Campbell's "Agency" as a Physical Group

One of her central propositions on the term “agency” in Karlyn Campbell’s essay “Agency: Promiscuous and Protean” is that “agency” is communal and participatory. It is “both constituted and constrained by external that are material and symbolic” (2).  This seems to imply that “agency” isn’t so much a thing that can be possessed, but rather it is an entity, a group, that can be participated in. I think Campbell gives a new form to the term “agency” in her essay, a new way to view it.

My understanding of “agency” so far in this class is that anyone or thing can have agency. When a person stands up to give a speech, or turns in a paper on a subject, they then possess “agency” of that subject. But, by applying Campbell’s thoughts, I’d say that person is becoming an agent within that specific agency, rather than claiming agency. Agency becomes a group or collective of agents in this case. Agency isn’t the action in itself, but rather refers to the participants who join a rhetorical conversation of that action or subject.

In the case of Sojourner Truth, Truth, Frances Gage, historians, and readers are all agents of a specific “agency”. Now, pinpointing and naming that specific agency is more difficult to tell. It could be the agency of black women in the 1800’s or the agency of women in the 1800’s. It might just be that agents can perform in multiple “agencies” at the same time. Either way, “agency” becomes an umbrella that contains the actions of multiple agents on a subject. It’s not an action itself, but rather a binding term for all of the agents within a circumstance.

Campbell says that in the very least “rhetorical agency refers to the capacity to act, that is, to have the competence to speak or write in a way that will be recognized or heeded by others in one’s community” (3). And while it may refer to “the capacity to act”, I believe her definition, agency as communal and participatory, means there is a group in which agents have the capacity to act.

In this way, the word “agency” almost implies there are multiple agents involved. I guess there could be circumstances where there is a sole agent, but it seems like there could be so many different parts of an “agency”. This includes the speaker, the interpreter, the recorder, the dramatizer, and the readers. When there is a reader, there must be an original speaker, so the “agency” is already a multiplicity of people.

So, a question I’ll end with: is “agency” always a group of two or more people?

Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs. “Agency: Promiscuous and Protean.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies

2.1 (2005): 1-19.