response reported by a study in Dar es Salaam, where all the girls requested money or gifts from their partners (Silberschmidt and Rasch, 2001; see also Haram, 1995). The evidence appears to confirm that girls can withstand male domination as long as alternatives are available, and that the power differential between male and female can be played out in various aspects of (sexual) negotiation. This demonstrates the active agency and autonomy of girls, as described by McNay, in situations which could be expected to follow a singular normative pattern. The evidence shows that some adolescent girls are agents of change having a degree of control in establishing and terminating their relationships (Luke and Kurz, 2002). However, why some girls are better able to be active agents and some choose other strategies by which to exercise their power remains unexplained. Although some females know strategies and ways to manoeuvre men to secure their interests, it is not enough to state that some girls have something called ‘agency’ and consider this conclusive, as Parker (2005: 3) argues.

While the conventional account of agency that relies on a dualist view of male dominance and female subordination does not capture the complexities represented in the examples above, the generative account of subjectification and agency enables one to understand how women exercise power and control in sexual negotiation. The discussion of sexual negotiation shows the agency inherent in individuals, the creativity underlying action, which is significantly explained by McNay’s generative framework.