Imaginary (sociology)
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The imaginary (or social imaginary) is the set of
values In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of dif ...
, institutions, laws, and symbols through which people imagine their social whole. It is common to the members of a particular
social group In the social sciences, a social group can be defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity. Regardless, social groups come in a myriad of sizes and varieties ...
and the corresponding society. The concept of the imaginary has attracted attention in
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
,
sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
,
psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
,
philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
, and
media studies Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media Studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostly ...
.


Definitions

The roots of the modern concept of the imaginary can be traced back to
Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and litera ...
's 1940 book ''The Imaginary: A Phenomenological Psychology of the Imagination'' in which Sartre discusses his concept of the imagination and the nature of human consciousness. Subsequent thinkers have extended Sartre's ideas into the realms of philosophy and sociology. For John Thompson, the social imaginary is "the creative and symbolic dimension of the social world, the dimension through which human beings create their ways of living together and their ways of representing their collective life". For
Manfred Steger Manfred D. Steger (born 1961) is a professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He was also Professor of Global Studies and Director of the Globalism Research Centre at RMIT University in Australia until 2013. Background Steger was born in Aus ...
and Paul James "imaginaries are patterned convocations of the social whole. These deep-seated modes of understanding provide largely pre-reflexive parameters within which people imagine their social existence—expressed, for example, in conceptions of 'the global,' 'the national,' 'the moral order of our time.'"
John R. Searle John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959, and was Willis S. and Mari ...
uses the expression "social reality" rather than "social imaginary".


Castoriadis

In 1975,
Cornelius Castoriadis Cornelius Castoriadis ( el, Κορνήλιος Καστοριάδης; 11 March 1922 – 26 December 1997) was a Greek-FrenchMemos 2014, p. 18: "he was ... granted full French citizenship in 1970." philosopher, social critic, economist, p ...
used the term in his book ''The Imaginary Institution of Society'', maintaining that 'the imaginary of the society ... creates for each historical period its singular way of living, seeing and making its own existence'. For Castoriadis, 'the central imaginary significations of a society ... are the laces which tie a society together and the forms which define what, for a given society, is "real"'. In similar fashion,
Habermas Habermas is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Jürgen Habermas (born 1929), German sociologist and philosopher * Rebekka Habermas (born 1959), German historian *Gary Habermas Gary Robert Habermas (born 1950) is an American ...
wrote of 'the massive background of an intersubjectively shared lifeworld ... lifeworld contexts that provided the backing of a massive background consensus'.


Lacan

"The imaginary is presented by
Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and ...
as one of the three intersecting orders that structure all human existence, the others being
the symbolic The Symbolic (or Symbolic Order of the Borromean knot) is the order in the unconscious that gives rise to subjectivity and bridges intersubjectivity between two subjects; an example is Jacques Lacan's idea of desire as the desire of the Other, ...
and
the real In continental philosophy, the Real refers to the remainder of reality that cannot be expressed, and which surpasses reasoning. In Lacanianism, it is an "impossible" category because of its opposition to expression and inconceivability. In ...
". Lacan was responding to "''L'Imaginaire'', which was the title of the 'phenomenological psychology of the imagination' published by
Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and litera ...
in 1940, where it refers to the image as a form of consciousness". Lacan also drew on the way "
Melanie Klein Melanie Klein (née Reizes; 30 March 1882 – 22 September 1960) was an Austrian-British author and psychoanalyst known for her work in child analysis. She was the primary figure in the development of object relations theory. Klein suggested tha ...
pushes back the limits within which we can see the subjective function of identification operate", in her work on phantasy—something extended by her followers to the analysis of how "we are all prone to be drawn into ''social phantasy systems''...the experience of being ''in'' a particular set of human collectivities". "While it is only in the early years of childhood that human beings live entirely in the Imaginary, it remains distinctly present throughout the life of the individual". The imaginary as a Lacanian term refers to an illusion and fascination with an image of the body as coherent unity, deriving from the dual relationship between the ego and the specular or mirror image. This illusion of coherence, control and totality is by no means unnecessary or inconsequential. "The term 'imaginary' is obviously cognate with 'fictive' but in its Lacanian sense it is not simply synonymous with fictional or unreal; on the contrary, imaginary identifications can have very real effects".


Taylor

Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor uses the concept of modern social imaginaries to explore the Western transition from the hierarchical norms of pre-modern social imaginaries to the egalitarian, horizontal, direct access social imaginary of modernity. He sees the Renaissance ideal of civility and self-fashioning as a sort of halfway house on the road to modernity and modern morality. The modern social imaginary he considers comprises a system of interlocking spheres, including reflexivity and the social contract, public opinion and Habermas' public sphere, the political/market economy as an independent force, and the self-government of citizens within a society as a normative ideal. Taylor has acknowledged the influence of
Benedict Anderson Benedict Richard O'Gorman Anderson (August 26, 1936 – December 13, 2015) was an Anglo-Irish political scientist and historian who lived and taught in the United States. Anderson is best known for his 1983 book '' Imagined Communities'', which e ...
in his formulation of the concept of the social imaginary. Anderson treated the nation as 'an imagined political community...nation-ness, as well as nationalism, are cultural artifacts of a particular kind'.


Ontology

While not constituting an established reality, the social imaginary is nevertheless an institution in as much as it represents the system of meanings that govern a given social structure. These imaginaries are to be understood as historical constructs defined by the interactions of subjects in society. In that sense, the imaginary is not necessarily "real" as it is an ''imagined'' concept contingent on the imagination of a particular social subject. Nevertheless, there remains some debate among those who use the term (or its associated terms, such as ''imaginaire'') as to the
ontological In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...
status of the ''imaginary.'' Some, such as
Henry Corbin Henry Corbin (14 April 1903 – 7 October 1978)Shayegan, DaryushHenry Corbin in Encyclopaedia Iranica. was a French philosopher, theologian, and Iranologist, professor of Islamic studies at the École pratique des hautes études. He was in ...
, understand the ''imaginary'' to be quite real indeed, while others ascribe to it only a social or imagined reality.
John R. Searle John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959, and was Willis S. and Mari ...
considered the ontology of the social imaginary to be complex, but that in practice 'the complex structure of social reality is, so to speak, weightless and invisible. The child is brought up in a culture where he or she simply takes social reality for granted....The complex ontology seems simple'. He added the subtle distinction that social reality was observer-relative, and so would 'inherit that ontological subjectivity. But this ontological subjectivity does not prevent claims about observer-relative features from being epistemically objective'.


Technology

In 1995 George E. Marcus edited a book with the title ''Technoscientific Imaginaries'' which ethnographically explored contemporary science and technology. A collection of encounters in the technosciences by a collective of anthropologists and others, the volume aimed to find strategic sites of change in contemporary worlds that no longer fit traditional ideas and pedagogies and that are best explored through a collaborative effort between technoscientists and social scientists. While the Lacanian imaginary is only indirectly invoked, the interplay between emotion and reason, desire, the symbolic order, and the real are repeatedly probed. Crucial to the technical side of these imaginaries are the visual, statistical, and other representational modes of imaging that have both facilitated scientific developments and sometimes misdirected a sense of objectivity and certitude. Such work accepts that 'technological meaning is historically grounded and, as a result, becomes located within a larger social imaginary'.


Media imaginary

Several
media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass el ...
scholars and historians have analyzed the imaginary of technologies as they emerge, such as
early communication technology Early may refer to: History * The beginning or oldest part of a defined historical period, as opposed to middle or late periods, e.g.: ** Early Christianity ** Early modern Europe Places in the United States * Early, Iowa * Early, Texas * E ...
,
mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
s, and the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
.


Serial imaginary

A recent research led by a team from the
Université Grenoble Alpes The Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA, French: meaning "''Grenoble Alps University''") is a public research university in Grenoble, France. Founded in 1339, it is the third largest university in France with about 60,000 students and over 3,000 resea ...
offer to develop the concept of imaginary and understand how it functions when faced with serial works of art. This research, published in ''Imaginaire sériel: Les mécanismes sériels à l'oeuvre dans l'acte créatif'', (
Jonathan Fruoco Jonathan Fruoco, FRHistS (born 1987) is a French historian who specializes in medieval English literature, with a specific focus on the polyphony of Geoffrey Chaucer's poetry, and historical sociolinguistics. In 2022, he was elected a Fellow ...
and Andréa Rando Martin (Ed.), Grenoble, UGA Edition, 2017), subscribes to
Gilbert Durand Gilbert Durand (1 May 1921 – 7 December 2012) was a French academic known for his work on the imaginary, symbolic anthropology and mythology. According to Durand, Imagination and Reason can be complementary. He defended the status of the imag ...
's Grenoble
school of thought A school of thought, or intellectual tradition, is the perspective of a group of people who share common characteristics of opinion or outlook of a philosophy, discipline, belief, social movement, economics, cultural movement, or art movement. H ...
and both questions the impact of seriality on our imaginary and defines the imaginary of seriality.Jonathan Fruoco, Andréa Rando Martin, Arnaud Laimé, Imaginaire sériel: Les mécanismes sériels à l'œuvre dans l'acte créatif, Grenoble, UGA Editions, 2017, 174 p. (), p. 10-15 The development of this concept allows a better understanding of the close link between the ability to condition and organize exchanges between an experience and its representation, and a procedure based on the rhythmical repetition of one, or several, paradigms in a determined and coherent body, which allows their reproduction and inflectio
6
Serial works of art thus form a privileged field of studies since they turn this recursion and redundancy into structuring principles. This research tries to illustrate this serial conceptualization of the imaginary by analyzing serial literature, television series, comic books, serial music and dance, etc.


Architectural imaginary

Peter Olshavsky has analyzed the imaginary in the field of architecture. Based on the work of Taylor, the imaginary is understood as a category of understanding social praxis and the reasons designers give to make sense of these practices.


See also


References


Further reading

* Andacht, Fernando.
A Semiotic Framework for the Social Imaginary
'. Arisbe: The Peirce Gateway, 2000. * Flichy, Patrice. ''The Internet Imaginaire''. Translated by Liz Carey-Libbrecht. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007 001 * * Jasanoff, Sheila, and Sang-Hyun Kim.
Containing the Atom: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Nuclear Power in the United States and South Korea
" ''Minerva'' 47, no. 2 (June 1, 2009): 119-146. * Marcus, G.E. ''Technoscientific Imaginaries''. Late Editions Vol. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. With contributions by Livia Polanyi, Michael M.J. Fischer, Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good,
Paul Rabinow Paul M. Rabinow (June 21, 1944 – April 6, 2021) was professor of anthropology at the University of California (Berkeley), director of the Anthropology of the Contemporary Research Collaboratory (ARC), and former director of human practices f ...
, Allucquere Rosanne Stone, Gary Lee Downey, Diana and Roger Hill,
Hugh Gusterson Hugh Gusterson is an anthropologist at the University of British Columbia and George Washington University. His work focuses on nuclear culture, international security and the anthropology of science. His articles have appeared in the LA Time ...
, Kim Laughlin, Kathryn Milun, Sharon Traweek, Kathleen Stewart, Mario Biagioli, James Holston, Gudrun Klein, and Christopher Pound. * Salazar, Noel B
"Envisioning Eden: Mobilizing Imaginaries in Tourism and Beyond"
Oxford: Berghahn Books. * * Steger, Manfred B., 2008.
The Rise of the Global Imaginary: Political Ideologies from the French Revolution to the Global War on Terror
', Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. * Strauss, Claudia
"The Imaginary"
''Anthropological Theory'' vol. 6 issue, 3 September 2006, p. 322–344. * Vries, Imar de. ''Tantalisingly Close: An Archaeology of Communication Desires in Discourses of Mobile Wireless Media''. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012.


External links

* * {{cite web , author=Fernando Andacht , author-link=Fernando Andacht , url=http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/andacht/socimagn.htm , title=A Semiotic Framework for the Social Imaginary , work=ARISBE: THE PEIRCE GATEWAY , access-date=2007-07-18 Sociological terminology