What is Society? - References from Bruno Latour

'Society' as a term cannot be easily defined, and definitions of the term tend to be weak as they are based upon assumptions or the analysis of a supposedly specific society. The term is popularly used as a tool of explanation for a problem or happening but yet society in itself cannot not explained. In the same way that people look towards a God to blame, it is simply the easy way to excuse our behaviour as individuals or a collective of people tied together with 'social' bonds.   

The more that the term is used to explain specific phenomenons the greater our ability to associate the term with any number of things and situations. This ever increasing and encompassing word still presents us with a problem. "What is a society?".  I therefore present the idea that as a result of these invisible boundaries and the fact it cannot be defined, 'society' does not exist. It is not something physical we can use to explain specific phenomena but something metaphysical we can blame. 

We may look towards science for an explanation of these instinctual bonds that supposedly tie us together but science ironically looks upon social studies (the unproven) to explain human behaviour when, they cannot define or find reasoning from genetics or other theorems. The 'social' and 'society' therefore cannot fit within any regulated area whether it be academic study or its physical presence on earth yet its existence still cannot be denied.

"I am going to define the social not as a special domain, a specific realm, or a particular sort of thing, but only as a very peculiar movement of re-association and reassembling"

Thus the inability to be able to define a specific group, the inability categorise, order and define the 'social' therefore inhibits us from relying upon the verbal and physical existence of 'society'. It simply exists, but not as something tangible that can be used for explanation but of a presence we have and long for, similar to that of other emotive forces.