Meshworks
From P2P Foundation
Contents |
Description
"Meshworks ... are articulations of heterogeneous elements in terms of their functional complementarities that result in stable structures."
There are three elements that characterize a meshwork as a structure-generating process:
a) the bringing together of a set of heterogenous elements in terms of functional complementarities (the interconnection of diverse but overlapping elements);
b) the presence of intercalary elements that facilitate the interconnection (a catalyst of sorts);
c) a stable pattern of behavior, endogenously generated, that results from the interlocked heterogeneities (examples: granite, rainforest ecosystems; small towns, self-organizing markets)." (http://www.unc.edu/oldanthro/faculty/fac_pages/escobarpapers/notesnetwork.pdf)
Characteristics
The following are some of the properties of meshworks:
a) they are self-organizing and grow in unplanned directions (such as Deleuze/Guattari’s rhizomes);
b) they are made-up of diverse elements, including of course human and hon-humans, organisms and machines, representations and the real (e.g, meshworks of germs and humans in medieval cities, or of computers and humans today);
c) they usually exist hybridized with other meshworks and hierarchies (e.g., dominant, hierarchical economic structure); there are meshworks of hierarchies (e.g., the EU) and hierarchies of meshworks;
d) they accomplish the articulation of heterogenous elements without imposing uniformity;
e) they are determined by the degree of connectivity that enables them to become selfsustaining.
And the following are some aspects of meshwork dynamics:
a) there is a double dynamic at play: the increase in diversity, and the concomitant interweaving of heterogeneous elements. Said differently, there are two moments in the construction of a meshwork: i) a localization strategy, which increases the heterogeneity between localities while that within localities decreases (increased local homogeneity, at the interior of a node or site); and ii) a strategy of interweaving, by which the heterogeneity of each locality increases, while that among them decreases. (We shall see the relevance of this dynamic for understanding subaltern strategies of localization.)
b) they may form close loops where the product of one node serves as a catalyst for another. A meshwork might start with two nodes and incorporate new nodes as long as internal consistency (“autopoiesis”) is maintained. As the meshwork complexifies, new nodes are added following a selforganizing dynamic. At some point, there obtains a self-sustained intensification maintained by new nodes inserting themselves into a growing autocatalytic loop. Meshworks are often fostered by mutually reinforcing innovations and autocatalytic loops of innovation (these are well known in the history of technology; e.g., the system coal-steam-money-mill at the eve of the industrial revolution);
c) meshworks of heterogenous elements evolve by drift (also from Maturana and Varela in relation to evolution of autopoietic systems). The environment only acts as a trigger for changes within the meshwork, but these changes are not determined by the environment (there is structural coupling between meshwork and environment with preservation of internal organization, that is, of the meshwork’s autopoiesis);
d) meshworks may be formed by motions of destratification or deterritorialization of intermediate intensity, thus connecting flows and nodes that might otherwise remain unconnected (e.g., symbiotic nets of small producers involved in volatile trade in and import substitution may have created the possibility of nonhierarchical local and regional economies in history, and may do so again in the future):
e) although meshworks result from the action of many individual and collective decision makers, they take on a life of their own. They form wholes that “add themselves to an existing population of individual structures operating at different scales” (de Landa 1997: 271). However, it is a whole that does not totalize, nor unifies, the parts but that is rather added to the parts “as a new part fabricated separately” (Deleuze and Guattari)." (http://www.unc.edu/oldanthro/faculty/fac_pages/escobarpapers/notesnetwork.pdf)
Discussion
Political Implications of Meshworks
Arturo Escobar:
"Finally, this new view of the social have at least the following political implications:
a) the mere presence of a meshwork is no guarantee that all segments of society will be under less oppressive structures. The political character of the meshwork will depend on the nature of the heterogeneous elements brought together and the types of articulations established among them, and not only on who does the meshworking or meshweaving (i.e., not only because women or subaltern groups do the meshworking will the meshworks be necessarily progressive; this will depend on the de/re-stratifications the meshwork might be able to effect). Conversely, some destratifying meshworks, such as computer networks, might also lead to reactionary restratifications. And while augmenting the proportion of meshworks in a mix of meshworks and hierarchies is destratifying, it will always be a question of strategy how far this process will be pushed;
b) meshworks may perform a destratifying function in relation to dominant forms of powerknowledge: destratified power operating through a multiplicity of informal constraints. These constraints operate as catalysts or triggers in the formation of meshworks;
c) strategies of domination may also form meshworks, such as the ensemble of political technologies that resulted in the formation of the disciplinary society discussed by Foucault. These technologies might form a blueprint or general method (Foucault’s panopticon), or the congealment of nonlinear flows into a set of practices, institutions and discourses (their “mineralization,” in de Landa’s terms)" (http://www.unc.edu/oldanthro/faculty/fac_pages/escobarpapers/notesnetwork.pdf)
Hierarchies and Meshworks are always mixed
Manual De Landa:
"Herbert Simon's distinction between command hierarchies and markets may turn out to be a special case of a more general dichotomy. In the view of philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, this more abstract classes, which they call strata and self-consistent aggregates (or trees and rhizomes), are defined not so much by the locus of control, as by the nature of elements that are connected together. Strata are composed of homogenous elements, whereas self-consistent aggregates articulate heterogeneous elements as such. {6} For example, a military hierarchy sorts people into internally homogenous ranks before joining them together through a chain of command. Markets, on the other hand, allow for a set of heterogeneous needs and offers to become articulated through the price mechanism, without reducing this diversity. In biology, species are an example of strata, particularly if selection pressures have operated unobstructedly for long periods of time allowing the homogenization of the species gene pool. On the other hand, ecosystems are examples of self-consistent aggregates, since they link together into complex food webs a wide variety of animals and plants, without reducing their heterogeneity. I have developed this theory in more detail elsewhere, but for our purposes here let's simply keep the idea that besides centralization and decentralization of control, what defines these two types of structure is the homogeneity or heterogeneity of its composing elements.
Before returning to our discussion of agent-based interfaces, there is one more point that needs to be stressed. As both Simon and Deleuze and Guattari emphasize, the dichotomy between bureaucracies and markets, or to use the terms that I prefer, between hierarchies and meshworks, should be understood in purely relative terms. In the first place, in reality it is hard to find pure cases of these two structures: even the most goal-oriented organization will still show some drift in its growth and development, and most markets even in small towns contain some hierarchical elements, even if it is just the local wholesaler which manipulates prices by dumping (or withdrawing) large amounts of a product on (or from) the market. Moreover, hierarchies give rise to meshworks and meshworks to hierarchies. Thus, when several bureaucracies coexist (governmental, academic, ecclesiastic), and in the absence of a super-hierarchy to coordinate their interactions, the whole set of institutions will tend to form a meshwork of hierarchies, articulated mostly through local and temporary links. Similarly, as local markets grow in size, as in those gigantic fairs which have taken place periodically since the Middle Ages, they give rise to commercial hierarchies, with a money market on top, a luxury goods market underneath and, after several layers, a grain market at the bottom. A real society, then, is made of complex and changing mixtures of these two types of structure, and only in a few cases it will be easy to decide to what type a given institution belongs." (http://t0.or.at/delanda/meshwork.htm)
