Self-organization and social science

Abstract Complexity science and its methodological applications have increased in popularity in social science during the last two decades. One key concept within complexity science is that of self-organization. Self-organization is used to refer to the emergence of stable patterns through autonomous and self-reinforcing dynamics at the micro-level. In spite of its potential relevance for the study of social dynamics, the articulation and use of the concept of self-organization has been kept within the boundaries of complexity science and links to and from mainstream social science are scarce. These links can be difficult to establish, even for researchers working in social complexity with a background in social science, because of the theoretical and conceptual diversity and fragmentation in traditional social science. This article is meant to serve as a first step in the process of overcoming this lack of cross-fertilization between complexity and mainstream social science. A systematic review of the concept of self-organization and a critical discussion of similar notions in mainstream social science is presented, in an effort to help practitioners within subareas of complexity science to identify literature from traditional social science that could potentially inform their research.

The Material Dynamics of a London-French Blog: A Multimodal Reading of Migrant Habitus

Through a fine-grained reading of a London-French blog, this article aims to shed light on the lived experience of the French community in London. The ethnosemiotic conceptual framework brings together ethnographic and semiotic schools of thought, focusing in particular on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and Gunther Kress’s multimodal social semiotic analytical model. Habitus is broken down into its material manifestations of habitat, habit and habituation, all displayed in the blog and revealing of the blogger’s identity and positioning within the migration setting. As all modes are considered to be of equal semiotic potential, equivalent emphasis is placed on the multiple modes of meaning-making present in the blog, such as layout, colour, typography and language. By examining the dynamic relationships between blogger and audience, subjectivity and objectivity, on-line and on-land habitus, and intermodal dynamics themselves, through the prism of multimodality, hidden facets of the blogger’s cultural identity and sense of community belonging within the diasporic context begin to materialise.