The Relational ‘We’ in Personal
Morphogenesis
Beth Weaver
Why social relations?
• We ‘derive from a relational context, [are]
immersed in a relational context and bring about
a relational context’ (Donati, 2011: 14)
• 'We are our ‘relational concerns’, as individuals
as well as social agents/actors, since we
necessarily live in many different contexts that
are social circles (like a family, a network of
friends, maybe a civil association, up to a nation)
which imply a collective entity’ (Donati, 2011:
xvi).
Donati’s conceptualisation of
social relations (SR)
• SR are the bonds maintained between people.
• The practice of reciprocity (symbolic exchange) sustains
the bond of the relation (as distinct from transactional
exchanges), motivated by the maintenance of emergent
relational goods.
• SR as context (cultural and structural connections) and
as interaction (emergent effect of interactive dynamics)
 refero, religo, relational effects.
• A given SR has defining relational characteristics but the
form & shape of SR is neither pre-determined nor fixed.
Empiricising social relations
(see Archer, 2010; Donati, 2014; Weaver, 2015)
Structural Conditioning [conditioning structures]
______________________________
T1
Interactions in networks [black box: individual and relational contributions]
__________________________________
T2
T3
Structural Reproduction (morphostasis)
(i.e persistence)
______________________________
Outcomes
Structural Elaboration (morphogenesis)
T4
(i.e desistance)
Individual contributions: the
MGS applied to internal conversation
Structural Conditioning [conditioning structures] ME
______________________________
T1
Social interaction [ Personal Reflexivity]
I
__________________________________
T2
T3
Structural Reproduction (morphostasis)
___________________________________
YOU
T4
Structural Elaboration (morphogenesis)
Weaver (2015)
Relational contributions: the
MGS applied to social relations
Structural Conditioning [conditioning structures] I
______________________________
T1
Interactions in networks [relational contributions]
__________________________________
T2
ME - WE
T3
Structural Reproduction (morphostasis)
______________________________
YOU
T4
Structural Elaboration (morphogenesis)
Weaver (2015)
Personal and relational
reflexivity
• Margaret Archer’s internal conversation: we decide on
courses of actions by ruminating on ourselves, our concerns
and social situations, imagining and pursuing projects/
practices that define who we are & which enable us to realize
our concerns within constraints and enablements of
conditioning structures.
• The temporal concepts of the self are engaged in a three
staged dialogue (discernment, deliberation, and dedication)
• Donati: SR = context in which PR is brought to bear AND
manner in which SR are configured by those-in-relation.
• Elaborating a new awareness of ‘we’ i.e. motivated by a
shared concern to maintain emergent RG people make
reciprocal adjustments to their behaviours / take necessary
actions. ‘We’ reflexivity.
Reflexivity in action
• SR i.e. friendship/ peer group can trigger reflexive evaluation
of individuals’ priorities, behaviours and practices.
• Shifts in relational networks / associational belongings can
trigger evaluative and comparative review of the self and
motivate behavioural – and in turn – identity change: the
looking glass self (Cooley, 1922): personal reflexivity in a
relational context.
• Observation of change in significant others in existing social
group has this effect too: personal reflexivity in a relational
context.
• Relational mode of reflexivity: reciprocal and mutual
adjustments to behaviours and manner of relating so as to
allow the relations (and relational goods) to endure.
• Need to recognise interaction with and between wider SR in
accounting for change – change in outcomes and relational
dynamics.
Social reciprocity, solidarity and
subsidarity: the ‘we’
• Individual behaviour is shaped by sets of SR but changed
behaviour is also an outcome of their reflexive evaluation of the
meaning of these relationships, shifting relational expectations
and rules, through lens of individual and relational concerns.
• How SR are configured (in T2-3) between those-in-relation
depends on the a) context and form of SR; b) the normative
expectation of the SR; c) the interactive dynamics of the SR –
informed by for eg. cultural/class beliefs d)interaction with and
influence of other SR.
• The manner of relating or the relational ‘we’ is key to
understanding relational contributions to outcomes i.e. those
relations characterised by solidarity and subsidarity (Donati
2009) and which imply interdependency were particularly
influential.
Final thoughts
• Individual and relational contributions to personal – social
morphogenesis are interconnected.
• It is the manner of relating & the reciprocal orientation of those-inrelation to maintenance of a given SR that are significant in
understanding the relational ‘we’ in morphogenesis / change.
• The impact of a given social relation on individuals’ behaviour is
attributable to:
– the bonds maintained between people that constitute their reciprocal orientations
towards each other;
– the emergent effects of their interactive dynamics;
– the interaction with and influence of other social relations within which people
participate;
– and the chains of meanings, or relational characteristics, that a given type of
social relation, as opposed to another, entails for individuals (shaped by the
internalized cultural, class or religious beliefs and the values they impute to it)
who bring their own personal reflexivity to bear in a manner consistent with their
ultimate concerns, goals or aspirations (Donati 2011).
For further discussion see:
Weaver, B (In Press) Offending and Desistance: The Significance of Social Relations. Routledge
– view here: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781138799721/
Weaver, B and McNeill F., (2015) Lifelines: Desistance, Social Relations and Reciprocity. Criminal
Justice and Behavior 42(1) pp.95-107.
Key Texts:
Archer, M., (1995) Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Archer, M., (2000) Being Human: The Problem of Agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Archer, M., (2003) Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Archer, M., (2007) Making Our Way Through The World: Human Reflexivity and Social Mobility.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Archer, M., (2010) Routine, Reflexivity and Realism. Sociological Theory 28 (3) p.272-303.
Archer, M., (2011) Critical Realism and Relational Sociology: Complementarity and Synergy. Journal of
Critical Realism 9 (2) pp.199-207
Donati, P., (2009) ‘What does “subsidiarity” mean? The relational perspective’, Journal of Markets and
Morality, 12(2) pp.211-243.
Donati, P., (2011) Relational Sociology: A New Paradigm for the Social Sciences. Abingdon:
Routledge.
Donati, P., (2014) Morphogenic Society and the Structure of Social Relations in Archer, M.S. (ed.).
Late Modernity: Trajectories Towards Morphogenic Society. Lausanne, Switzerland: Springer
International Publishing. pp. 143-172.