Abstract

In this chapter, we explore the possible aesthetic import of Moscovici’s social representation theory. Using the German sociologist Georg Simmel, who developed Durkheim’s notion of representation in a dynamic trajectory similar to that of Moscovici, we open up this new area within social representation theory, and especially by understanding representations as forms. In particular, we focus on the tension between the contextualisation and decontextualisation of representations as a way of aligning Moscovici and Simmel. This leads to the creation of a model, connecting, first, the consensual and the reified universes with, second, forms of sociation and socialisation through the tension between contextualisation and decontextualisation as the basis for understanding how social representations can have an aesthetic import.