Network Metaphor Research Articles

HALDANE'S GAMBIT

This article considers the body of work which Andrew Haldane has published since the onset of financial crisis. It draws a distinction between two kinds of criticism in that work: Haldane's interference through political arithmetic on the costs of finance and Haldane's big concept of the financial network using metaphors drawn from the life sciences. His readers have mainly focused on Haldane's innovation through concept and network metaphor while neglecting his political arithmetic and empirics on the costs of finance. But this article argues that Haldane's political arithmetic on costs is an important radical intervention when the finance sector is deflecting reform with a trade narrative about the social benefits of finance.

Immune robustness from top to down: bio-inspired immune- based behavior coordination for autonomous mobile robot navigation

Behavioral robustness at antibody and immune network levels is discussed. The robustness of the immune response that drives an autonomous mobile robot is examined with computational experiments in the trajectory generation context in unknown environments. The immune response is met based on the immune network metaphor for different low-level behaviors coordination. These behaviors are activated when a robot sense the appropriate conditions in the environment in relation to the network current state. Results are obtained over case studies in computer simulation as well as in laboratory experiments with a Khepera II microrobot, and also when such an immune response is externally perturbed at network or low-level behavioral modules for behavioral robustness. Results indicate that robust behavior and immune responses relate to the coupling between behavioral modules that are selectively engaged with the environment based on immune response. The importance of results is that such a demonstration, because of the simplicity, leads discussions on a dynamical systems perspective of behavioral robustness in artiicial immune systems that goes beyond the isolated immune network response, but the antibody self-response with implications on bio-inspired systems research. Challenges and limitations of the proposed approach are also identiied for future studies.

Barefoot Engineers: The Non-Mobility of Knowledge in a Knowledge-Transfer Project

Knowledge transfer is an integral, yet oft neglected, component in the transfer of technology between different geographical and cultural milieus. This paper is based on fifteen months of participatory fieldwork within a CBO (community based organisation) in India that hosts up to thirty five participants at any one time from the ‘Least Developed Countries’ index to train them in the maintenance and repair of solar photovoltaic technologies. The trainees, all of whom are women, and ideally grandmothers, are instructed for six months, without a common medium of language instruction, in circuit board assembly, soldering, testing, maintenance and repair, through a ‘learning-by-doing’ process. After six months, the women return home to solar electrify their communities. In the following paper, I argue that knowledge is created and sustained dynamically through an on-going alignment of objects and symbols, gestures and bodies, identities and environment. Knowledge and meaning are not so much embedded or inscribed in these materials but rather performed through them in a dynamic coalescence of networked doing. By employing a network metaphor to describe the interplay of bodies and gestures, and not only material semiotic alliances, I hope to re-situate the centrality of lived interactions between persons and material objects in the dynamic becomings of network assemblages.

From network-to-antibody robustness in a bio-inspired immune system

Behavioural robustness at antibody and immune network level is discussed. The robustness of the immune response that drives an autonomous mobile robot is examined with two computational experiments in the autonomous mobile robots trajectory generation context in unknown environments. The immune response is met based on the immune network metaphor for different low-level behaviours coordination. These behaviours are activated when a robot sense the appropriate conditions in the environment in relation to the network current state. Results are obtained over a case study in computer simulation as well as in laboratory experiments with a Khepera II microrobot. In this work, we develop a set of tests where such an immune response is externally perturbed at network or low-level behavioural modules to analyse the robust capacity of the system to unexpected perturbations. Emergence of robust behaviour and high-level immune response relates to the coupling between behavioural modules that are selectively engaged with the environment based on immune response. Experimental evidence leads discussions on a dynamical systems perspective of behavioural robustness in artificial immune systems that goes beyond the isolated immune network response.

Theory and applications of artificial immune systems

For many years, biology has served as inspiration for the development of novel solutions to computer science and engineering problems. One of the more recent developments in this area is the use of the immune system as inspiration to solve such problems. The area of artificial immune systems (AIS) arose from the inter-disciplinary workings of immunologists and computer scientists to develop solutions to such problems as distributed control and computer security. The field has developed significantly over the recent years, with the development of solutions to a wide variety of problems ranging from document analysis, optimization, dynamic error detection, intrusion detection, robot control and bioinformatics. Within the AIS, there are common, well-understood algorithms, based on specific aspects of immunology. Clonal selection algorithms are the most widely employed and take their inspiration from how cells of the adaptive immune system (specifically, cells called B cell) interact with ‘antigen’ (something that causes an immune response) and then undergo a process of cloning, mutation and selection. This process has some similarities with the basic concept of evolution, and it is no surprise that the algorithms inspired by clonal selection have much in common with well-known evolutionary algorithms and have been applied in a similar manner. Negative selection algorithms, based on how immune cells (known as T cells) are matured in a gland called the thymus, are also very popular. This process allows for the filtering of non-reactive cells in the immune system and has been used as inspiration for building computer security systems, where there is some knowledge of what normal or self is. Finally, immune network algorithms are based on a theory regarding how immune cells (in this case B cells) are maintained as memory in the immune system over time. These B cells interact with each other in a stimulatory and inhibitory way to maintain the memory. This has been used as a metaphor to create dynamic learning algorithms and optimization methods. The special issue on the AIS is dedicated to the latest work in the theory and applications in this exciting area. Our aim is to provide several case studies of the AIS in solving typical real-world problems. After a detailed review process, a total of three papers were selected for this special issue. The first paper entitled ‘An immune-inspired multiobjective approach to the reconstruction of phylogenetic trees’ by Guilherme P. Coelho, Ana Estela A. da Silva, and Fernando J. Von Zuben proposes a new multi-objective optimization technique, namely omni-aiNet, in the reconstruction of phylogenetic trees. This work is based on the immune network metaphor. The phylogenetic trees are often used to represent the relationship among different species, whose construction can be considered as a difficult multi-objective optimization problem of simultaneously minimizing two criteria: minimum evolution and meansquared error. In this paper, the immune algorithm is X.-Z. Gao (&) Aalto University, Aalto, Finland e-mail: gao@cc.hut.fi

Deliberative Democracy Online: Bridging Networks With Digital Technologies

This article applies a network metaphor to an examination of the mediated public sphere. The analysis focuses on the deliberative spaces afforded by traditional and alternative media technologies, concluding that participatory digital technologies best support interactive and adaptable networks for deliberation. These networks sustain enclave and shared nodes where multiple publics can engage in deliberation within and across public boundaries. This argument informs decisions regarding broadband policy by focusing attention on values of openness, access, and freedom.

Connectivism: the network metaphor of learning

Connectivism is a new learning theory introduced by George Siemens in 2004 in order to cope with the increasing complexity and fast-paced change of the new knowledge era. This paper addresses the network metaphor of learning, which explains learning in terms of networks. We begin by introducing the connectivism approach to learning based on Siemens' work, and then provide an account of our view of connectivism by discussing the learning as a network (LaaN) perspective. We then present knowledge ecology as a social landscape that mirrors the complex nature and wide scope of knowledge, and continue by contrasting knowledge ecology to popular social forms that have been introduced in the CSCL and CSCW literature. These include communities of practice, knots, coalitions, intensional networks, and ad hoc transient communities. We end by comparing the connectivism/LaaN perspective with dominant learning and social theories. These theories are behaviourism, cognitivism, (social) constructivism, situated learning, activity theory, and actor-network theory.

Metáforas baseadas em informação: do cérebro para a rede

Metaphoric language has grown in popularity over the last years. Once simple figure of speech, metaphors were transformed into a respectable approach for organizational analysis. The brain metaphor constitutes an attractive system of ideas for studying organizational phenomena. In this paper, it is used the brain metaphor as a point of departure in developing another informational metaphor: the network metaphor. It is suggested that the latter might provide a better perspective for studying contemporary organizations in this age of information and telecommunications.

Producing interventions for AIDS-affected young people in Lesotho’s schools: Scalar relations and power differentials

Children and youth are a key target group for interventions to address southern Africa’s AIDS pandemic. Such interventions are frequently implemented through schools, and are often complex products of negotiation between a range of institutional actors including international agencies, NGOs, government departments and individual schools. These institutions not only stand in different (horizontally scaled) spatial relationships to students in schools; they also appear to operate at different hierarchical levels. Empirical research with policy makers and practitioners in Lesotho, however, reveals how interventions are produced through flows of knowledge, funding and personnel within and between institutions that make it difficult to assert that any intervention is manifestly more international or more local than any other. Scale theory offers the metaphor of a network or web which usefully serves to move attention away from discrete organisations, sectors and scalar positionings and onto the relationships and flows between them. Nevertheless, organisations and development interventions are often partly structured in scalar hierarchical ways that express substantive power differentials and shape the forms of interaction that take place, albeit not binding them to strict binaries or nested hierarchies. A modified network metaphor is useful in aiding understanding of how particular interventions are produced through intermeshing scales and diverse fluid interactions, and why they take the form they do.

From Global Production Networks to Global Reproduction Networks: Households, Migration, and Regional Development in Cavite, the Philippines

Kelly P. F. From global production networks to global reproduction networks: households, migration, and regional development in Cavite, the Philippines, Regional Studies. This paper suggests an extension to global production network approaches that seek to understand the processes of regional development in Asia. In most cases, the network metaphor presents an unrealized potential to incorporate diverse actors and spaces in analysis. Using a case in the Philippines, this paper suggests that local households and communities – the spaces of reproduction – should be considered actors in regional industrial development as an essential complement to firms and governments. Furthermore, spaces of reproduction are also engaged in the formation of global networks through migration and remittances. Such migration is partly driven by the growth in industrial employment. Kelly P. F. Des réseaux de production mondiaux aux réseaux de reproduction mondiaux: les ménages, la migration et l'aménagement du territoire à Cavite, aux Philippines, Regional Studies. Cet article laisse supposer le développement des façons d'aborder les réseaux de production mondiaux qui cherchent à comprendre les processus d'aménagement du territoire en Asie. En règle générale, la notion de réseau constitue un potentiel non réalisé d'incorporer divers acteurs et espaces dans une analyse. A partir d'une étude de cas aux Philippines, cet article laisse supposer que les ménages et les communautés locaux – les espaces de reproduction – devraient être considérés comme des acteurs dans l'aménagement du territoire industriel, des partenaires essentiels des entreprises et des gouvernements. Qui plus est, les espaces de reproduction s'engagent aussi dans l'établissement des réseaux mondiaux, par la migration et par les versements. La force motrice d'une telle migration est en partie la croissance de l'emploi industriel. Réseaux de production Reproduction Philippines Migration Ménage Versements Kelly P. F. Von globalen Produktionsnetzen zu globalen Reproduktionsnetzen: Haushalte, Migration und Regionalentwicklung in Cavite (Philippinen), Regional Studies. Dieser Beitrag enthält einen Vorschlag zur Erweiterung der Ansätze für globale Produktionsnetze, um ein besseres Verständnis der Prozesse der Regionalentwicklung in Asien zu ermöglichen. In den meisten Fällen bietet die Metapher des Netzes ein ungenutztes Potenzial zur Einbeziehung verschiedener Akteure und Räume in die Analyse. Anhand eines Falls in den Philippinen wird vorgeschlagen, dass lokale Haushalte und Gemeinschaften – die Räume der Reproduktion – als Akteure in der regionalen Industrieentwicklung und als wesentliche Ergänzung von Firmen und Regierungen angesehen werden sollten. Darüber hinaus sind Reproduktionsräume aufgrund von Migration und Überweisungen auch an der Bildung von globalen Netzen beteiligt. Eine solche Migration wird teilweise durch das Wachstum der industriellen Beschäftigung bedingt. Produktionsnetze Reproduktion Philippinen Migration Haushalt Überweisungen Kelly P. F. De las redes globales de producción a las redes globales de reproducción: hogares, migración y desarrollo regional en Cavite, Filipinas, Regional Studies. Este artículo contiene la propuesta de ampliar los conceptos de las redes de producción global para poder entender los procesos del desarrollo regional en Asia. En la mayoría de los casos, la metáfora de redes presenta un potencial no realizado para incorporar diversos protagonistas y espacios en el análisis. Usando un caso en las Filipinas, en este artículo sugiero que los hogares y comunidades locales –los espacios de reproducción– deberían considerarse protagonistas en el desarrollo industrial regional como un complemento esencial para empresas y gobiernos. Asimismo los espacios de reproducción también participan en la formación de redes globales a través de la migración y las remesas. Tal migración está parcialmente impulsada por el crecimiento en el empleo industrial. Redes de producción Reproducción Filipinas Migración Hogar Remesas

Interactive Actor Analysis for Rural Water Management in The Netherlands: An Application of the Transactional Approach

Recent developments in the policy sciences emphasize the social environment in which decisions are made. The ‘network metaphor’ is often used to describe the key role of interactions between interdependent actors involved in decision making. These interactions take place in a policy arena drawn up by actors with an interest in and control over decisions on the issues addressed. Interdependencies, caused by the need for actors to increase their means of realizing objectives, are the driving force behind these interactions. Dependency relations are of special interest to water management and river basin management because of the fundamental asymmetrical interdependencies that exist in river basins between upstream and downstream stakeholders. Coleman’s linear system of action models decision making process involving dependencies between multiple stakeholders as exchange of control over issues, while interactions are required to negotiate exchanges of control. We developed an interactive method for actor analysis based on Coleman’s linear system of action and applied it to the national rural water management policy domain in The Netherlands. The method is firmly rooted in mathematical sociology and defies the criticism that methods for actor and stakeholder analysis do not specify a theoretical basis explaining the causal relations between the variables analyzed and policy change. With the application to the rural water management policy arena we intended to increase our insight into the practical applicability of this analytic method in an interactive workshop, the acceptability of the approach for the participating actors, its contribution to the process of decision making and our understanding of the rural water management policy arena in The Netherlands. We found that the Association of Water Authorities, the Ministry of Public Works and the Ministry of Agriculture are the most powerful actor in the policy domain, while governance and cost and benefits of rural water management are the most salient issues. Progress in policy development for rural water management is probably most promising for the issues governance, costs and benefits, safety and rural living conditions through improved interaction between the Association of Water Authorities, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Rural Credit Bank. Besides these analytic results the interactive approach implemented increased the participants understanding of their dependency on other actors in the rural water management policy domain and supported them in developing a sound perspective on their dependency position. We concluded that the method developed is acceptable to real-world policy decision makers, can successfully be applied in an interactive setting, potentially contributes to the process of decision making by increasing the participants understanding of their dependency position, has the potential to delivers valuable advice for future decision-making and increases our understanding of policy development for rural water management in general.

CHEMICAL ORGANIZATIONS IN A TOY MODEL OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM

Because sociology is seeking mechanisms for explaining social phenomena, we discuss in this paper whether and how the metaphor of a chemical reaction network can be employed as a formal mechanism to describe social and political systems. A reaction network is a quite general concept that allows one to model a variety of dynamical systems. Furthermore, a set of powerful tools can infer potential dynamical properties from the network structure. Using a toy model of the political system inspired by Luhmann, we demonstrate how chemical organization theory can be applied and can give insight into the structure and dynamics of the resulting model. We show how chemical organization theory allows one to identify an overlapping hierarchy of important subsystems in these networks. Simulations reveal how this hierarchy constrains the potential dynamical behavior of the model.

Networked identities: understanding relationships between strong and weak ties in networked environments

Abstract In this paper we take up a critique of the concept of Communities of Practice (CoP) voiced by several authors, who suggest that networks may provide a better metaphor to understand social forms of organization and learning. Through a discussion of the notion of networked learning and the critique of CoPs we shall argue that the metaphor or theory of networked learning is itself confronted with some central tensions and challenges that need to be addressed. We then explore these theoretical and analytic challenges to the network metaphor, through an analysis of a Danish social networking site. We argue that understanding meaning making and ‘networked identities’ may be relevant analytic entry points in navigating the challenges.

THE PRACTISES OF INTERNET NETWORKING – A RESOURCE FOR ALTERNATIVE POLITICAL MOVEMENTS

Over the past ten years, the political significance of the Internet has become a recurrent theme within the social science literature, with questions centring on the Internet's part in the emergence of political movements and in the reshaping of people's roles as citizens. These discussions have been predominantly theoretical and deterministic in nature, with the political significance of the Internet being viewed as a consequence of its features; for example, the Internet's network structure is addressed within this literature as a forerunner to a politics following network logic. For the most part, extant research has not told us much about the Internet's significance in individuals' everyday political engagement. This article aims to modestly compensate for this shortcoming by presenting empirical results from a study on the perception and use of the Internet among young people in four alternative political movements. Specifically, by drawing on semi-structured interviews with twenty-one activists and viewing the interview data through the lens of the ‘network metaphor’, the article illustrates and discusses three different networking practises in which the Internet is an important resource: (1) the activists' use of the Internet to maintain their organizations' network-like character, (2) their use of the Internet for networking within their organizations, and (3) their use of the Internet for networking in between different, alternative political organizations. The article concludes by discussing the potential significance of these networking practises for politics, and presenting a comparative outlook towards a similar, previous study of young members within established political parties' youth organizations.

The Network Analysis of Urban Streets: A Primal Approach

The network metaphor in the analysis of urban and territorial cases has a long tradition, especially in transportation or land-use planning and economic geography. More recently, urban design has brought its contribution by means of the ‘space syntax’ methodology. All these approaches-though under different terms like ‘accessibility’, ‘proximity’, ‘integration’ ‘connectivity’, ‘cost’, or ‘effort’-focus on the idea that some places (or streets) are more important than others because they are more central. The study of centrality in complex systems, however, originated in other scientific areas, namely in structural sociology, well before its use in urban studies; moreover, as a structural property of the system, centrality has never been extensively investigated metrically in geographic networks as it has been topologically in a wide range of other relational networks such as social, biological, or technological ones. After a previous work on some structural properties of the primal graph representation of urban street networks, in this paper we provide an in-depth investigation of centrality in the primal approach as compared with the dual one. We introduce multiple centrality assessment (MCA), a methodology for geographic network analysis, which is defined and implemented on four 1-square-mile urban street systems. MCA provides a different perspective from space syntax in that: (1) it is based on primal, rather than dual, street graphs; (2) it works within a metric, rather than topological, framework; (3) it investigates a plurality of peer centrality indices rather than a single index. We show that, in the MCA primal approach, much more than in the dual approach, some centrality indices nicely capture the ‘skeleton’ of the urban structure that impacts so much on spatial cognition and collective behaviours. Moreover, the distributions of centrality in self-organized cities are different from those in planned cities.

Reexploring Transport Geography and Networks: A Case Study of Container Shipments to the West Coast of the United States

After a meteoric rise to prominence in the 1990s, the practice of conceptualizing the relationships between places in terms of networks has recently come under fire within economic geography. Its critics claim that networks are ‘fuzzy’, ‘anemic’, and ‘overendowed’. Others have criticized the network approach for its insensitivity to the way in which power is transmitted unevenly across networks. However, these are not necessarily failings of the network metaphor but, rather, of its employment to date within economic geography. Where most economic geographers have come to see the network metaphor as a way of representing connections between the nodes that they study (frequently cities or firms), transport geographers have long taken the network itself as the principal object of study. In the research of many transport geographers, networks appear as powerful agents shaping the places they connect. Incorporation of lessons drawn from transport geography into the burgeoning literature on networks in economic geography can overcome some of the growing criticism of network methodologies. The author uses an analysis of container flows to the West Coast of the United States to demonstrate the advantages of a network methodology based on transport networks.

Ethnography in action. How ethnography was established in Swedish educational research

The emergence of new research practices is the general theme in this text. The case is ethnography as an approach in Swedish educational research. Ethnography is now an established approach in educational research in Sweden. What was the process behind this position? The article will follow a trajectory that starts in the 1960s and discuss how ethnography was established and consolidated in educational research in Sweden. The article discerns five phases of formation, starting in the late 1960s through to today. The unilateral relation to Anglo-American ethnographic networks is discussed. An actor network metaphor is used as a tool in the interpretation of the process. The aim of the paper is to contribute to the knowledge of ethnographic research as well as the process of change in research practices generally.

Planning, Networks and Power Relations: is Democratic Planning Under Capitalism Possible?

This article examines the relevance of leading social science network theories for the analysis of social relations in particular fields and as a guideline for democratic planning practice. The first section explains the risks of using the network metaphor in social science analysis: the confusion of normative and real features of networks may lead to an abstract representation of institutional structures and power relations and naïve expectancies regarding democratic planning opportunities. The second section reviews institutional network theories in social science. The survey focuses on: the ‘raison d’Ítre’ of the network, the typical behaviour of its agents, the types of communication, interaction with the environment and creation of its own institutions. Section 3 examines how these network theories deal or do not deal with power and suggests improving the theorizing of the role of power in networks by providing a more solid reading of power relations in institutional structures and personal relationships in networks. This solidity could be offered by a combination of Regulation Theory and Bourdieu's theory of practice. The final section provides some guidelines on how a better reading of institutional structures and power relations may improve the impact of democratic planning.

On the Ontology of Networks

Society can no longer be thought of as independent of networks because discourses, theories, images, and institutions have transformed and abandoned the metaphor of hierarchy. This paper investigates the space occupied by the network metaphor during the past few decades and how it deals with the demarcation between what is “inside” and what remains “outside.” Examining theorists such as Manuel Castells, Albert-László Barabási, and Michel Callon, who have tried to map out the conditions of a “network,” the paper elucidates why “networks” should be approached ontologically more than as a matter of a conceptual tool.

Foucault, deleuze, and the ontology of networks

The concept of the network has become embedded in social thought and imagery, articulating what at root is inarticulable. The network metaphor occupies an ontological space, but this space, insofar as it is posed as a philosophical question, seems to assume a network-like shape itself. It may be particularly rewarding to read the constellations studied by Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze from this point of view, in light of the analysis of the preconditions of networks. This paper examines how the question of the ontology of networks is addressed by these thinkers, especially with regard to the historicity of ontology.