Empirical applications of structuration theory

Abstract

This study reviews and classifies fifty-three potential empirical applications of structuration theory in geography and the social sciences. These were retrieved using a computerized keyword search of articles and books published in the English language between 1982 and 2000. The five dimensions for classifying these studies were (1) a representable type of social behaviour, (2) a methodological bracketing, (3) using specific data, (4) a treatment of time-space, and (5) an interpretation of a duality of structure. Thirteen studies were classified as the most productive applications of structuration theory because they either tested or illustrated a duality of structure. On the one hand, the substantive areas of these were more diverse than originally envisioned. On the other hand, they were interpretations of the ongoing relatively formal social interactions between individuals in modern communities, families and organizations, and this confirms the theory's more circumscribed ontological scope as implied by the critics.