Theoretically, this approach is characterized by a realist social ontology (which regards both abstract social structures and concrete social events as parts of social reality), a dialectical view of the relationship between structure and agency, and of the relationship between discourse and other elements or ‘moments’ of social practices and social events (discourse is different from – not reducible to – but not discrete from – ‘internalizes’ and is ‘internalized’ by (Harvey 1996) – other social elements).