Search

Only show content I have access to (0)

Chapters (1)

Last 3 years (1)

From year:

To year:

Apply

Psychology (1)

Cambridge University Press (1)

1 results

Chapter 15 - Agency As the Direction and Reach of Actions
- By Nick Hopwood
Edited by Nick Hopwood, University of Technology, Sydney, Annalisa Sannino, Tampere University, Finland
Book:

Agency and Transformation

Published online:

23 November 2023

Print publication:

30 November 2023, pp 355-382
- Chapter
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation
Summary

We need theories that help us join the struggle for alternative futures. Cultural-historical approaches frame agency as something people do rather than something they have or sense. Building on this, I conceptualise agency in terms of the direction and reach of actions. Direction concerns movement from distinctive subject positionings towards desired endpoints. Reach concerns the extent of this movement. Direction and reach can be both outward (transforming the world) and inward (transforming the self). This acknowledges individuals’ contributions to changing their own lives and those of others without evacuating actions from the activities in which they are embedded. Motive, mediation, and motion are key to this. I illustrate these ideas in relation to existing research on young people’s environmental activism, a Latino boy in foster care, and a mother struggling to care for her infant child, as well as examples from prior research and other chapters in this volume.