Abstract

In this paper I illustrate the polisemy of the concept of embeddness in Mark Granovetter's work. In the introduction of the essay that Granovetter wrote for French readers, he states that English-speaking economic sociology can be prone to neglecting the cultural and political forces going beyond networks. He therefore sees a possible complementarity with other economic sociologies, influenced by Polanyi and more inclined to take these dimensions into consideration. From this decomposition of the overarching concept of embeddedness into various kinds emerges the possibility to mobilise these versions jointly, thus elaborating a sociology of contemporary economy. I show how these various meanings of the concept of embeddedness should not be opposed one to another, but rather it's important to envisage them as complementary.