Social Autopoiesis Research Articles

Violence from the perspective of social immunology: a contribution to social systems theory

AbstractThis paper analyzes violence from the peculiar perspective of a “social immunology”, defined as the area of social systems theory concerned primarily, even though not exclusively, with those processes by which social systems as communication systems deal with tensions, termed ecological tensions, that involve the intersection between social systems and their human environment and that endanger the maintenance of social autopoiesis. Individuals’ violent behaviors are manifestations of such tensions. However empirically ubiquitous it may be, violence constitutes a crucial problem for social systems, due to risks detrimental to the human substrate of communicative processes. We theorize about conflicts, social movements and the legal system as the main components of an immune apparatus of social systems by focusing on individuals’ reactions to social costs and related social conflicts. Modern law, in particular, tends to promote individuals’ inclusion and to restrain their resorting to violence by relying on a system of rights, procedures, and judicial institutions conducive to attracting and regulating such conflicts. Legal immunization remains nonetheless exposed to several limitations, including abnormal forms that concur to the arbitrary use of violence.

The Autopoietic Character of Society

Following the articulation of the concept of autopoiesis in the biological realm by Maturana and Varela, this chapter introduces the basic principles and questions that led to the development of social autopoiesis. In exploring the developments around the autopoietic character of society, this chapter focuses on the core ideas behind Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory as an abstraction and expansion of the biologically-inspired autopoiesis. The central ideas around Luhmann’s decision to operationalise the system/environment distinction as a society/human distinction are discussed while the principles of the different function subsystems of society are outlined. A sample of applications that apply Luhmann’s ideas are provided and one of these cases is expanded.

Network Direct Selling Organisations

Many studies have explored Network Direct Selling Organisations (NDSOs) because they createmany communicative contexts and demonstrate such a diverse range of communicative processesthat form and sustain this large industry. These organisations exist in more than 70 countries, andhave almost 88 million members who generate over US$132 billion annually (WFDSA, 2011).This paper argues that although NDSOs can be differentiated from other types of organising, theircharacteristics can be linked to some key premises in postmodern thinking about organising. Itutilises the schismatic metaphor identified by Morgan (1981) to generate further insights into thestudy of individuals as composite unities of operationally closed self-creating systems that cocreateorganisations such as NDSOs. The schismatic metaphor is utilised to provide a powerfulframework for social analysis of organisations by identifying and discussing some theoretical linksbetween postmodernism, social autopoiesis, and second-order cybernetics.

ADMIRATION (ADMIRATIO) AS A CRITERION FOR THE AUTOPOIESIS OF ART (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE DISTINCTIONS OF ANCIENT THINKERS)

The research is devoted to the phenomenon of admiratio (admiration, wonder, marvelous) as a criterion of art. The methodological basis of the study is the system theory of Niklas Luhmann. Admiration is presented as a factor in the activation of social autopoiesis, the media of successful communication. The German sociologist refers it to the “traditional” theories of art, the origins of which are found in philosophical and literary reflection starting from ancient Greece. In the sphere of describing art, admiration (wonder) appears in Homer’s poems, marking the sphere of skillful activity (techne) and its works, which are considered as one of the ways of achieving fame for the author. In the philosophical thought of the classical period of Ancient Greece (in the works of Plato, Aristotle), further in the treatises of Cicero and the letters of Horace, admiration is revealed in many ways: the key aspect of the epistemological program; a source of pleasure, in connection with which it receives a controversial assessment; a phenomenon that has a strong and unpredictable effect on the audience. The initial orientation of this concept to observation and the figure of the observer is noted, allowing art to be conceptualized in terms of communicative theory, taking into account the expectations of the audience, directing attention to the reflection of what is perceived.

Using autopoiesis to discover the birth of fashion

How personal and social fashion might be formed at a nascent level is detectable in the Mursi and Omo people. These groups remained within the African continent after its post-Pangaea formation; the Mursi and Omo have retained practices and beliefs that hitherto have not been considered critical to the formation of fashion. Fashion scholarship has followed a limited version of history that permeates museology, teaching and fashion design. Its impetus responds to the idea that fashion was formed in Bruges, Belgium, during the birth of capitalism, between 1280 and 1390. Clothes created before 1280 in non-European settings has generally been regarded as costume, hence the epistemological gap that stymies an inclusivity scholarship. This development has ramifications for a reconsideration of when the historical gaze commences, and where geographically it falls. Indeed, fashion is reconsidered to be inordinately autochthonous. This is an examination of post-structuralism as applied to a visual system via human presentation and social autopoiesis, a system that reproduces itself and does so without requiring external operations for the system for continuation. The activity of fashion visualized is examined as a claim of a live system that stresses the study of the individual and the group as an activity for self-actualization. The relative freedom in which the Mursi and Omo peoples of Ethiopia create fashion is discussed as opposed to the lack of autonomy available to formal fashion designers working in the West and particularly those being trained and educated in fashion schools. This article refutes Barthesian concepts of fashion for three reasons. First, Barthes grounded his scope within the venture of the fashion industrial complex and its profit agenda, served by mechanisms such as fashion photography, advertising and promotion. Second, Barthes’ work concerns an exposition of semiotics where fashion is merely the subject of containment. Lastly, the establishment of fashion is a creative act concerning the human body, since no evidence can be proffered to decipher which came first – human making marks on the land, trees or cave walls, or mark-making on live human skin. I proceed with the idea that the Omo provide a glimpse of the birth of fashion in that they make the step of distancing themselves from nature by re-creating themselves as objectified and in the world.

Social immunology: A theory of the immune processes of social systems

AbstractThis article adds to the literature on system research by providing a comprehensive analysis of the immune processes for the social system of society, focusing on conflicts and law as the main components. Social systems are conceptualized as self‐reproducing units based on communication, with individuals constituting separate entities, namely, the human environment of society. Processes of social immunization concern individuals' perception of the social costs of expectations and their consequent reactions, which can give rise to ecological tensions between social systems and the human environment. Individuals' reactions to social costs are problems that social systems should deal with communicatively to guarantee their own reproduction. Conflicts contribute to immune processes by channeling the perception of social costs into specific communicative forms, such as social movements. Whereas legal procedures are the main settings in which social systems are immunized from the costly continuation of disputes, which would interfere in the social autopoiesis.

Autopoietic interaction systems: micro-dynamics of participation and its limits

ABSTRACT This article engages with two published case studies describing participation in planning, a much-discussed aspect of spatial planning. After a brief review of the arguments advanced in the articles, the case studies are reinterpreted using the theory of social autopoiesis as advanced by Niklas Luhmann, in particular, one concept from the theory – interaction systems. The re-analysis yields two results: it illustrates the added contribution that the theory can make to understand public participation in spatial planning, but also highlights particular issues in relation to participatory planning and its use in spatial planning.

Representación de América Latina <em>en</em> y <em>para</em> Japón: un análisis de la prensa japonesa

Este texto parte de los conceptos de alteridad y sistema social autopoiético para analizar la representación contemporánea de lo latinoamericano según el periódico The Asahi Shimbun. Las noticias sobre América Latina publicadas en este diario durante dos décadas se abordan con los métodos de investigación de la comunicación, el análisis de contenido y el análisis textual. De esta manera, se discute cómo la representación resulta primordialmente en una imagen del latinoamericano como deportista o como transgresor del orden, imagen que, a su vez, es el fundamento para la construcción de un otro latinoamericano necesario en la dinámica de producción y reproducción de lo japonés.

Policy governance from an autopoietic perspective: revisiting Hungary’s regionalization experience

ABSTRACTThis perspective on Hungary’s post-socialist regional policy governance is informed by an approach that relates region-building and regional governance to social autopoiesis and the self-referential and self-(re)producing nature of social systems such as states. Following debates in regional studies that reflect tensions between the local constitution and external determination of regional governance, we will demonstrate how Hungary has incorporated European Union (EU) policy frameworks through specific appropriations of territorial politics and regional ideas. These appropriations reflect Hungary’s post-socialist transformation not only in terms of responses to global forces, but also as specific spatial practices and regionalization experiences. As we argue, this has in effect resulted in a regionalism without regions – a strategy of Europeanizing territorial politics without creating institutional structures that directly challenge existing power relations. Autopoiesis thus helps explain the resilience of social systems, not only their resistance to institutional change but also their capability to ‘domesticate’ external influences. While criticisms of Hungary’s technocratic and post-political regionalization projects cannot be ignored, our analysis indicates why externally driven intervention in self-organizing governance processes, for example through EU conditionality, has had less impact than expected.

Autopoietikus (társadalmi) terek koncepciója

A kortárs térelméletek fő áramlatai a teret nyitottnak tételezik fel, és sokan úgy vélik, hogy ezt alátámasztják a globalizációs trendek is. E tanulmány az autopoiézisz koncepciójának térelméleti alkalmazásával a konkrét terek lehetséges zártságára hívja fel a figyelmet. A szerző a luhmanni szociális rendszer bemutatását követően az autopoiézisz általános társadalmi koncepciójának főbb jellemzőit tárgyalja. Bemutatja, hogy miben különböznek az autopoietikusan működő zárt rendszerek a nyílt triviális rendszerektől, és melyek az autopoietikus rendszerek főbb jellemzői. Az autopoietikusan működő rendszerek az önépítés, az önfejlődés érdekében alakítják ki a zártság és nyitottság kényes egyensúlyát. A tanulmány a társadalmi (területi) rezilienciát az autopoiézisszel rokon fogalomként mutatja be. A szerző az autopoiézisz általános koncepciójának lényegi elemire építve megalkotja a zárt terek koncepcióját. A belülről építkező önreferenciális terek és területegységek saját maguk konstrukciói, saját „genetikájuk”, logikájuk alapján működnek és határolódnak el a környezetüktől. A konkrét terek határai mindig az alkotóelemeiknek és a relációiknak a sajátosságaihoz igazodnak, a komponenseik és azok relációi a saját maguk által létrehozott térben, saját műveleteikkel termelődnek újjá. Ha az önreferencián alapuló viszonylag autonóm működés megszűnik, azzal megszűnik a természetes téregység is, és elemei egy másik egység részévé válnak. A mesterségesen kívülről létrehozott és irányított terek nem autopoietikusan, hanem gépszerűen működnek.

Vulnerable bodies, vulnerable systems

AbstractIn this paper we examine the concept of vulnerability as it relates to the materiality of systems, the exclusion of human physical corporeality, and social exclusion in Luhmann's theory of social autopoiesis. We ask whether a concept of vulnerability can be included in autopoiesis in order to better conceptualise social exclusion and the excluded, with a view to understanding how, if at all, the dangers posed by this exclusion are mitigated by autopoietic processes. We are emphatically not returning to the human subject over operational systems, but seek instead to develop an understanding of the embodied nature of humans and their vulnerability within an autopoietic framework. We argue that the awareness of the risks to social functional differentiation posed by unmanaged exclusion – disenchantment, disassociation and, most drastically, dedifferentiation – provided by our analysis indicates why hyper-exclusion must be mitigated.

O sistema autopoiético e seus paradoxos DOI:10.5007/2177-7055.2010v31n60p275

The aim of the present work is to study the autopoiesis and its origin from biological sciences, with Maturana and Varela, until its adaptation for the social sciences with Niklas Luhmann formulating a social autopoiesis.

Organisational innovation as part of knowledge management

The objective of this paper is to contribute to a perspective on economic performance, i.e. the interaction between norms specific to a company, the knowledge basis of the company and innovation. The questions we will try to shed light on in this article are: what is the connection between norms specific to the company, the knowledge basis of the company and innovation? We will argue that norms specific to the company, knowledge development and innovation strategies are closely linked, in order to promote competitive advantages at the company level. We will present and discuss a model in this connection. At the end of the article we will integrate this model and develop policy implications. We will see norms specific to the company in the light of social autopoiesis theory. It is this theory which will be used when evaluating the importance of knowledge development and innovation. The main thesis in the article is that a company's capabilities are primarily developed on the basis of social norms and values already existing in the social relations of the company. This in turn influences how the company develops and applies the knowledge basis, thus influencing innovation strategies.

Autopoiesis vs. social autopoiesis: critical evaluation and implications for understanding firms as autopoietic social systems

The main objective of this study is to revisit the fundamental postulations of autopoietic self-production wrapped within the autopoietic six-point key and to investigate whether or not firms as specific social systems can be treated as autopoietic unities. In order to do so firms have to be defined as simple and composite unities whereupon their boundaries have to be clearly identifiable. The test of social autopoiesis reveals that firms can be viewed as autopoietic social systems that exist in the communicative space with employees' firm-specific communicative sub-domains as their components. Furthermore, it is argued that the social reification of autopoiesis (autokoinopoiesis) in firms is quintessentially interconnected with physical autopoiesis of their employees (autophysiopoiesis). Discontiguous focus on productivity as firms' obvious physical implication may thus be upgraded by a very social nature of ideactivity, firms' only real survival force.

Systemic reflections on our past, present and future

AbstractThis paper is about our ability to control the organizations that we have either created or inherited. The discussion draws on work by Luhmann, on time and social autopoiesis, and Zadek, on creating civil corporations. It is proposed that the ability to demonstrate resistance differentiates the autopoietic model from earlier systems models and that this ability is mediated through the system's capacity for intelligence based on its distinction and learning from other systems in its environment. Such a view introduces the opportunity for organizations to shift away from rationalism, involving structural barriers and limitations, to a more integrated form of being in the Future. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Sociocybernetics and social entropy theory

PurposeTo present the contributions of sociocybernetics, particularly as developed by Felix Geyer, and to compare sociocybernetics with social entropy theory (SET).Design/methodology/approachThis paper first outlines the problems with earlier approaches, and then briefly discusses the four approaches constituting the “new” social systems theory: sociocybernetics, social‐autopoiesis theory, living systems theory (LST), and SET. Next the six chief contributions of sociocybernetics are discussed. Then sociocybernetics is compared with SET. The paper ends with a brief comparison of Geyer's sociocybernetics with the other two new approaches, social autopoiesis and LST.FindingsSociocybernetics is found to be a context‐specific, observer‐dependent approach that relies heavily on second‐order cybernetics. The comparison of sociocybernetics with SET also finds that the latter complements the former in valuable ways. Geyer's approach to sociocybernetics is also found to be compatible with both social autopoiesis and LST.Practical implicationsA very useful source of information for scholars interested in the comparative analysis of the new social‐systems theory.Originality/valueThis paper provides the first comparison of sociocybernetics with the other new social‐systems theories – SET, social autopoiesis, and LST. It clearly shows the value of Geyer's approach to sociocybernetics. It is valuable to all scholars interested in modern social‐systems theory. Sociocybernetics will be recognized as one of the great theoretical contributions of twentieth century sociology. It will also be forever linked with the names of its principal founders, Geyer and van der Zouwen. The numerous contributions of sociocybernetics are all the more impressive when it is recognized that they were made against a backdrop of widespread misunderstanding, mistrust, and outright rejection of its precursor approaches in social systems theory.

Public and private codes in living systems theory

AbstractAn extremely important, but often unheralded, contribution in living systems theory is the explication of internal coding and data transformation within a system, particularly recoding from ‘public’ to ‘private’ information, and vice versa. The importance of such coding and recoding in systems has received increased visibility recently through the development of ‘public key infrastructure’ (PKI) technology for Internet security. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of the subsystems of LST in dealing with public and private codes. The relevance of public and private codes for social autopoiesis is also discussed. It is shown that public and private codes play a central role in providing both system security and system identity. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Autopoiesis: a review and a reappraisal.

The aim of the paper is to review critically the notion of autopoiesis as presented by Maturana and Varela. In particular, recognizing that there are difficulties in obtaining a complete and clear picture from the primary literature, an effort is made to present a coherent view-also based on many years of personal contact with Francisco Varela. The paper begins with a few historical notes to highlight the cultural background from which the notion of autopoiesis arose. The basic principles of autopoiesis as a theory of cellular life are then described, emphasizing also what autopoiesis is not: not an abstract theory, not a concept of artificial life, not a theory about the origin of life-but rather a pragmatic blueprint of life based on cellular life. It shown how this view leads to a conceptually clear definition of minimal life and to a logical link with related notions, such as self-organization, emergence, biological autonomy, auto-referentiality, and interactions with the environment. The perturbations brought about by the environment are seen as changes selected and triggered by the inner organization of the living. These selective coupling interactions impart meaning to the minimal life and are thus defined by Maturana and Varela with the arguable term of "cognition". This particular view on the mutual interactions between living organism and environment leads these authors to the notion of "enaction", and to the surprising view that autopoiesis and cognition are two complementary, and in a way equivalent, aspects of life. It is then shown how cognition, so defined, permits us to build a bridge between biology and cognitive science. Autopoiesis also allows one to conceive chemical models of minimal cellular life that can be implemented experimentally. The corresponding work on "chemical autopoiesis" is then reviewed. The surprising impact of autopoiesis in the social sciences ("social autopoiesis") is also briefly discussed. This review also comments on why the theory of autopoiesis had, and still has, a difficult time being accepted into the mainstream of life-science research. Finally, it is pointed out that the new interest in system biology and complexity theories may lead to a reappraisal of autopoiesis and related notions, as outlined also by other authors, such as Tibor Ganti and Stuart Kauffmann.

AN ARISTOTELIAN SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF SOCIAL AUTOPOIESIS

This paper addresses the problem of social autopoiesis. We argue that to date no adequate solution to the problem of social autopoiesis exists and put this down to the lack of an adequate conception of a social autopoietic unity. We present such a solution based on our reconstruction of autopoiesis theory in a synthesis of Aristotelian/Maturanian metaphysics. From this we derive what we call the Enterprise model and test it against the six-point key of Varela et al. (1974). In light of our solution we then move to a consideration of further problems that may still cast doubt on the legitimacy of the notion of autopoiesis in the social domain. We conclude by arguing that such considerations are in fact groundless and do not materially affect our claims as to the autopoiesis of social systems.

INTERNAL SOCIETAL REACTION TO EXTERNAL CHANGE: THE CASE OF THE KOREAN PENINSULA

As social systems increase in complexity, they must monitor the relationships among their internal components carefully, to see that their functioning is harmonious. The internal components must not only meet their own needs, but must meet the overall needs of the total society as well. If this is not done adequately, the society could face an alarming increase in internal entropy, to its great peril. However, in attending to internal needs, the complex society cannot neglect the need to monitor and reart to a variety of external flows, including monetary and information flows. This paper combines social entropy theory and autopoiesis theory to analyze the relationships between internal and external relations in a complex social system. South and North Korea are used as illustrations. An important issue is how a nation's boundaries are controlled. This is discussed briefly, and five models of boundary control are presented. North Korea is shown to have a model 1 system, while South Korea has a model 4 system.