Society

From Geography

Latest revision as of 20:50, 25 October 2012

According to The Oxford Dictionary, society is ´the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community´ (2011). The definition used by Knox and Marston (2007, p.511) is more detailed: the sum of the inventions, institutions, and relationships created and reproduced by human beings across particular places and times. Society can be called the ecompassing social system, including all communications and the constitution of future communications. To be frank society makes communication possible between other social systems, as it includes all communications it can not communicate on it's own (N4BZ, n.d.).

Lenski (in Macionis & Plummer, 2008) decribes five kinds of society based on their level of technology. In a chronilogical way of time society began in the age of hunting and gathering. The level of technology was simple for hunting animals and gathering vegetation. This occured during the beginning of our species untill 12000 years ago. Secondly, the society changed into a horticalural and pastoral society. The technology was based on using hand tools to cultivate plants. This society came to and end about 6000 years ago. A firth type society came up when people discovered the agriculture. The technology of large-scale farming using ploughs harnessed to animals or more powerful sources of energy. Even nowadays people are working with plough which are harnessed to animals. The fourth type of society came up during the idustrialism. The technology that powers sophisticated machinery with advanced sources of energy. And nowadays we live in the fifth type of society according to Lenski: The post-industrial society. We are entering another phase of technological development. Like using sustainable, renewable recourses instead of oil. The technology is computer-linked and supports an information-based economy.

In Niklas Luhmann´s systems theory, society plays an important role. A basic assumption of Luhmann is that a society can never be observed in its totality. Therefore there is a lack of overview and it is hard to direct societies in a coordinated way (Arnoldi, 2001, p. 2). The reason for this, is that the system "society" consists out of a number of subsystems (e.g. politics, economy, religion). There can be looked at these subsystems seperately, but the bigger picture that these individual components create is to extensive and complicated to see as a whole. The understanding of the loose components, however, makes it possible to understand a system such as society, without seeing it as a whole.

Luhmann distinguishes three analysis levels that are appicable on society. The highest level is only systems. The second level consists of machines, organisms, social systems, and psychic systems. The lowest level is a part of the social systems; it consists of interactions, organizations, and societies Gren & Zierhofer, 2002, p. 6).

According to Alfred Schütz (in Campbell, 1981): "Society is a construct of ideal types defined according to the functions of the abstract individuals involved" (p.210). The sum of 'they-relationships' make up the totality of society (Campbell, 1981).

References

Arnoldi, J. (2001). Niklas Luhmann. An introduction. In: Theory, Culture & Society. Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 1-13.

Campbell, T. (1981). Seven Theories of Human Society. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Chapter 9: Alfred Schütz: A phenomenological Approach. pp. 197-214.

Gren, M. & Zierhofer. W. (2002). The unity of difference. A critical appraisal of Niklas Luhmann´s theory of social systems in the context of corporeality and spatiality. Nijmegen: University of Nijmegen.

N4BZ. (n.d.). The World as a social system. retrieved on 24 October 2012, on [1]

Oxford Dictionary. (2011). Definitions of society. Retrieved on 17 October 2011, on [2]

Knox, P.L & Marston, S.A. (2007). Places and regions in global context: human geography. 4th edition, Prentice Hall: New Jersey

Macionis, J. & Plummer, K. (2008). Sociology. A global introduction. 4th edition. Pearson Education LTD

Contributers

• Created by User:BoudewijnIdema, 17 October 2011, 20:25 (UTC)

• Edited by User:MichielVanRijn, 19 September 2012, 12:45 (UTC)

• Edited by User:AnkeJanssen, 8 Octobre 2012

• Edited by TeunVanDeVen 14:36, 24 October 2012 (CEST)

• Edited by Jordi de Leeuw, 24 October 2012

• Edited by Michiel van Rijn, 24 October 2012 (CEST)

• Evaluated by Doris Roelvink, 24 October 2012