Albert Hupa on Thu, 13 Apr 2006 22:59:14 +0200 (CEST) |
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Re[2]: <nettime> Organised Networks: Transdisciplinarity and New Institutional Forms |
As for networks, this is one of the most ambiguous notions in contemporary thought. From the sociologist point of view, first, there was a group, separate and independent from an individual (Durkheim, Merton, etc). Groups may be hierarchical, i.e. they have structure. They also give identity for its members; in classical sociology groups were prior to individuals. As I see it, as a result of so called crisis of identity (Giddens, Bauman, etc.), network is a metaphor coined for relations of individuals which do not give overwhelming identity to them; what's more, the structure is conditioned by constant movement of chierarchies. Network, in my opinion, is thus more democratic. It is the collection of individuals in changing relations, that constitute a network. My brief idea is that the notion of network lacks one thing: a kind of embedding, like the core values, functions, etc., which would be the basis for gathering agents. This core, nowadays, cannot be solid, it must be in the constant flow. My thesis is that maybe the notion of swarm could be more explanatory, for it allows for constant change, vivid changes of relations, not to strong sense of identity, but nonetheless, it gives the idea of a core, centre, established, yet changeable. What do you think of it? (I am thinking of applying it to social software - take a closer look at technorati) Albert Hupa # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net