**6. References**

Anderson, B. (2006/1983). *Imagined Communities*. (2nd. Ed.) London: Verso. Archer, M. (2007) *Making our way through the world: human reflexivity and social mobility*: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

As well as studying the transmission of occupations, studies have examined the sociallystructured patterns through which this transmission is shaped, through mediating variables such as schooling, parental household resources, sibling order, military service, first job and so forth. These can be summarised in concepts such as the pattern of 'status-attainment'. In addition, the transmission of a huge range of other values and characteristics between

Studies may look much more closely at the complex twists and turns of sequences of social positions. For example, the work histories or residential histories of people can be immensely varied. Moreover, these are complicated further by the different exposures people have as a result of their age or their differential involvement: as a result the histories of older people are likely to be more varied than those of younger. Sifting through such rich data in order to yield clear-cut patterns is not easy, especially with little in the way of

The types of study noted so far are those which tend to emphasise the objective patterns of lifecourse changes. In addition, some studies emphasise the more qualitative and subjective aspects. One important concept that can be used to guide this type of study is that of a 'moral career' as suggested by Becker (1970). In this approach, analysts are sensitised to the different stages through which people meaningfully commit themselves to a particular role. For example, a marijuana smoker has to learn not just how to smoke, but how to do so in the style to which they are supposed to grow accustomed. A criminal may be so labelled by police or courts, and

A wider application of this approach is that of the 'life history' where aspects of all of the above are combined: together with locating the person within their own wider but changing social contexts. In a life-history, the sequences through which a person has lived is reconstructed, particularly in the subjective terms through which that person sees their own biography.

In summary, a 'guiding thread' for carrying out analyses is to see that social structures involve, above all, the ways in which social groupings are involved in (strategies and tactics) drawing on and creating ideologies, resources and contacts to maintain and/or change their position within the broad social order. But their collective abilities to carry out such

In this chapter I have advanced a concept of a multi-dimensional approach to social structure. Several elements have to be assembled to understand the whole, and this chapter has laid out an extensive conceptual toolkit from which appropriate ideas can be drawn to accomplish particular types of analysis. It is hoped that the reader will press the material

Archer, M. (2007) *Making our way through the world: human reflexivity and social mobility*:

Anderson, B. (2006/1983). *Imagined Communities*. (2nd. Ed.) London: Verso.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

then may get to accept this label of themselves, which then creates them as a criminal.

generations is possible.

theoretical guidance.

**5. Conclusions** 

**6. References** 

'projects' will vary considerably.

covered in this book into practise.


**3** 

*1France 2Canada* 

**The Nature-Society Controversy in France:** 

**Epistemological and Political Implications** 

Since the 19th century, a modern movement promoting the protection of nature has been developing - first in the USA and then worldwide - as the negative consequences of human activity on nature were revealed. Institutions have come up with a wide range of possible solutions: the conservation of forests, the creation of national parks, the development of green zones in cities etc. The increasing promotion of nature as a central value for human establishments since the seventies has been an opportunity to question the relation between nature and society in the western world. This chapter aims at giving a portrait of the major anthropological, sociological and philosophical contributions that fuelled the ongoing debate concerning the distinction between nature and society - and the many social repercussions of this debate, in France and elsewhere. The different positions have important pragmatic implications for the management of natural areas for example. We will first introduce the works of Bruno Latour who, we believe, launched the debate we are interested in. We will then present the works of Philippe Descola, whose work aims at proving that our concept of nature is a construction of the Moderns, a construction that is contextualized as any other cultural construction might be. But apart from these scholarly concerns, and even without any normative arguments against the properly modern dualism that is at stake here, one might say the ecological critique of modernity finds its roots in the nature-society distinction. What principle, other than this dichotomy, could be the basis for a proper ecological criticism of modernity? What could be the criterion for a denunciation of the human-non human arrangements? In light of these issues, how can we build a new commonplace, a new ethics? Must we build a new cosmology, a new epistemology, or can we simply modify our present ones? It is through these questions that we see Latour's

**2. The controversy around Latour's essay on symmetrical anthropology** 

In the early 1990s, the French academics are structured around the study of advanced modernity. It is in this context that Latour publishes his controversial essay on symmetrical anthropology (Latour 1991). The controversy will organize itself around the modern nature-

**1. Introduction** 

attempt to reintroduce political sciences.

Florence Rudolf1 and Claire Grino2

*2Université Laval, Québec,*

*1Insa (National Institute for Applied Sciences) of Strasbourg,* 

