 As Durkheim elaborates, "représentations collectives" are created through intense social interaction and are products of collective activity.As such these representations have the particular, and somewhat contradictory, aspect that they exist externally to the individual (since they are created and controlled not by the individual but by society as a whole), and yet simultaneously within each individual of the society (by virtue of that individual's participation within society).Arguably the most important "représentation collective" is language, which according to Durkheim is a product of collective action.