Center and Periphery - Why It Matters
The Center and Periphery Series
“What are you talking about?”
The Center and Periphery Series
Applying the Center and Periphery within the Two Global Forces
Center and Periphery - A Theory about Society
The concept of Center and Periphery was originally developed by Edward Shils in the early 1960s. Shils’ purpose was to provide a rational understanding of how societies function through a Center comprised of organizations and institutions that served the whole of society. The part of society that does not constitute the Center, Shils calls the Periphery.
A Circle of Impact guide to Edward Shil’s distinction between the Center and the Periphery.
The Center is the organizational core of a community or organization. The Periphery looks to the Center to protect and preserve their shared value system. This is the classic understanding of leadership and society. Leaders lead. Followers follow. As a result, leaders set the rules, and followers obey them.
If we apply Shil’s perspective to national governments, global corporations, and local municipalities, we see how easily leaders at the Center can abandon the Periphery in favor of their own purpose or vision.
Understanding the intricate and intimate relationship between the Center and Periphery provides a perspective that can help us better discern the course of historic events taking place today. In part two of this post, I will go into great depth of how Center and Periphery, along with my perspective Two Global Forces, provide a way to understand what is happening today.
My principal interest in this post is to show how the Center and Periphery framework applies to our lives.
A key to applying Shil’s perspective is recognizing that we have been in a state of abandonment by the Center for generations. As you will see below, when the Center abandons the Periphery, the Periphery responds by creating new Centers to unify communities and organization behind a common purpose and shared values.
The Center and Periphery perspective, therefore, is a starting point for analyzing what you are experiencing in relation to people, community, and institutions.
Learn how the Center and Periphery idea matters in below.