"I was at the right place at the right time" The neglected role of happenstance in the lives of people and institutions
This paper presents coproduced ethnographic material concerning the development of mental healthcare services in Oxfordshire, UK. Our collaborative working method highlights arbitrary events and connections in both individual lives and in the lives of institutions. We introduce the analytic concept...
| প্রধান লেখক: | , |
|---|---|
| বিন্যাস: | Journal article |
| ভাষা: | English |
| প্রকাশিত: |
University of Chicago Press
2020
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| _version_ | 1826308309176549376 |
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| author | Armstrong, N Agulnik, P |
| author_facet | Armstrong, N Agulnik, P |
| author_sort | Armstrong, N |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | This paper presents coproduced ethnographic material concerning the development of mental healthcare services in Oxfordshire, UK. Our collaborative working method highlights arbitrary events and connections in both individual lives and in the lives of institutions. We introduce the analytic concept of happenstance to make sense of this. Happenstance helps us theorize how chance arises in particular social contexts, contains both randomness and patterning, and becomes entwined with agency. The notion of happenstance thus enables us to retain a sense that chance is social and makes links between individuals or institutions and their social surround independently of structuration or habitus. The anthropology of bureaucracy has focused on the clumsiness of institutional mechanisms and the strategies people adopt in response. We suggest a new angle, combining happenstance with Ian Hacking’s notion of “ecological niche” to suggest how an openness to happenstance might create a different kind of evolving institution.
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| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:16:05Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:f15a7bf8-7966-4145-859e-919cb0bc1d92 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:16:05Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publisher | University of Chicago Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:f15a7bf8-7966-4145-859e-919cb0bc1d922022-08-10T09:08:55Z"I was at the right place at the right time" The neglected role of happenstance in the lives of people and institutionsJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:f15a7bf8-7966-4145-859e-919cb0bc1d92EnglishSymplectic ElementsUniversity of Chicago Press2020Armstrong, NAgulnik, PThis paper presents coproduced ethnographic material concerning the development of mental healthcare services in Oxfordshire, UK. Our collaborative working method highlights arbitrary events and connections in both individual lives and in the lives of institutions. We introduce the analytic concept of happenstance to make sense of this. Happenstance helps us theorize how chance arises in particular social contexts, contains both randomness and patterning, and becomes entwined with agency. The notion of happenstance thus enables us to retain a sense that chance is social and makes links between individuals or institutions and their social surround independently of structuration or habitus. The anthropology of bureaucracy has focused on the clumsiness of institutional mechanisms and the strategies people adopt in response. We suggest a new angle, combining happenstance with Ian Hacking’s notion of “ecological niche” to suggest how an openness to happenstance might create a different kind of evolving institution. |
| spellingShingle | Armstrong, N Agulnik, P "I was at the right place at the right time" The neglected role of happenstance in the lives of people and institutions |
| title | "I was at the right place at the right time" The neglected role of happenstance in the lives of people and institutions |
| title_full | "I was at the right place at the right time" The neglected role of happenstance in the lives of people and institutions |
| title_fullStr | "I was at the right place at the right time" The neglected role of happenstance in the lives of people and institutions |
| title_full_unstemmed | "I was at the right place at the right time" The neglected role of happenstance in the lives of people and institutions |
| title_short | "I was at the right place at the right time" The neglected role of happenstance in the lives of people and institutions |
| title_sort | i was at the right place at the right time the neglected role of happenstance in the lives of people and institutions |
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