Structure and Agency

“Theorizing the relationship between power, social knowledge and structure inevitably takes us into the debate on the autonomy of the individual in relation to social order”

(Haugaard, 1997:1).

Power debates take place amongst wider debates concerned with the respective roles of structure and agency in society, politics and power (Giddens, 1984; Hayward and Lukes, 2008). There is a long-standing tension between structural-functional and Marxist accounts of power and actor-orientated perspectives that emphasise inequalities in the distribution of resources and power, but also acknowledge opportunities for people to shape these relationships through agency (De Haan and Zoomers, 2005). Whilst Gramsci sat firmly at the structural end of the spectrum, Bourdieu attempted to find a middle ground between structure and agency to explain how behaviour is a product of both. It is the relationship between structure and agency that interests me, in terms of how power systems function, how policy is created and how its implementation and the complexities of outcomes witnessed in CBNRM are a process of continual tension and renegotiation between structures of governance and the agency of individuals. I argue that all of these are socio-political processes ongoing within CBNRM that have power at their core and that are all discursive processes (Feindt and Oels, 2005).

Several attempts to combine the prospective roles of structure and agency and structural and post-structural accounts of power have become prominent, most notably in the work of Giddens’s ‘structuration theory’. Essentially, Giddens argued against a dualism of subject and object-centred social theories, proposing structuration as an alternative whereby “social

45 structures...exist in the moment that they are reproduced by agents while, simultaneously, social agents constitute themselves as such through structured action. This moment of reproduction of agency and structure is structuration” (Giddens, 1984 in Haugaard, 2002:

146). Such attempts aim to make it possible to investigate both how actors are constrained and shaped by the socio-political structures that they live amongst, whilst acknowledging that these structures are socially constructed and are continually being challenged and re-shaped by actors (2004). I argue that this conceptualisation of power through a combination of structure and agency is critical to understanding the implementation of an externally-designed governance system that is inserted within the socio-political context of a community under CBNRM. This perspective is important to the consideration of institutions within my research, which brings together structure and agency to see both formal and informal institutions as “constituted through social processes, which they in turn enable and constrain.

They embody social relations and rules, such as norms, values and behaviour, to which they lend stability and coherence over space and time. Institutions, therefore, encompass concrete and cognitive structures that are habitualised over time and attain a degree of permanence within society” (Bulkeley, 2000: 731). Such arguments form the basis of a research agenda that emphasises the socio-political nature of CBNRM, in terms of both policy and performance of that policy and highlights the need to investigate this performance as continual socio-political processes of re-construction and re-shaping of the governance system.

In line with the growth of poststructural theory and the debates surrounding structure and agency, more recent theories of power have focused upon concepts of power that are not zero-sum but see power as created (often attributed to the work of Parsons, see 1963), the relationship between power and knowledge (see Barnes, 1988), and questions of whether and how compliance to a socio-political power regime is accomplished (Foucault, 1975; Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982; Bourdieu, 1989). Haugaard (1997) argues that in modern thinking on power, four paradigms all concerned with these issues of structure and agency and the nature of power as domination and ‘political technology’ through the social construction of subjects are identifiable in the respective works of Steven Lukes, Michel Foucault, Barry Barnes and Anthony Giddens (as previously discussed). Within these four key thinkers’ work on power, Foucauldian theory has been widely adopted, both within the social sciences more broadly, but especially within poststructural political ecology studies (see 2.5.1). Foucault did not describe his work as being specifically an exploration of power, but did acknowledge that it

46 played a major role in his work. The critical departure for Foucault from Marxist theory and the theories of power that prevailed was that he could not accept that knowledge and power, whilst inter-related, could be separated in the form of an ideologically-free, domination-free form of knowledge; he saw all knowledge, all meanings and all social life as being subject to

“petty and ignoble power relations” (Haugaard, 1997: 43). He argued that “it is not possible for power to be exercised without knowledge, it is impossible for knowledge not to engender power” and “the formation of ‘truth’ does not simply happen. Rather, the truth of any discourse formation is the consequence of the struggles and tactics of power” (Foucault 1980 in Haugaard, 1997: 66 and 68). He moved away from concepts of negative-only (sovereign) power, and embraced theories of the construction of power, labelling it essentially positive.

He was interested in “the point where power reaches into the very grains of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their very actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives (Foucault, 1980 in Lukes, 2005: 89). Here there are clear similarities to Bourdieu’s (1989; 1992) concept of habitus, but whilst Bourdieu concentrated on where practice comes from, Foucault focused more on the interaction between ‘techniques of domination’ and ‘techniques of the self’ to understand what practice does (Threadgold, 2006). Bourdieu also argued that knowledge is not discursive, but forms part of habitus, whereas Foucault focused on the discursive nature of power (Haugaard, 1997).

Foucault argued that the discursive nature and ‘regime’ of power is not necessarily oppressive, but is positive and productive because the subject (himself created by it) must submit to it, in order to be seen to liberate himself from it (Haugaard, 1997). For example, a patient in a mental health hospital is deemed to be cured, and can be freed from the restrictions placed upon him, only once he has accepted his diagnosis and submitted himself to the treatment proposed by the institution, which inherently involves the reification of the power structure in place (Haugaard, 1997). Taking this view of power as positive, Foucault discussed the concept of ‘subjectification’ extensively, and created what is perhaps the most widely-applied aspect of Foucauldian theory; governmentality. Foucault considered the most pernicious form of power to be its normalised forms. In his studies of the deep, intimate connections between power and knowledge, he introduced the concept governmentality to describe “the ways in which subjectivity is constituted within a constellation of powers and in which people continuously and permanently survey and govern themselves as an effect of those powers” (Kesby, 2005: 2042). Governmentality describes the generation of “compliant

47 subjects who actively reproduce assemblages of power without being forced to do so”

(Kesby, 2005: 2040). Foucault described this process using the example of Bentham’s

‘panopticon’, a prison in which all inmates are positioned to be continually visible to a central watchtower, where authority (itself unseen) presides (Foucault, 1975). Each inmate has no way of knowing when he is being observed, but begins to modify his own behaviour and observe himself, a process upon the soul which Foucault described as the ‘conduct of conduct’ (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982). Whereas Gramsci argued that even under hegemony and the ideological subordination of the working class, resistance and political struggle would always be present, Foucault argued that governmentalised subjects cannot see the power relations at work, which have been normalised and accepted as legitimate, producing passive subjects even in contexts of extreme domination (Gaventa, 1982; Haugaard, 2002).

Foucauldian theory has been employed by Arun Agrawal in his study Environmentality (2005), in which he explores the ways in which policy is a political technology. He uses the evolution of community-based forest management in India as an example, focusing on the shifts in relations between state and localities that this involved, the creation of environmental knowledges and the formation of self-identity within devolved environmental management.

He argues that in his case study changing relations between the state and society produced new ‘governmentalized localities’ through the construction of new centres of environmental decision-making or ‘regulatory spaces’, and new forms of relationships termed ‘regulatory communities’ (Agrawal, 2005). Within these regulatory spaces and communities he describes the process of governmentality in the production of environmental subjects (Agrawal, 2005: 14). He also focuses on the discursive construction of these environmentalities and governmentalised localities: “regulations and villagers’ practices and words seem to be part of a process that has reshaped people’s understandings of the forest and the basis of forest control itself” (Agrawal, 2005: 12).

Foucauldian concepts of discourse focus less upon language and more upon knowledge, and are characterised by four features (Feindt and Oels, 2005): firstly a focus on the productive function of discourse and the ways in which discourse establishes truths about the world, the environment or policy options; secondly that power is present in all forms of social interaction and is both productive as well as repressive. This supports a theorisation of power that is “understood as a web of force relations made up of local centres of power around which specific discourses, strategies of power and techniques for the appropriation of knowledge cluster (Feindt and Oels, 2005: 164); thirdly that discourse is a strategic situation

48 that both forms and is formed by actors, and are locations of conflict. This is an important aspect in the integration of structure and agency; and finally that discourse is important to the construction of subjectivity and governmentality. I employ such a perspective firstly through consideration of the discursive production of CBNRM through policy processes. Secondly my research considers the discursive practices of negotiation and political struggle ongoing within Tanzanian CBNRM, and in 6.3.4 I focus specifically on conflicts taking place and the power struggles these represent. Finally, I address the issue of power and resistance by considering evidence of governmentality within Tanzanian CBNRM, particularly with reference to the informal and hidden systems of power and issues such as corruption and neopatrimonialism.

Foucauldian theory has raised many questions and critiques, principally the issue of resistance. Is a governmentalised subject aware of his subjectification? Can this ever be broken? James Scott (1985; 1990) has become one of the most well-known writers on the subject, arguing that resistance is always present and often subtle, quiescence is tactical and hegemony can only ever be paper-thin (Lukes, 2005). Haugaard (2003) recently attempted to reconcile some of these many debates, making room for a nuanced understanding of power that accommodated both negative and positive power, twin roles of structure and agency and room for compliance and resistance. He describes this as the seven ways in which power can be produced (Table 2.1). He attempts to weave a way for power to be considered in its coercive form and as a product of the creation of social order and to bring together the works of many of the influential writers about power, including the work of Barnes, Clegg, Giddens, Lukes, Foucault, Arendt, Bachrach & Baratz and Weber and Dahl, alongside his own earlier work to achieve this.

49

Form of Power Example Description

(1)

Structuration is the reproduction of social structure, but this requires recognition to be socially meaningful or powerful. This act of recognition and imbibing of meaning is confirming structuration²¹

Similar to the organisation of bias (Bachrach and Baratz, 1962) in that he describes the capacity of such agents to

‘de-structure’ or ‘non confirm-structure’ the practices of others, which has the effect of maintaining existing power relations

Structural practices are sustained by social consciousness.

Systemic biases are based upon social meanings, which are created by social meanings and systems of thought make some acts of confirming structuration likely, and others not

Rejects the idea of false consciousness and argues that consciousness raising and empowerment (through de-stabilisation of social order) are possible through the creation of discursive practical consciousness that provides us with the ability to recognize patterns of thought and behaviour that we have internalised

(5) Power created

by reification

Social power has to appear as non-arbitrary

Drawing upon the work of Foucault and Clegg with respect to internalisation and subjectification, Haugaard argues that the destabilisation of social order described in (4) may not always occur. The reification of structures can lead to confim-structuration because actors cannot perceive the disadvantage to them that this might entail.

(6)

Practical consciousness knowledge cannot be converted because it is blocked through socialisation involving the routinisation of structuration eliciting automatic confirm-structuration, or what Foucault referred to as disciplining the ‘soul’²²

The final form of power is violence and coercion, which, as Arendt argued, represents not the ultimate form of power, but the failure of social power²³

21To illustrate this argument, Haugaard uses the example of a ship that is to be named and launched.

Instead of the designated person, a stranger walks up, smashes the bottle on the side of the ship, proclaims a name and launches the ship. We would not consider the ship to have been named or launched, because the act would not be recognised, even though the procedure might have been correct; in Haugaard’s argument an act of structuration has occurred, but it has not been confirmed, and is therefore meaningless (Haugaard, 2003).

22 So that upon leaving the panopticon, the criminal retains the self-governing practices he learnt inside (Haugaard, 2003).

23 “Once the sovereign has to draw their sword it is because the Leviathan has failed to create social power”(Haugaard, 2003: 108).

Table 2.1: Seven Forms of Social Power (adapted from Haugaard, 2003: 109)

50 I utilise several of Haugaard’s classification of forms of power to investigate how the power systems in place within CBNRM are operating. I employ the concept of power created by social order (1) and by discipline (6) to investigate the internalisation and confirm-structuration of informal aspects of power, particularly with reference to corruption and neopatrimonialism. In chapter 6 I utilise the ideas of power created by systems of thought (3), tacit knowledge (4) and reification (5) in an examination of the relationship between power and knowledge and the control of information within power struggles. Finally I address the question of resistance and the roots of empowerment through evidence of power created by tacit knowledge (4).

My analysis of power is one that weaves throughout the empirical chapters, and I argue that power is simultaneously a missing element in the study of policy processes, unacknowledged in its more subtle and informal forms within studies of the local politics of natural resource management, and the basis for contestation within such management. I adopt a Foucauldian perspective of power, arguing that discursive processes of persuasion, negotiation and contestation are central to the prescribed governance system set out in policy and to the reality (and differences therein) of its performance.