Structure both constrains action and is produced by it, so neither individual choice nor social structure is prior to the other.
Giddens's 1984 argument against choosing between agency and structure. Language is the illustration: it constrains what can be said and exists only because people keep speaking it.
In practice
- A queue exists because people join the end of it, and each person joining is constrained by the queue they are making.
- A team's culture constrains what a new joiner can propose, and is reproduced by every proposal they make within it.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Sociology & Culture
- Essay
- How societies hold together, sort people, and change