Ideal types of society life forms

From Geography

In the action theoretic approach some key thinkers have distinguished ideal types of society life forms. These ideal types are necessary for better understanding. In real life a society is never constituted of just characteristics from one ideal type. Benno Werlen describes two ideal types of society life forms with their spatiotemporal characteristics:

- Ideal type of traditional life forms and regional societies. Traditional life forms are temporally and spatially embedded.

- Ideal type of late-modern life forms and globalized societies. Late modern life forms are spatially and temporally disembedded.

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References:

Werlen, B. (1995) Sozialgeographie Alltäglicher Regionalisierungen. Band 1: Zur Ontologie von Gesellschaft und Raum. Stuttgart.

Werlen, B. (2009) Structurationist Geography. The International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. Elsevier.