Social Theory and Complexity Science: New Research Directions (Co-sponsored by Mathematical Sociology Section)

Session Submission Type: Paper Session (90 minute)

Description

After relational and cultural turns, sociology could take a complexity turn in light of recent developments in complex systems research across the sciences. Complexity research explores how social systems far from equilibrium self-organize and produce emergent properties. Self-organization through scale-invariance and nonlinear sensitivity to initial conditions is typical of complex social systems which exist in the phase space between chaotic and congealed states. At this edge of chaos, the presence of power-law and other long-tailed distributions signals that systems are self-organizing by preferential attachment and other feedback loop mechanisms. Runaway loops accumulating change may cross a threshold and enter a phase transition (bifurcation) where new social organizations emerge. Phase transitions are like dialectical transformations in Hegelian parlance where changes in quantity become changes in quality and new forms emerge at larger scales. For example, a city can phase transition from industrial to postindustrial reaching a threshold after which new emergent properties arise, like unexpected health disparities. We live in complex social systems far from equilibrium with path-dependent histories and unpredictable phase transitions, and that now more than ever exist in strained relations with our planet. In this context, social theory would benefit significantly from a closer engagement with complexity research which can provide interdisciplinary frameworks to bridge our current fragmentation of sociology.
This panel aims to present and discuss recent scholarship that engages complexity thinking with social theory. The panel welcomes submissions from a wide range of theoretical perspectives. Topics may include, among others: (1) What new theoretical frameworks in network analysis or agent-based modeling are incorporating in their models historical path dependence and/or meaning-making, such as meta-rules and second-order observations? (2) Given that systems boundaries in human life are seldom physical but primarily semiotic, how can semiotics (e.g., indexical semiotics and metapragmatics) contribute to our understanding of boundary formation and multiplex context-making in complex social systems? (3) How can intersectional or postcolonial theorizations of power and identity help us understand dualities of differentiation and interpenetration in complex systems where multiple effects occur in same social spaces (e.g., interpenetrations of class, race, and gender)? (4) How is the digital revolution (e.g., social media and artificial intelligence) “self-organizing” our social world with unintended consequences for civic cultures and institutional practices, including ideological polarization fueling the crisis of liberal democracies?

Sub Unit

• Theory Section / Social Theory and Complexity Science: New Research Directions (Co-sponsored by Mathematical Sociology Section)

Cosponsor

• Mathematical Sociology Section

Presider

• Jorge Fontdevila, California State University Fullerton

Individual Presentations

• Charting Categories as Sociology’s Dark Matter: A Framework for Analyzing Classifications with Computational Text Analysis - Kaylee de la Motte, The University of Arizona; Charles Jonathan Gomez, University of Arizona

• Complicating Social Network Analysis: Toward a Multi-Order Ontology and Methodology - Chuyin Zhang, Monash University; Simon Yuan Xi, University of Virginia

• Theory of Acyclic Nested Sets: Relation Nesting, Emergence, and Feedback in Complex Social Systems - Nikita Basov, The University of Manchester; Philip Leifeld, University of Manchester; Jürgen Lerner, University of Konstanz

• Tragedy and Complexity - Emily Erikson, Yale University

Discussant

• Jorge Fontdevila, California State University Fullerton

Session Organizer

• Jorge Fontdevila, California State University Fullerton