Images of the Shape of a Stratified System

Abstract

In an earlier chapter, we defined three basic problems for and a corresponding three initial aims of the formal theory of images of stratification. The first aim, treated in Chapter 3, was to generate what we have called the panoply of images or representations of actors within a stratified space. The second aim, treated in the previous chapter, was to interpret and explain variations of self-location or self-identification of actors within a stratified space. This chapter turns to the third problem and corresponding aim, namely, to show how an extension of the formal axiomatic theory enables us to derive images of the distribution of actors over the stratified space in which they are embedded in various objective locations.