ABSTRACT
This chapter explores ways in which the work of the British sociologist Anthony Giddens can be used as a theoretical lens to more clearly understand the complex social world of mountaineering. Giddens has been a prolific writer over the last forty years, with hundreds of papers and chapters, as well as over thirty books, to his name. Clearly, such productivity cannot be considered in detail here, so the intention is to develop connections with the work he produced in the middle part of his career – notably structuration theory and its developments into the key concepts of reflexivity, self identity and lifestyle. In some ways, Giddens’ central concern with the reconciliation of social structures and individual agency recalls the work of Pierre Bourdieu (see Chapter 8); however, the scope of Giddens’ theorizing, in particular his concerns with risk society and processes of globalization as well as his emphasis upon resources and how they shape power relations, suggest a broader potential application to social theory.
