ABSTRACT
Sociological discourse has indeed been premised upon 'society' as its object of study. In theorizing society, sovereignty, national citizenship and social governmentality lie at its core. However, societies are never entirely self-reproducing entities. Sociology has a tendency to treat what is 'outside' the society as an unexamined environment. Sociology as a specific academic practice was the product of this particular historical moment, of an emergent industrial capitalism in Western Europe and North America. The sociological concept of society is based upon the metaphor of a region, namely that 'objects are clustered together and boundaries are drawn around each particular cluster'. The 'complex' nature of both physical and social systems means that they are characterized by a very large number of elements that interact physically and informationally over time and result in positive and negative feedback loops. Further, most important developments in sociology have at least indirectly stemmed from social movements with 'emancipatory interests' fuelling a new or reconfigured social analysis.
