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2011 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
Activity systems: Patterns of performa
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The sociologist Norbert Elias (Elias, 1978) published a fascinating and accessible book some time ago entitled, What Is Sociology? As part of his answer to this question he considered the related question of what is society and came fundamentally to the conclusion that society is much more than a mere aggregation of individual actors. Instead, society is a system consisting of the multitude of individual actors, relationships and actions. Such actors through their relationships and actions produce and re-produce patterns (Elias refers to them as figurations), which in turn serve to constitute society. In such terms, society is considered an emergent phenomenon of a complex system of activity.