Rules and resourses

From Geography

According to Giddens structures are composed of rules and resources. Concept of structure, combine structure with action structures are not existing outside of what people doing. Two points of structure are:

- Rules:

    1.	Normative rules: how to do things, patterns in social life
    2.	Semantic rules: to attribute meaning to what we experience. Different languages can cause misunderstanding.  
                                       Benno Werlen lecture (1-10-10)

Rules are constitutive for the way we live. Rules are socially produced, they are best conceived as generalized procedures of action that enable the agents to routinely reproduce their actions. (lippuner werlen 1991, p. 5)

‘’Actors always interpret social situations in accordance with certain rules of interpretation.’’ (lippuner and Werlen 1991, p. 5)

- Resources: capability to control : two types:

    1. Capacity of allocation: Control over the material aspect . (for example the means of production) (Marxism)
    2.	Capacity of authorization: Control over people. Power is also element of the agency. Authorization is to control other       
       people’s actions.
                                       Benno Werlen lecture (1-10-10)

A resource is a capability to transform. (Lippuner and Werlen 1991, p. 5) Allocative and authoritarian recourses they are distinct yet you cannot have one without the other. The rules structure and limit human action whereas the resources are enabling. Rules and resources together are not deterministic because the actor can apply the rules and resources in his own way to a certain extend. Therefore rules and resources are considered not to be external.

‘’Just as the rules of language, in contributing to the construction of a well-formed phrase or sentence, reproduce that language, so structures of rules and resources, in consequence of the duality that renders them both the medium and the outcome of social interactions, reproduce institutions and social relations’’ (Bryant and Jary 1991, p.11)

---

References:

Bryant, G.A.C. and Jary, D. (1991). Giddens’ theory of structuration: a critical appreciation. Routledge

Lippuner, R. and Werlen, B. (2009). Structuration theory. In: International Encyclopedia for Human Geography. Elsevier

Published by Sabrina Willems & Anouk Soomers