Biological Time, Social Time: For a Recognition Of The Concept Of "Biosociological Time"

The purpose of this paper is to offer some reflections on the concept of "Biosociological Time", built in the course of my research on the variety of family. This concept is undoubtedly one of the major theoretical issue to explain families’ trajectories. Through this concept, a new apprehension and understanding of social phenomena is proposed. It should open reflections on the role of the time as a link, a space of transition and a place of linking and unlinking. I am interested in the study of biological and social time through their interplay, while theories rather insist on their disjunction. The opposition between these two time scales is reminiscent of the one raised by Elias between "Individual and Society" and "Nature and Society" (1991). Like him, I think that "we cannot develop a theory of [...] human activity" regardless of how "the body is built and how it works", because at the end, "control of nature, social control and individual control form a sort of circular chain [...] [in the heart of which] no element can develop without the other." The time is then fabric of community life, as well as individual lives. It is this power of synthesis that allows lives to be lived and recognized in the common duration and the collective existence. Developing my reflection in reference to my precedent research, I will outline some proposals for future researches that should allow accumulating materials that will build this concept while proving its theoretical fertility.