Des catégories aux configurations : les conditions d'analyse des processus d'inter-influence dans l'agriculture

The means for sociological descriptions that are based on the counting of individuals, to be substituted for some of their features, lead to organize the society in homogeneous groups, to which real places are allocated with links among them. Those means lead to favour the descriptions and analysis in terms of power struggle, alliances, and above all of conflict and to erase the co-operation among individuals belonging to these aggregates, and its necessary co-existence with the conflicts. The descriptions of social configurations, of inter-influence networks, enable this phenomenons to show up, particulary within the groups of neigbourhood among farmers (studies realised by the GERDAL).