133propose a theoretical shift in perspective from a solidarity view, which
sees the individual embedded in neighbourhood communities, to an ego-
network view. We wish in particular to contribute to the ongoing debate
about whether communities have been lost because of the socio-economic
changes occurring since the second half of the twentieth century. Between
the lost community and the saved community theses, Wellman has iden-
tified a third way of accounting for the changes which have occurred, and
has developed the concept of personal communities (Wellman 1970 ,
1999 ; Wellman and Hogan 2006 ; Wellman et al. 1997 ). In this perspec-
tive, the community is neither lost nor saved, but liberated, and, since the
individual is the primary unit of connectivity, Western societies are there-
fore characterized by person-to-person networked individualism
(Wellman 1999 ).
In the same line of thinking, Norbert Elias coined the concept of con-
figuration (Elias 1978 , 1983 ), which we later adapted to the study of
personal networks and families (Widmer and Jallinoja 2008 ). This con-
cept defines relations by reference to a structure of interdependencies
between different parts, either groups or individuals. This perspective
assumes that individuals are part of chains of functional interdependen-
cies rather than of small cohesive groups with obvious boundaries and an
unproblematic we. Four key assumptions underline this theoretical per-
spective (Widmer and Jallinoja 2008 ). First, families or other meaningful
groupings are not defined by institutional criteria such as belonging to a
household, working in a company, or membership of a specific club but
by the set of actualized interdependencies existing between individuals.
Secondly, instead of focusing on specific dyads (e.g., the couple, the rela-
tionship between a stepparent and a stepchild, or between an employee
and an employer) as independent and separate entities, the configura-
tional perspective takes into consideration the larger set of relationships
in which each dyad is embedded. Thirdly, individuals and configurational
structures are interconnected, which means that it is not possible to
understand individual projects and identities without taking the overall
organization of interdependencies into account. Likewise, group struc-
tures cannot be understood without referring to individual projects and
identities, as such structures are the effects of complex aggregation
phenomena. In this perspective, the very idea of distinguishing between
Mapping the Plurality of Personal Configurations