Society and Space in Durkheim's Social Morphology

Abstract

It is challenging for social geographers to scrutinize the role of space in social theory. The author examines the significance of space in the development of Durkheim's conception of social morphology.The origin of social morphology is found in Durkheim's earlier presentation of the system of sociology. Durkheim, influenced by organicist theory prevailing in the 19th century, elaborated the system of sociology by analogy with that of biology and recognized the presence of‘morphology’inquiring into the way in which society is composed, i.e. into‘structure.’In The Rules of Sociological Method (1895), social morphology was regarded as a branch concerned with the classification of‘social types’in terms of differences in structure. However, at that time, it was to‘function’of society, such as morality or the law, that Durkheim attached much importance as subject matter. In fact social morphology, in the Rules, was assigned to provide for sociological explanations the‘laboratories’(social types) furnished with the value of alleged independent variables, i.e.‘dynamic density’and‘social volume.’On the other hand, Durkheim made his own distinction between the‘base’and‘superstructure’ of society. In his view, the‘base’means social groups from which the‘superstructure’ i.e.‘function’originates, which are called the‘substratum.’In the Rules Durkheim regarded as the subject matter of sociology‘social facts, ’which were classified into two major categories: substratum (morphological facts) and social life (physiological facts). In this classification system the elements of space (dwellings and the network of communications) were incorporated into the concept of substratum for the first time. Durkheim thought that the substratum was social life consolidated while it was a visible vehicle through which invisible social life might be approached.The above significance of the substratum became a precondition for the renewal of social morphology as an explanatory analysis of the substratum. This renewal was completed probably in response to Friedrich Ratzel's conception of geography. In this stage Durkheim incorporated into the substratum various kinds of space connected with society, especially Ratzelian concepts of‘Raum’and‘Grenzen.’Thus it is considered that space is a visible‘social form, ’a visible manifestation of society. The task of social morphology was to explain from the category of‘collective representations’the shaping of the substratum as an amalgam of social groups and space.Durkheim, however, went in the direction of distinguishing analytically between social groups and space. He utilized Georg Simmel's‘form-content’-dichotomy for this distinction. Further, the category of social group was given the term‘population’while that of space was called‘social space.’In the end social morphology was conceived to include a double task of explaining the formation of population distribution and of social space.