John Urry's (1999) study entitled "Sociology Beyond Societies: Mobilities
for the twenty-first century" provides an interesting attempt to combine
elements from "actor-network-theory" (ANT) and second-order systems theory
(or non-linear dynamics). The book is well written and therefore most
enjoyable to read.
ANT has its origins in a French tradition (Latour and Callon), but Urry
elaborates mainly on the reformulation by Annemarie Mol and John Law in
their 1994 article entitled "Regions, networks and fluids: anaemia and
social topology", Social Studies of Science 24: 641-71. Three concepts are
central to this study: networks, fluxes, and scapes. "Scapes" can be
considered a generalized notion of "landscapes": networks can be stabilized
into specific scapes, but the scapes can be destabilized and sometimes
(under conditions) globalized by fluxes.
In Chapter Five (entitled "Times") these structural notions are then
recombined with a discussion of different orders of times. Urry argues that
complex systems theory and the natural sciences have developed new notions
of time other than the modern "clock-time". These new notions have been
reflected by some philosophers (Whitehead, Heidegger), but not sufficiently
been elaborated into new sociological metaphors. Urry formulates (at p. 123):
"Overall then the social sciences continue to employ incorrect models of
how time is conceived of within the natural sciences, and they have
neglected notions from within 'science' which could well be relevant to a
reconfigured sociology seeking to overcome the division between the
physical and social worlds."
Chapter Five also provides a short introduction into the relevant
literature from complex systems theory, but this summary is selective. For
example, Luhmann's concept of functional differentiation of the
communication as a condition to cope with complexity of the environment
within the system (along different eigenvectors of the network) is
completely neglected. However, Urry introduces the possibility to
reconstruct time instantaneously into a "B-order time" when systems contain
a memory function. This order of time operates in the present by
reconstructing the past (and the future) at the level of meaning
processing. Additionally, "glacial time" is distinguished as a time horizon
beyond the individual experiences of a single generation.
Time can also be reconstructed from a global perspective. Urry continues
the discussion with what this reconstruction means for the definition of
communities and citizenship from this perspective. The focus is thus
shifted back to more traditional issues of sociology. However, the rich
narrative may provide metaphors for describing globalization and its
effects on inter-human and human/non-human relations. Among other things,
Urry argues that sociology is necessarily constrained by the metaphors
available for describing these relations.
From sociology to a socionomy?
In previous centuries, astrologists could only provide metaphors, but
astronomy emerged during the Scientific Revolution as a consequence of the
new (mechanistic) philosophy. Might Urry's orientation towards complex
systems theory also allow for the next step towards a socionomy? He
suggests so by implying the complex systems theory enables us to introduce
a new set of metaphors into the social sciences. However, Urry does not
wish to evaluate metaphors in terms of what they precisely do explain or
not, and to which extent.
Although Urry argues that the structure/action dichotomy (Giddens,
Habermas, Münch, and others) can be abandoned because of the insights of
complex systems theory, he replaces this dichotomy with the one of ANT in
which humans interact in networks in which also non-humans can participate.
(Structure/action dichotomies can be abandoned because change can be caused
endogenously to structure by interactive fluxes without necessarily an
actor being the source of these changes.) However, there is no proposal of
operationalizing networks into social networks versus heterogenous networks
(including non-humanness) so that one could perhaps measure the humanness
of networks. "Humans" are black boxed as just another entity.
How are "humans" related to networks in which they relate? Are they related
as bodies, as psyches, as social representations? And do these distinctions
matter? Urry mentions, for example, that humans can also be important in a
network by being absent. Does one always need the the body or can one
sometimes consider only the representation that covers the file? How are
"humans" differently represented as bodies, as agencies that provide
meaning, and in interactions among systems of communication?
Urry does not make these distinctions because he does not want
"differentiation" to play a major role in his theorizing. However,
"differentiation" follows analytically from the concept of network because
the networks/scapes contain structures that can be analyzed in terms of
different eigenvectors. The networks are more than one-dimensional (because
otherwise they would also be lines). Differentiation can therefore be
expected. From a Lumannian perspective, the functionality of the
differentiation, however, is no longer contained within the system and its
survival (as in biology or like in Parsons's sociology), but a result of
the reflexive maintanance of the system in a complex environment or, in
other words, its potential to self-organize the communication within the
social system.
For example, the intellectual organization of the sciences in specialties
and disciplines at the supra-institutional level under specifiable
conditions closes discourses in terms of specific jargons. "Humans" are
involved here as contribuants to the discussion, but the relevance of their
contributions is determined by the standards of the discussion and
therefore the communicative competencies of the contribuants become
crucial. How they manage to provide their contributions physically or
mentally is left to the contributing "humans," but no longer a selection
relevant to the network system.
These distinctions bring us back to Luhmann, in my opinion, who argues that
"humans" provide the (!) relevant environment for social systems. All
relations with non-human objects are mediated. The social systems can be
considered as nothing else than what happens between human beings when
actions interact and begin to develop recursively. Codification of
relationship with non-human entities then becomes possible. Both the
actions and the interactions develop recursively and thus a complex
dynamics of social communications is generated. When this complex dynamics
gains in terms of its structure over time, a form of differentiation can be
expected.
In the countries of the Atlantic rim - as Urry calls them - this
differentiation has been functionalized as nation states versus capitalism
during the 19th century. Urry, however, tends to identify "societies" with
national systems, whereas Luhmann would use "society" as the general medium
that allows for functional differentiation and reorganization. It is not
stabilized in a specific system a priori.
The crucial point then is that the medium of communication was changed with
the ICT revolution and that because of this phase transition in inter-human
and CMC communications "all bets are off". Another set of possible
recombinations becomes increasingly available at the global level. The
next-order system provide an additional selection pressure on historical
trajectories and thus complifies the dynamics.
Why is my conclusion relevant for Urry's argument? In his final chapters,
Urry returns to what "civil rights" may mean in the dynamic scape of
globalization. As other actor-network-theorist he talks about giving rights
to things, animals, and nature, in addition to a new formulation of rights
for human beings. But what can be the discourse for the attribution of such
rights? The state obviously is contained in the previous constellation of
modernity. Would it then be sociology?
Would that not politicize sociology thoroughly and confuse the analytical
dimensions of the field with the normative to such an extent that we would
only retain "theoretically informed policy analysis"? In my opinion, the
alternative is to move towards a socionomy that leaves the metaphors as
localizable frameworks of interpretation behind: the metaphors reflect on
subdynamics that they specify, the complex dynamics can only be studies
algorithmically. The ICT revolution provides us with the substance of
society, notably communication.
How are "things", standards, etc., shaping the communications recursively
among human communications as codes of representation? What is the network
communicating in various dimensions and under which conditions? The
specification of the communication raises the question of how this
communication might be indicated and whether the metaphorical hypothesis
provides perhaps the heuristics for a round of empirical testing.
*************************************************************
Loet Leydesdorff
Science & Technology Dynamics, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
Tel.: +31-20-525 6598; fax: +31-20-525 3681
http://www.leydesdorff.net/ ; [log in to unmask]
http://www.upublish.com/books/leydesdorff.htm
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