ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a consequent initiative, an immature methodology. As a component of a multi-disciplinary modelling process, involving (say) economics, psychology, child development, learning theory, archaeology of knowledge, history of education, one can say that sociology is an imperative. The concept of sui generic social phenomena, strictly speaking, cannot be sustained in an ecological-political economy. An ecology is an interaction of systems, both physical and semantic, or if you prefer, an evolving set of relationships between ensembles. Scale, in the simpler 'quantitative' sense, should not simply be idiomatic for a discipline. Fine or coarse grain, dependent on the 'scale-size' of the study, is a question rather of methodological intent or choice, which will have consequences for what is significant: it will itself distinguish, consciously or not, between information and noise. Both terms, actants and boundaries, have multiple, entangled meanings. Socio-ecological processes are hard to discuss in a human-centred discipline that insists on preserving a concept of individual membership.
