The Atlas of Social Complexity. THEME 3: LIVING IN SOCIAL SYSTEMS (Chapter 17)

As I stated in my previous posts, the Atlas of Social Complexity is comprised of several content themes.

 

The first major content theme in The Atlas of Social Complexity is Cognition, Emotion and Consciousness. This first theme includes six chapters, which I have so far blogged on. Chapter 6 addresses autopoiesis. Chapter 7 turns to the role of bacteria in human consciousness. Chapter 8 explores how the immune system, just like bacteria and cells, is cognitive – and the implications this has for our wider brain-based consciousness. Chapter 9 explores a complexity framing of brain-based cognition, emotion and consciousness. Chapter 10 explores the complex multilevel dynamics of the Self. Chapter 11 is about human-machine intelligence.

 

The second major content theme in The Atlas of Social Complexity is The Dynamics of Human Psychology. So far for this theme, I’ve given a basic overview, found here. I then moved on to the first theme, Human psychology as dynamical system (Chapter 13). From there I reviewed Chapter 14: Psychopathology of mental disorders ; Chapter 15: Healing and the therapeutic process; and Chapter 16: Mindfulness, imagination, and creativity.

 

The focus of this post is THEME 3: LIVING IN SOCIAL SYSTEMS

Chapter 17 introduces this theme

2020 C.E. The Social Science Turn. The complexity turn in social science has come to an end. It is being replaced by a new movement, the social science turn in complexity. This new turn is an advance insomuch as it provides a way out of the thirteen challenges, in particular.

 

So, what happened to the complexity turn?

 

If one goes back to the 2005 special issue of Theory, Culture and Society,[1] which John Urry guest edited, one it taken by several things. The first is how theoretically flowing and philosophically oriented the issue is, including Urry’s opening article. Still grounded in the 1990s criticisms and concerns of postmodernism, poststructuralism, and the sociology of science, the special issue looks to complexity science not only as a way forward but also as a deconstruction of current scientific practice. Second, the promise of not only applying the complexity sciences to social inquiry, but also the potential to make the boundaries of disciplines and sciences more fluid and permeable infuses the spirit of the entire issue. Third, is the list of highly acclaimed authors,[2] which included (in order) Helga Nowotny (social studies of science), Fritjof Capra (physicist and author of The Web of Life), Adrian Mackenzie (sociology and social studies of Science and technology), Brian Wynne (science studies), David Byrne (case-based complexity, sociology), Cristian Suteanu (environmental science and complexity), John Smith and Chris Jenks (socio-ecology of complexity), Nigel Clark (geography), Graeme Chesters and Ian Welsh (social movements, qualitative methods), Karin Knorr Cetina (globalisation, markets, science studies, post-social theory), and Paul Cilliers (philosopher, complexity scholar). It is a veritable list of who’s-who for social complexity studies over the last thirty years. Finally, is the definition used to articulate the complexity turn. Urry states,

 

This new Special Issue seeks to reflect upon, to develop and in part to evaluate yet another turn, the complexity turn. This turn derives from developments over the past two decades or so within physics, biology, mathematics, ecology, chemistry and economics, from the revival of neo-vitalism in social thought, and from the emergence of a more general ‘complex structure of feeling’ that challenges some everyday notions of social order.[3]

 

For Urry, the complexity turn of the 1990s not only draws on the complexity sciences writ large, but also the neo-vitalist concerns in social inquiry at the time,[4] which had to do with getting back to processes, dynamics and the animated, living and aspects of social life and social systems. The complexity turn is also about the increasing complexities of globalised life at the end of the 20^th century – all of which would become part of the sales pitch for the value of complexity and complex systems thinking as a post-postmodern approach to social inquiry. Despite this trifecta of concerns, for Urry the complexity turn is still ultimately about transporting the theories, concepts, mathematics, and methods of complexity science, as developed by physics and the natural and computational sciences, into social inquiry – even if only on a metaphorical level, as Urry did his book, The complexities of the global.[5]

 

Or at least that is what the complexity turn constitutes for most scholars. There is always the adjacent possible, or in this case what one might call the social science turn within the complexity turn. In Urry’s special issue, the adjacent possible is David Byrne. Urry states:

 

In his article here, [Byrne] argues that the way to make complexity work as part of critical realist social science is through the comparative method and especially through its shaping of the tools of social science. This project he examines through a distinction between ‘simplistic complexity’ (rather like the reductionism Wynne argues against) and ‘complex complexity’. The latter involves a dialogical engagement with involved social actors seeking to transform social systems. He is less concerned with importing ideas from the sciences but rather with developing ways of thinking and challenging the social world through complexity understood as a more general epistème.[6]

 

As this quote demonstrates, the social science turn has always been a possibility for the study of social complexity. It was right there from the start. Byrne was visionary insomuch as he engaged the complexity sciences, while simultaneously recognising (as with the French philosopher and sociologist, Edgar Morin[7]) that certain ways of practicing it are problematic for social inquiry and therefore to be avoided. For Byrne, such a restrictive approach is entirely avoidable.

 

The complexity turn in social science happened over thirty years ago. During this time a tremendous amount of innovative and creative work took place applying the tools of complexity science to social inquiry.[8]  Of late, this innovation and creativity seems to be one of diminishing returns. The complexity turn, as a form of disruptive science, appears to be over.

 

FORTUNATELY, THAT IS NOT WHERE THE STORY ENDS!!!!

 

 

The social science turn in complexity is not a promise. It is not a panacea. It is more an advance by those who see themselves largely outside the complexity sciences. They see value in the tools of complexity and also social science and the humanities, and are simply trying to find ways to keep social inquiry disruptive by getting past one or more of the thirteen conditions. As with the other two themes, not all of the work in this area is equal in its innovation. There is still a lot to do. Hence the purpose of this part of our tour. We seek to identify key topics, with an eye to work waiting to be done by those reading the book.

 

Here are the lines of research for this theme:

 

• Complex social psychology (Ch 18)
• Collective behaviour, mass psychology and social movements (Ch 19)
• Configurational social science (Ch 20)
• The complexities of place at the local and global level (Ch 21)
• Socio-technological life (Ch 22)
• Governance, politics and technocracy (Ch 23)
• The challenges of applying complexity (Ch 24)
• Economics in an unstable world (Ch 25)
• Resilience (Ch 26)

 

 

KEY WORDS: configurational social science, sociology of collective behaviour, complex social psychology, complexity in policy and practice, resilience, governance, politics and technocracy.

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[1] See, Volume 22 Issue 5, October 2005, Theory, Culture and Society. Special Issue on Complexity. Editor: John Urry. https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/tcsa/22/5

[2] For more on these authors, visit the website or paper version of the special edition, listed in Footnote 1.

[3] John Urry, ‘The Complexity Turn’, Theory, Culture & Society 22, no. 5 (October 2005): 1–14. p. 1. References were removed from the quoted text to improve readability.

[4] See, for example, Fraser, M., Kember, S., & Lury, C. Inventive life: Approaches to the new vitalism. Theory, Culture & Society. 2005: 22(1), 1-14.

[5] Urry, J. The complexities of the global. Theory, culture & society, 22(5). 2005: 235-254.

[6] Ibid, pp. 9-10.

[7] See Morin, E. Restricted complexity, general complexity. Science and us: Philosophy and Complexity. Singapore: World Scientific, 2007, pp. 1-25.

[8] See D. S. Byrne, Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 1998); Byrne and Callaghan, Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences; Brian Castellani and Frederic William Hafferty, Sociology and Complexity Science, Understanding Complex Systems (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2009).