Sociologies (Dec 2010)
Penser aux/les limites de nos limites
Abstract
The word “boundary” has been very successful in its literal sense but even more so as a metaphor of a multitude of realities involving limits, that is, with regards to our tendency to divide the world into separable objects. However, one can observe a considerable uncertainty between the concept and the metaphor and an utilisation too easy of various mixtures of them. It becomes necessary therefore to first admit that materiality is only one of the components of our world whilst the immaterial is not unreal, simulated or metaphoric. After a detour consisting of examining a theory of limits and its limits and making the distinction between the topographic (continuous) and the topologic (discontinuous) applied to the interior and the limits of an area, two examples are developed which aim to show that, if one finds boundaries, these are not necessarily there where one expected them and that the correct appreciation of where boundaries are situated suppose taking into account other considerations than just the voluntary and brutal limitation of jumping over an imaginary line drawn on the ground.
