Context: The problems that are most in need of interdisciplinary collaboration are “wicked problems,” such as food crises, climate change mitigation, and sustainable development, with many relevant aspects, disagreement on what the problem is, and contradicting solutions. Such complex problems both require and challenge interdisciplinarity. Problem: The conventional methods of interdisciplinary research fall short in the case of wicked problems because they remain first-order science. Our aim is to present workable methods and research designs for doing second-order science in domains (...) where there are many different scientific knowledges on any complex problem. Method: We synthesize and elaborate a framework for second-order science in interdisciplinary research based on a number of earlier publications, experiences from large interdisciplinary research projects, and a perspectivist theory of science. Results: The second-order polyocular framework for interdisciplinary research is characterized by five principles. Second-order science of interdisciplinary research must: 1. draw on the observations of first-order perspectives, 2. address a shared dynamical object, 3. establish a shared problem, 4. rely on first-order perspectives to see themselves as perspectives, and 5. be based on other rules than first-order research. Implications: The perspectivist insights of second-order science provide a new way of understanding interdisciplinary research that leads to new polyocular methods and research designs. It also points to more reflexive ways of dealing with scientific expertise in democratic processes. The main challenge is that this is a paradigmatic shift, which demands that the involved disciplines, at least to some degree, subscribe to a perspectivist view. Constructivist content: Our perspectivist approach to science is based on the second-order cybernetics and systems theories of von Foerster, Maruyama, Maturana & Varela, and Luhmann, coupled with embodied theories of cognition and semiotics as a general theory of meaning from von Uexküll and Peirce. (shrink)

Paper type: Conceptual perspective. Background(s): Physics, biology, epistemology Perspectives: Theory of autopoietic systems, Popperian evolutionary epistemology and the biology of cognition. Context: This paper is a contribution to developing the theories of hierarchically complex living systems and the natures of knowledge in such systems. Problem: Dissonance between the literatures of knowledge management and organization theory and my observations of the living organization led to consideration of foundation questions: What does it mean to be alive? What is knowledge? How are life (...) and knowledge related? Method: The approach is synthetic and multidisciplinary. The concept of autopoiesis (as defined by Maturana) as a definition for life, and knowledge as a product of autopoiesis are developed from first principles regarding the behavior of dynamical systems in time. Results: Autopoiesis and the construction of knowledge are inseparable aspects of physical phenomena scalable to many levels of organization (e.g., cells, multicellular organisms, organizations, social systems, etc.). The result unifies theories of epistemology, physical dynamics, life, biological evolution, knowledge and social systems. Implications: Results highlight the importance to understand autopoiesis as first defined by Maturana and Varela – as a complex physical phenomenon persisting over time. Autopoietic “self-observation” is not paradoxical. As dynamic physical processes, any internal/external activities relating to “observations” are displaced in time. The worlds living systems act on are not those observed. “Circularly closed” systems are actually open spirals along the axis of time. (shrink)

The notion of a migration system is often invoked but it is rarely clearly defined or conceptualized. De Haas recently provided a powerful critique of the current literature highlighting some important flaws that recur through it. In particular, migration systems tend to be identified as fully formed entities, and there is no theorization as to how they come into being and how they break down. The internal dynamics which drive such changes are not examined. Such critiques of migration systems relate (...) to wider critiques of the concept of systems in the broader social science literature, where they are often presented as black boxes in which human agency is largely excluded. The challenge is how to theorize system dynamics in which the actions of people at one time contribute to the emergence of systemic linkages at a later time. This article focuses on the genesis of migration systems and the notion of pioneer migration. It draws attention both to the role of particular individuals, the pioneers, and also the more general activity of pioneering which is undertaken by many migrants. By disentangling different aspects of agency, it is possible to develop hypotheses about how the emergence of migrations systems is related to the nature of the agency exercised by different pioneers or pioneering activities in different contexts. Content Type Journal Article Category Article Pages 413-437 DOI 10.1558/jcr.v11i4.413 Authors Oliver Bakewell, International Migration Institute, University of Oxford Hein De Haas, International Migration Institute, University of Oxford Agnieszka Kubal, International Migration Institute, University of Oxford Journal Journal of Critical Realism Online ISSN 1572-5138 Print ISSN 1476-7430 Journal Volume Volume 11 Journal Issue Volume 11, Number 4 / 2012. (shrink)

Caroline New is an energetic activist who has interpolated critical realist ideas into the front-line of political activism. In this wide-ranging interview, she begins by reflecting on her life and how she became a realist and her account is illustrated with personal anecdotes recalling memories of well-known philosophers and activists from the time. She discusses how her position set her apart from other feminists and she examines the interacting threads of longstanding debates on the political left, as well as longstanding (...) debates within critical realist circles, such as the relative importance of quantitative methods in social research and the scope for agency as a source of intentional change. Finally she brings some of her ideas to bear on contemporary issues. This engaging interview notably provides some of the social context in which critical realism developed, while also pointing towards its future potential. (shrink)

Current, prevalent models of the food system, including complex-adaptive systems theories and commodity-as-relation thinking, have usefully analyzed the food system in terms of its elements and relationships, confronting persistent questions about a system’s identity and leverage points for change. Here, inspired by Heldke’s analysis, we argue for another approach to the “system-ness” of food that carries those key questions forward. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, we propose a model of the food system defined by the relational process of feeding (...) itself; that is, the food system is made of feeding and only feeding, and system structures are produced by the coupling of that process to its various contexts. We argue that this approach moves us away from understandings of the food system that take structures and relations as given, and sees them instead as contingent, thereby helping to identify leverage points for food system change. The new approach we describe also prompts us as critical agrifood scholars to be constantly reflexive about how our analyses are shaped by our own assumptions and subjectivities. (shrink)

Critical realism, especially as developed by Roy Bhaskar, embodies at its heart systemic and holistic concepts such as totality, emergence, open systems, stratification, autopoiesis and holistic causality. These concepts have their own long history of development in disciplines such as systems thinking and cybernetics, but there is an absence in Bhaskar’s writings, and that absence is a lack of any reference to the corresponding systems literature. The purpose of this paper is threefold: (i) to demonstrate the extent of this correspondence; (...) (ii) to show that critical realism can benefit from an exposure to these other discourses; and (iii) to show that systems thinking too can gain philosophically from critical realism. (shrink)

Social systems theory has been dominated in recent years by the work of Niklas Luhmann, but there is another strand of systems thinking, which is receiving increasing attention in sociology: emergentism. For emergentism, the core problems of systems thinking are concerned with causation and reductionism; for Luhmann, they are questions of meaning and self-reference. Arguing from an emergentist perspective, the article finds that emergentism addresses its own core problem successfully, while Luhmann's approach is incapable of resolving questions of causation and (...) reductionism. On the other hand, neither paradigm yet has a convincing response to the challenges of meaning and self-reference. Key Words: social systems • emergence • paradigms • autopoiesis • critical realism. (shrink)

Complex adaptive systems and nursingThere have been numerous references to complexity theory and complex systems in the recent healthcare literature, including nursing. However, exaggerated claims have (in my view) been made about how they can be applied to health service delivery, and there is a widespread tendency to misunderstand some of the concepts associated with complexity thinking (usually justified by describing the misconception as a metaphor). These conceptscanbe extended to systems and structures in healthcare organisations but, at this stage in (...) the development of complexity science, only in a modest and very cautious way. In this paper I first outline some of the key ideas in the theory of complex adaptive systems, and then suggest that they have been distorted by a series of influential articles in the medical literature. I go on to present a simple case study of my own and undertake a complexity analysis of it. In the conclusion I suggest that we should beware of some outdated ideas being trotted out in the guise of complexity — an exciting and diverse area of enquiry that those old ideas do not, in fact, resemble. (shrink)