Social system

About: Social system is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2974 publications have been published within this topic receiving 92395 citations.

Agroecology in Action: Extending Alternative Agriculture through Social Networks

Abstract: The formation, evolution, and dissolution of social networks remain understudied phenomena. In Agroecology in Action , Keith Douglass Warner describes a set of particularly important social networks involved in rethinking industrial agriculture and in bringing to the fore new techniques of environmentally sensitive agricultural practices. These networks—comprised of growers, scientists, federal and state agencies, and various agricultural organizations—emerged in response to significant problems associated with the widespread use of agricultural pesticides, fertilizers, and other agrochemicals. Public information about practical alternatives to agrochemicals has remained partially hidden, in part because of the structure of institutionalized agricultural science. Agricultural science, Warner argues, has mostly focused on developing and promoting economically valuable technologies to improve farm productivity, such as pesticides and fertilizers. By contrast, alternative farming techniques—which require greater investment in labor, more sophisticated ecological knowledge, and may present heightened economic risk—have been generally ignored. Warner describes a variety of farming practices that have transcended the conventional, chemicalintensive norm. These include grape, pear, and almond farming in California; rotational grazing in the Midwest; and winter wheat farming in Washington, among others. Farmers became increasingly concerned with the environmental consequences of high chemical use, and sought alternatives. Their quest to develop new agricultural practices required them to forge new social links with other farmers, scientists, and government agencies. Understanding the formation of these new social networks is central to Warner’s main thesis: adequate protection of common resources necessitates novel forms of “social learning,” defined as the “participation by diverse stakeholders as a group in experiential research and knowledge exchange…” (p. 3). Knowledge exchange, in Warner’s examples, requires social networks whose formation was motivated mostly by farmers unwilling to accept the chemical-intensive status quo. Such networks are varied, and Warner attempts to specify the structural differences among them. To this end he analyzes networks of almond, pear, prune, and winegrape growers. His is a good first step; the sociograms he develops of each network provide points of departure for further research. However, the development and evolution of these networks could be more clearly specified, for example through the application of appropriate graph theoretic mathematical models. Although Warner cites Wasserman and Faust’s 1997 Social Network Analysis , he does not make use of the mathematical tools presented in that volume. The general point is that the analysis of social networks and knowledge exchange will need to be as detailed and precise as, for example, the analysis of the biology of the naval orange worm ( Amyolois transitella ), an almond pest whose damage to the California almond crop could not be managed with pesticides. Biological analyses remain more sophisticated than social analyses; the latter may eventually catch up with the former. Both, however, are vital in understanding how knowledge exchange functions in evolving networks of farmers engaged in alternative agriculture. Warner points out that the new criterion for agricultural success is not profitability, or at least not solely profitability. The new criterion for success is sustainability. This requires a clearer recognition of the fact that ecosystems are not simply natural systems. They are also, and simultaneously, social systems. This point is especially apposite for agriculture: nature and culture cannot be clearly separated. Analysis must incorporate elements of both the social and the natural. Studies of soils, nutrients, pests, pesticides, water, and crops—the realm of conventional agricultural science—remain insufficient without concurrent Jenkins: Review: Agroecology in Action: Extending Alternative Agriculture through Social N...

The (Mis)Framing of Social Justice: Why Ideologies of Depoliticization and Meritocracy Hinder Engineers’ Ability to Think About Social Injustices

Abstract: Engineers will incorporate considerations of social justice issues into their work only to the extent that they see such issues as relevant to the practice of their profession. This chapter argues that two prominent ideologies within the culture of engineering—depoliticization and meritocracy—frame social justice issues in such a way that they seem irrelevant to engineering practice. Depoliticization is the belief that engineering is a “technical” space where “social” or “political” issues such as inequality are tangential to engineers’ work. The meritocratic ideology—the belief that inequalities are the result of a properly-functioning social system that rewards the most talented and hard-working—legitimates social injustices and undermines the motivation to rectify such inequalities. These ideologies are built into engineering culture and are deeply embedded in the professional socialization of engineering students. I argue that it is not enough for engineering educators to introduce social justice topics into the classroom; they must also directly confront ideologies of meritocracy and depoliticization. In other words, cultural space must be made before students, faculty and practitioners can begin to think deeply about the role of their profession in the promotion of social justice.

Understanding and Changing Social Systems

Abstract: A preventive orientation affirms how social systems can be organized to have a positive impact on the development of those individuals who make it up. Here, the authors affirm that an ecological approach to social systems is useful to build a community-based community psychology, a psychology that is attentive to the promotion of competent individuals in responsive social systems

Niklas Luhmann and organizaion studies

Abstract: The Theory of Autopoietic Social Systems Organization, Decision and Paradox Organization, Interaction and Society Luhmann's Theory in the Context of Other Theories Forms of Organization Implications for Management and Consulting Glossary and Bibliography

Monogamy, strongly bonded groups, and the evolution of human social structure

Abstract: Human social evolution has most often been treated in a piecemeal fashion, with studies focusing on the evolution of specific components of human society such as pair-bonding, cooperative hunting, male provisioning, grandmothering, cooperative breeding, food sharing, male competition, male violence, sexual coercion, territoriality, and between-group conflicts. Evolutionary models about any one of those components are usually concerned with two categories of questions, one relating to the origins of the component and the other to its impact on the evolution of human cognition and social life. Remarkably few studies have been concerned with the evolution of the entity that integrates all components, the human social system itself. That social system has as its core feature human social structure, which I define here as the common denominator of all human societies in terms of group composition, mating system, residence patterns, and kinship structures. The paucity of information on the evolution of human social structure poses substantial problems because that information is useful, if not essential, to assess both the origins and impact of any particular aspect of human society.