The empirical study of the relationship between individual and society, in other words, agency and structure has been one of the main tasks and challenges of sociologists since the development of the discipline. Depending of the theoretical orientation, one encounters different theories which emphasis either one or the other level of human life. There seems to be a lack of synthetical theo-ries which could empirically demonstrate this relationship of individual and social life without its reduction to one level either extreme individualism or extreme collectivism. Based on different ex-amples from different structured societies, in this seminar we will try to address the exact relation-ship of these both different but not opposed levels of human life.
Various studies of Norbert Elias, Anthony Giddens and Pierre Bourdieu will serve as theoretical framework of this seminar.
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