Studying Agency Under Constraint: A Relational Field Methodology (Part 1)

This article presents a relational methodology for studying poverty, agency, and morality under structural constraint. It addresses the limitations of both individualistic and deterministic approaches by conceptualising agency as a situated capacity, shaped by capital, power relations, and moral boundaries across multiple social fields. Drawing on Bourdieu’s field theory, the methodology traces how disadvantaged individuals navigate complex environments such as welfare systems, labour markets, and informal economies. The proposed design integrates ethnographic observation, in-depth interviews, and abductive analysis. Core concepts include habitus, capital conversion, symbolic violence, and moral boundary-work. These help reveal how practical logics—routine, situated judgments—guide action under duress. A key contribution is the operationalisation of relational agency, using Emirbayer and Mische’s temporal framework to capture how people draw on past experiences and future aspirations. This method is especially suited for researchers exploring how poor individuals actively respond to constraint without reducing them to passive victims. It also supports methodological pluralism by combining theory-driven coding with inductive fieldwork. Overall, the article provides a robust and flexible toolkit for analysing agency and inequality through relational sociology.