Autopoietic Socio-Technical Systems: A new lens for understanding anticipation
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The document discusses autopoietic socio-technical systems as a framework for understanding anticipation, particularly in the context of emergency management and services. It describes how these systems produce and adaptively manage their identities through interconnected networks that determine boundaries and responses to various events. The author outlines different domains of interaction and change within these systems, emphasizing the importance of adaptivity and the implications for identity preservation.
Autopoietic Socio-Technical Systems: A new lens for understanding anticipation
- 1. Autopoietic Socio-Technical Systems: A new lens for understanding anticipation Gregory Vigneaux, M.S. @gregory_vig Gregoryvig.com [email protected] Photo by Daniel Heuclin
- 2. Introduction Socio-Technical Systems Theory Autopoietic Theory Autopoietic Socio-technical Systems Anticipation Di Paolo, E., Buhrmann, T., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2017). Sensorimotor Life: An Enactive Proposal. Oxford, UK: Oxford. Klein, G., Snowden, D., & Pin, C. L. (2007). Anticipatory Thinking. In K. Mosier, & U. Fischer (Ed.), Proceedings of the Eighth International NDM Conference, (pp. 1-8). Maturana, H. R., & Poerksen, B. (2011). From being to doing: The origins of the biology of cognition (2nd ed.). (W. K. Koeck, & A. R. Koeck, Trans.) Kaunas, Lithuania: Carl-Auer. Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1987). The tree of knowledge. Boston, Massachusetts : New Science Library. Mingers, J. (1995). Self-producing systems: Implications and applications of autopoiesis. New York, NY: Plenum Publishing. Stendera, M. (2015). Being-in-the-world, temporality and autopoiesis. Parrhesia, 261-284. Trist, E. L., & Bamforth, K. W. (1951). Some social and psychological consequences of the longwall method of coal-getting…. Human Relations, 4(1), 3-38 Trist, E., Gurth, H., Murray, H., & Pollock, A. (1993). Alternative work organizations: An exact comparison. In E. Trist, H. Murray, & B. Trist (Eds.), The social engagement of the social science: A Tavistock anthology. University of Pennsylvania Press. Core Literature RQ: In the context of emergency management and services organizations, what anticipates and how does it do it?
- 3. “When we examine a living system, we find a network producing molecules that interact with each other in such a way as to produce molecules that, in turn, produce the network producing molecules, and determine its boundary. Such a network I call autopoietic “(Maturana & Poerkson, 2011, pp. 97-98.). Autopoiesis Boundary Network Molecules Autopoiesis. A network produces molecules that produce the network that produces the molecules and creates a delimiting boundary. Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com
- 4. Autopoiesis critiqued as an all or nothing condition With the addition of adaptivity, an autopoietic system can “appreciate its encounters with respect to this condition, its own death, in a graded and relational manner while it is still alive” (Di Paolo, 2005, p.439). Improve the conditions of self-production – can do better or worse Adaptivity as a driver to anticipation Autopoiesis & Adaptivity Boundary Network Molecules “A system seeking to carry “over a past identity into the future” (Stendera, 2015, p.276) Looking ahead of itself and identifying interactions that will lead to perishing and flourishing. Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com
- 5. Autopoietic Socio-Technical Systems Boundary Socio-Technical Work Cycles (Network) Outcomes (Molecules) Inflows Outflows (Di Paolo, Buhrmann, & Barandiaran, 2017, p. 115) Boundary: Work (of a certain kind and not another one done by certain people delimits the system from the environment Identity Reproduction (e.g., incident response, emergency operations center activation, mitigation work, public awareness campaigns) (e.g., information, personnel, technologies theories in use, expertise, knowledge) Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com
- 6. Domain of Perturbations Events trigger only minor shifts within the system. Interactions between the social and technical component may briefly change as operations shift but return to normal afterward. Focus is on fortifying present conditions. Domain of Changes of State Events trigger changes within the system while identity is held constant. Possible changes include shifts in inflows that lead to shifts in how the autopoietic socio-technical system transforms inflows into outflows and what those outflows are The core dynamic is adaptation. Domain of Disintegrations Breakdowns. Events trigger loss of identity. Similar to Domain of Destructive Interactions, but theorized here as an ephemeral state. Domain of Destructive Interactions Loss of identity. Endogenously or exogenously entered, the latter disastrously. The domain of either organizational transformation or breakdown. Emergency management and services organizations are limited to what they can transform into – parts of their identity need to remain the same such as overall function. Elements such as mission, vision, and large-scale technological and social changes can take place around it. Making the Future Present
Editor's Notes
- #3: The intent of moving autopoietic and sociotechnical systems theory together is to achieve a sense of emergency management and emergency services organizations as systems with social and technical aspects that fit together to accomplish work that are then coupled with processes of continual self-production, identity, self-individuation, and adaptivity. This union of theory then unfolds into a lens for approaching anticipation.
- #4: Identity as an autopoietic system
- #5: anticipation is tied to adaptivity in that the system continually monitors and regulates its activity in regard to the intrinsic norm of identity produced through self-reproduction
- #6: Start anticipation here. Internal norm of identity. Anticipates for the sake of continuing to reproduce its own identity Concerned with continuing to reproduce its own identity At the outset, the autopoietic socio-technical system anticipates for the sake of continuing to reproduce its own identity (Stendera, 2015). In this way, anticipation is tied to adaptivity in that the system continually monitors and regulates its activity in regard to the intrinsic norm of identity produced through self-reproduction
- #7: The system looking ahead of itself seeking conditions where it can best continue to reproduce its identity and avoid those where it cannot, or where it will cease to be all together. The system seeks to mobilize flows and processes joining together social and technical components to move events into the upper quadrants As a system containing an autopoietic network, the entanglement of adaptivity and anticipation can be played out across Maturana’s (1983) domains of structural determinism. Driving the system’s anticipation is the adaption integrated into autopoiesis by Di Paolo (2005). While adaptation is the mechanism that enables the system to look ahead of itself and prepares to respond to events in a truly anticipatory manner, it does so for the sake of the norm of its own identity Through using the domains of structural determinism as a looking glass for perceiving the events scattered across the temporal landscape, the system makes sense of its future and brings it toward it in a practical manner by joining incidents with the types of responses they may entail. Klein et al. (2007) explain the preparation for future events is core to anticipatory thinking