UCLA Center for the Study of Women

How do we describe the agency of someone who acts in a context of governing definitions, meanings, and intuitions that fail to create a foundation for others to interpret their actions as they intend them? Descriptions of intention typically begin with the premise that it is the agent herself that authors the meaning behind her acts. However, because actions gain collective meaning through their social context, it is others that help confer meaning agential intention. We generally rely on shared meaning in an ongoing process of interpreting our own and others' behaviors. We act in such a way to be understood by others, to make sense, in order to carry on in a social world. Through acknowledging each other's intentions via a mutually constructed background of meaning, we legitimize each others' actions as "reasonable," "understandable," and "clear."