Relationality is a central dimension in sociology, where the focus is on understanding the individual’s relationship to various communities and how these are influenced and shaped by social structures and interactions (e.g., Simmel, 1971; Giddens, 1991; Wrong, 1961). Relationality concerns the tension between embeddedness and disembeddedness, where the individual’s position in social and cultural contexts balances between being part of the community and standing outside of it. However, this distinction must be considered paradoxical, since sociologists and others have been able to demonstrate that our thinking is strongly intertwined with the social in the form of the “generalizing other” (Mead, 1934), and the reference group concept (Kemper, 2011).
Embedded autonomy: a balance between having autonomy and being embedded in a community, a balance between closeness and distance, citizenship and private life. Embedded autonomy involves possessing acquired capacities that create freedom but are always a product of the social world (Sen, 2009), and which enable one to form various connections with other people. Embedded autonomy could be viewed as a form of moderate individualism (cf. tempered liberalism; Cherniss, 2021). From a sociological perspective, individualism, as a feeling and a way of being, can be seen as a modern myth or religion (Goffman in Collins, 2004).
Embedded autonomy is a form of social integration characterized by critical consciousness, with room for maneuver (in thought and action) and openness to private spaces (privacy). Embedded autonomy is based on the idea that the social is like “social flesh” (; Beasley and Bacchi 2012) and, as Rousseau argued, that we have “debts” to one another that form the basis of the social contract and our care for one another (in Boltanski & Chapello, 2007). We have duties toward one another because we have obligations toward one another. Embedded autonomy is thus a balance or union of duties and care for the self and the community.
Another aspect of the balance in embedded autonomy is that between citizenship and private life, the public and private spheres. The civic struggle and the struggle for the private sphere are two distinct struggles that take place in these respective spheres. The civic struggle has been portrayed as taking precedence in ABT because it places private relationships within a civic context. We have friends because it is good; we have a family because it is good; we take care of our children because it is good.
Once again, there is a balance here, because too much focus on the civic struggle can lead to absent and distant parents who might adopt an overly instrumental and utilitarian attitude toward other people in the private sphere. The private sphere is also something profound, especially in the form of love and all the adventures associated with it. Republicanism, as viewed by Machiavelli and Skinner, strikes this balance: it allows for participation in the civic struggle to avoid being dominated by an elite, while also making room for the private sphere. Citizenship and the political sphere draw their strength from finding respite in the private sphere, or from the fact that, in developing our citizenship, we can enter the private and intimate sphere to effect change there or take risks and assume responsibility there through mutual interaction. The civic struggle and the private struggle can thus reinforce one another through this interaction. The civic struggle gives us a broader perspective that allows us to engage with larger issues that put our own problems into perspective, while at the same time our private problems gain a clearer connection to the public sphere (Mills, 1959). Civic education can be carried over into the private sphere and vice versa: communication, humility, responsiveness, generosity, trust, and courage are qualities that can be cultivated in both spheres and strengthen both. The outward perspective and the inward perspective can reinforce one another, allowing us to see ourselves with new eyes through the shift in perspective we are compelled to adopt in the public sphere, a shift that makes the inward perspective less ruminative, while over time the outward perspective can become less cynical and despairing and more cynical and courageous.
The balance dimension of “embedded autonomy” is closely linked to the balance dimension of “disconsensus.” For a robust, multifaceted autonomy to emerge, there must be resistance and conflict. Over, embedding involves suppressing conflict, such as doubt, which is an important part of social configurations, in order to maintain a balance with trust. Embedding in too much dissensus, a form of embedded heteronomy in which an actor is embedded in excessive competition and conflict among actors, such as a political arena best described as a “competitive democracy,” or an unregulated market.
Imbalances
Below are various imbalances in this dimension.
“Over, embedded” does not mean here that one has completely lost a connection to the social realm, since it is impossible for a person to do so because the social is embedded in chains of thought and habitus. “Embeddedness” should rather be understood as an atrophied relationality toward other people. “Underembeddedness” can be seen as a synonym, since embeddedness never truly disappears entirely (Uzzi, 1996). Uzzi’s concept of “overembeddedness” corresponds here to “embedded heteronomy,” which is explained further below.
Over-embedded heteronomy occurs when one is over, embedded in a community that leads to domination. This can take the form, for example, of over, individualization, which manifests as isolation, loneliness, commitment phobia (Illouz, 2021), atomism, anomie (Durkheim, 2002), and “ghostification” (Törnqvist, 2020).
Embedded heteronomy occurs when we fall into identity fundamentalism (Moehller & D’Ambriaso, 2021), when we experience oppression, marginalization, discrimination, stigmatization (Link & Phelan, 2001), and exploitation (for example, in “love work” Jonasdottir, 1991), subhumanity (Gilroy, 2004), alienation, false consciousness, the habitus of humiliation (Smith, 2001), and the objectification of culture (Simmel, 1971).
Another form of embedded heteronomy is what I call “status survivalism,” following Hiltunen’s dissertation on how Swedish youth live under the tyranny of having to be “just the right amount of perfect” in every domain of their lives in order to achieve the highest possible status (Hiltunen, 2017). Status survivalism under the tyranny of perfection (Hiltunen, 2017) is an imbalance in which one is isolated, struggling on one’s own in the private battle of status games, and prevented from moving into the sphere of civic struggle, where status is less important and other values such as dignity, honor, courage, and justice come into play.
Embedded autonomy
Embedded autonomy is the state in which a person has too much autonomy because they have been removed from social control. Embedded autonomy can refer to a person who has too much power and too much leeway in the private sphere, which causes that person to exert pressure on others in the private sphere, for example, being in a position of power in a patriarchally dominated romantic relationship. Embedded autonomy in citizenship occurs, for example, when the self is shaped into an “entrepreneurial self” (Bröckling, 2016), causing the individual to approach society as a business where profit is the dominant goal and the individual is detached from consideration for the common good. Embedded autonomy also refers to Machiavellian figures in various organizations, political parties, and companies who find themselves in a position where they are embedded and have carved out a space for themselves to gain more control over others (Jackall, 2010). Embedded autonomy could also refer to powerful management firms and investment companies that are embedded due to their greater speed and mobility compared to others (Boltanski & Chapello, 2007). Another example is the “networker,” who uses networks to their own advantage and exploits those who are less mobile and less well, positioned within these networks (Boltanski & Chapello, 2007). Other individuals who would represent an imbalance in urban, embedded autonomy are the “anywheres” in major cities, a cosmopolitan subject with no connection to the local level or “skin in the game,” which allows them to avoid certain risks that are shifted onto the rest of the population (Taleb, 2012; Goodhart, 2017; Lasch, 1996).
Elitified
Elitified is a form of embedded autonomy in which one is part of some kind of elite. C. Wright Mills argues that those who are part of the elite think as follows:
“People with advantages are loathe to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages. They readily define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves to be ‘naturally’ elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves. (Mills, 1956).
The sense of being part of the elite, and the belief that this is natural, makes it easy to think that one is entitled to the power one has gained over other people. Part of this sense of elitism involves dismissing the idea that one’s position on the meritocratic ladder is partly determined by one’s genetic makeup (Harden, 2021). Boltanski argues that elites perceive themselves as possessing a “higher and more comprehensive morality that can only be evaluated in the long term, and not in the short term” (2011, 151). They postpone judgment, which grants them moral immunity in the present and places them above the unworthy who cannot understand this higher morality (Boltanski, 2011, 152). This can be accompanied by a form of moral laziness in which one believes one is doing the right thing (Boltanski, 2011).
Another form of disembedding is expressive individualism, which draws its substance from therapy, self, expression, and self, focus, and thereby from civic duty, solidarity, and reciprocity (Bellah, 1984). An expression of this is an excessive focus on authenticity without any connection to the common good (Taylor, 1991).
Another form of imbalance is extractivism, in which value is extracted from people or nature in an unequal exchange (Hornborg, 2021; Hickel, 2020). This can manifest as data colonialism (Couldry & Meijes, 2020). Extractivism often involves a high degree of embedded autonomy on the part of the agent who can carry it out, while the person subjected to it finds themselves in a state of embedded heteronomy.
Instrumentalized collectivism (Bechhofer & Elliot, in Evans & Tilley, 2023) is an imbalance that involves temporarily using collectives for one’s own advancement, with an overreliance on social mobility as something inherently good. Collectivism is not grounded in solidarity, which makes it temporary and a stepping stone upward. Social mobility has become an ideology where actions are focused on improving one’s own situation first, saving oneself first, and then likely forgetting about it once one has climbed the ladder (Evans & Tilley, 2023). Instrumentalized collectivism can be seen both as a form of embedded heteronomy, coercing and enticing people with the promise of greater autonomy in their lives, while others will not follow suit, and as a process of de, embedding for certain individuals who can attain an elite position.