ABSTRACT
As I have made clear in Chapter 1, it is not my aim to formulate a generic theory of society or social change based on universal principles that govern how social orders are constituted and transformed. Instead I seek to understand the processes by which particular social forms or arrangements emerge and are consolidated or reworked in the everyday lives of people. I am interested, that is, in analysing the heterogeneous social and discursive practices2 enacted and interpreted by social actors in the making and remaking of their lives and those of others. An actor-oriented perspective offers valuable insights into these processes of social construction and reconstruction. It also enables one to conceptualise how small-scale interactional settings or locales interlock with wider frameworks, resource fields and networks of relations, thus facilitating a re-thinking of key concepts such as ‘constraints’, ‘structure’ and ‘micro-macro’ relations.
