Strategic Context Analysis: A New Research Strategy for Structuration Theory

This article argues that a new form of methodological bracketing, strategic context analysis, is required by structuration theory if it is to meet the growing criticism best summed up by Nigel Thrift's complaint that it is all micro-situations and world-empires with nothing much in between. Analysis directed towards the strategic context of action can help to provide this `missing institutional link'. The parameters of strategic context analysis are outlined and distinguished from three other forms of analysis associated with structuration theory. The strategic context itself is broken down into its technicist and hermeneutic dimensions and it is suggested that an emphasis on the latter is essential if one is to avoid the reification of structures. A number of illustrative examples - the identities of Tory women, stances towards the French Revolution and Harold Wilson's `pound in your pocket' - are enlisted in order to illustrate the range of questions which could be addressed by a research strategy guided by strategic context analysis. `Gregory smiled. His mother's tendency to the enigmatic was definitely increasing. Someone who didn't know her might have thought her mind was wandering; but Gregory knew there was always a sure point of reference, something which in her own terms made sense. Probably it just took too long to explain. Gregory wondered if this was what being old meant: everything you wanted to say required a context. If you gave the full context, people thought you a rambling old fool. If you didn't give the context, people thought you a laconic old fool. The very old needed interpreters just as the very young did. When the old lost their companions, their friends, they also lost their interpreters: they lost love, but they also lost the full power of speech.' - Julian Barnes, Staring at the Sun