ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the issues by examining the theory of social representations and its contribution to the study of knowledge in context. Central to the theory of social representations is how different communities located in different contexts and cultural frameworks construct knowledge about the world. The theory of social representations needs to be understood not only as a social psychology of knowledge but also as a theory about how new knowledge is produced and accommodated in the social fabric. Social representations refer both to a theory and to a phenomenon. The notion of social representations was introduced by Serge Moscovici in his seminal study about the reception of psychoanalysis in France. The notion of social representations was introduced by Moscovici in his seminal study about the reception of psychoanalysis in France. One powerful antinomy to the decontextualisation of human knowledge has been the phenomenological tradition, to whose legacy the theory of social representations is heavily indebted.
