The landscapes of lives II: How social actors navigate dynamic action landscapes

Abstract

Our previous companion article situated practices in a socio-ecological framework to propose action landscapes as person-specific fields of possible practices that are place- and time-contingent. Here we expand this approach to social actors as they navigate complex, fluid social worlds to pursue meaningful lives. Embodiment, social homeostasis, and social interactions shape actors’ abilities to enact specific practices and meet adversity. The expectable range of daily demands and affordances delineates the bounds of individual social homeostasis, whence social actors evaluate experience and draw motivation for behavior in the action landscape. The dynamic interface between actor-specific factors and cultural forces configures individual possibilities for action vis-à-vis their social homeostatic range. We use this model to track interactions of culture and social actor that generate diverse lives and differential well-being or resilience and apply it to two examples, revealing factors and dynamics overlooked in current research.