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Morphogenesis and Social Networks: Relational Steering not Mechanical Feedback

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Social Morphogenesis

Abstract

What is a morphogenetic society? Why do we speak of the ‘morphogenesis’ of society? The concept of morphogenesis (MG) in the social sciences can be traced back to the organic system theory. This theory became problematic once research showed that social networks cannot be treated as systems. Along the way, the relational nature of MG was revealed ever more clearly. The new perspective ventured entails moving beyond a mechanical definition of the concepts of variety, selection, positive/negative feedbacks, and the stabilization processes that contribute to realizing MG. It is necessary to redefine these concepts from the perspective of a relational paradigm of MG. This chapter tries to explain and understand the production of society as a process of MG that takes place in terms of relational steering, which is characterized by recourse to relational feedbacks (a particular kind of response to positive feedback) that generates emergent social effects. In many ways, the incipient morphogenetic society is a social order that has a ‘relational genome’ working in terms of a many-valued and relationally transjunctive logic.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    As far as I understand, Buckely subsumed social networks analysis under his system theory: “..the system model has the potential to synthesize the interaction models into a coherent conceptual scheme—a basic theory—of the sociocultural process” (Buckley 1967, 81).

  2. 2.

    ‘If the elements [of a set, ndr] are so loosely related that there is an equal probability of any element or state being associated with any other, we speak of ‘chaos’ or complete randomness, and hence, lack of constraint.’ (Buckley 1967, 63).

  3. 3.

    On the ‘situational logic of competition’ and the logic of opportunity, see Archer (1988, 1995, 2012, passim and conclusions).

  4. 4.

    I use the term after-modernity to mark the deep discontinuity with modernity, while the term post-modernity indicates the outcomes of late modernity. In my perspective, to say that we are moving ‘from modernity to morphogenetic society’ means that MG is becoming the form (the directive distinction) of the next society, i.e., its principle of social change, in so far as the unbound pluralization of opportunities and choices becomes the predominant value. The social becomes ‘normatively morphogenetic’, in radical discontinuity with the basic features of modernity, such as the ideology of linear progress and what is termed ‘institutionalized individualism’.

  5. 5.

    The scheme has been constructed keeping in mind the five conditions proposed by Elder-Vass (2005) and critically reviewed by Archer (2011).

  6. 6.

    Most system theories absorb social networks into the system (because they treat networks as stemming from systems and as the modalities through which systems change), while the opposite is true for most social network studies (to them systems are a peculiar aspect or a temporal phase of the non-systemic dynamism of social networks).

  7. 7.

    By components of the relation, I mean the organic components (bios) that sustain the relation, the situated goals of the relation, the norms that regulate the relation, and a value pattern that orients the relation. See the relational theory of AGIL according to Donati (1991, Chap. 4) against Luhmann (1988a).

  8. 8.

    The operation of re-entry is the way in which systems evolve by re-entering their own directive distinction (difference, form) into what has been previously distinguished. Systems that operate at the level of a re-entry of their form into their form are non-trivial machines (in the sense of von Foerster). They cannot compute their own states. They use their own output as input. They are ‘autopoietic' systems, and that means that they are their own products.

  9. 9.

    Relational logics conceive of distinctions as relations and not as binary oppositions (Donati 1991, 2008). These codes include the many-valued and transjunctional logic theorized by Gottard Günther (1962).

  10. 10.

    Emergence is a relational process per se. The phrase ‘relational vision of emergence’ is used here to mark the difference with those theories of emergence that are non-relational (i.e. structuralist or mechanicist).

  11. 11.

    From the etymological point of view, the term synthesis means ‘composition’. It is formed by syn (=with, together) and thésis (=action of putting something). Thus, to synthesize means to unite together in a (new) composition. Such a composition is not a ‘dialectical synthesis’ in the manner of F. Hegel, nor is it the result of interactions that arise from dualism between structure and agency (as in the paradigm of emergence theorized by Sawyer 2005), but it is the begetting of a sui generis reality created by the relations between the elements.

  12. 12.

    On the relational redefinition of AGIL in respect to Parsons and Luhmann: see Donati (1991, Chap. 4).

  13. 13.

    Generative here means that it has the power to cause an emergent. It is not equal to a generic ‘productive’ mechanism.

  14. 14.

    The term ‘mechanical’ (or ‘mechanicistic’) refers here to those views holding that natural wholes (principally living things) are like machines or artifacts, composed of parts lacking any intrinsic relationship to each other, and with their order imposed from without and/or determined by automatic (autopoietic) self-reference. The expression ‘social mechanism’ reflects the transfer of concepts from the mechanical to social order. Therefore, I use the term ‘mechanism’ as synonymous with a causal sequence by which overall social change occurs. Due to the complexity of the social realm, social mechanisms can be mechanical or relational.

  15. 15.

    A Family Group Conference (FGC) is a decision-making and planning process in which the ‘wider family group’ (parents, kin, friends, neighbors, other families) makes plans and decisions for children and young people who have been identified either by the family themselves or by service providers as being at risk and in need of intervention that will safeguard and promote their welfare. It is possible to define an FGC as a relational service because it is based on a participatory approach in which social services work together with parents, children, and other important relations to find the right way to care and protect the child by stimulating the reflexivity of the people involved and their relations.

  16. 16.

    As to the former, Andersen (1987, 416) observes that ‘if the relationship between the parts [of a system] is ‘safe’ enough, nonintrusive enough, interesting enough, the mutual exchanges that carry new ideas may trigger new modes of relating’.

  17. 17.

    Field practices can be found in the work by Seikkula and Arnkil (2006).

  18. 18.

    In network analysis, ‘centrality’ is the concept that gives a rough indication of the social power of a node based on how well it "connects" the network ("betweenness," "closeness," and "degree" are all measures of centrality).

  19. 19.

    Many are aware of E. Fox Keller’s (2000) critique of the structuralist approach to the study of the gene. More recently, she went so far as to claim, “The most important lesson we have learned is that virtually every biologically significant property conventionally attributed to the DNA—including its stability—is in fact a relational property, a consequence of the dynamic interactions between DNA and the many protein processors that converge upon it. The very meaning of any DNA sequence is relational” (Fox Keller, 2005, 4).

  20. 20.

    This passage is illustrated by Stevenson and Greenberg (2000).

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  1. University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Pierpaolo Donati

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  1. Pierpaolo Donati
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Correspondence to Pierpaolo Donati .

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  1. , Collège des Humanités, EPFL Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de L, Station 10, Lausanne, 1015, Switzerland

    Margaret S. Archer

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Donati, P. (2013). Morphogenesis and Social Networks: Relational Steering not Mechanical Feedback. In: Archer, M. (eds) Social Morphogenesis. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6128-5_11

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