325: Farm enterprises as self-organizing systems: A new transdisciplinary framework for studying farm enterprises?
(2003) Farm enterprises as self-organizing systems: A new transdisciplinary framework for studying farm enterprises?. International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food 11(1):pp. 3-14.**
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Summary
The growing attention to sustainable food production and multifunctional agriculture calls for a multidisciplinary or transdisciplinary research and development perspective on farming, which is able to grasp the environmental, social, technical, and financial aspects of a farm and the dynamic relationship between the farm enterprises and the surrounding world. Our thesis is that a transdisciplinary approach needs to build on a working ontology that goes beyond the epistemology of each discipline and that is not just pieced together of the ontologies connected to these different epistemologies. Based on a review of three prevailing theoretical frameworks within the field of agro-sociology: The farming styles approach, the Bawden approach, and Conway’s agroecosystem approach, we argue that these existing theories do not offer such a theoretical framework. The claim of this paper is that a new concept of a farm enterprise as a self-organizing social system, which combines ideas from Actor-Network theory (ANT) and Luhmann’s theory of social systems, can serve as a useful ontological platform for understanding a farm-enterprise as an entity independent of a scientific observer.
In this framework, each farm is understood as a self-organizing node in a complex of heterogeneous socio-technical networks of food, supply, knowledge, technology, etc. This implies that a farm has to be understood as the way in which these network relationships are organised by the farm as a self-organizing social system. Among all the different possible ways in which to interact with the surrounding world, the system has to select a coherent strategy in order to make the farming processes possible at all.
It will be discussed how this framework may add to the understanding of the continuous development of a heterogeneity of farm strategies and contribute to a more comprehensive view of the fields of regulation and extension.
| Document Language: | English |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | farm enterprise, self-organizing systems, actor-network theory, autopoietic social systems |
| Subject Areas: | Knowledge management > Research methodology and philosophy > Systems research and participatory research Farming Systems |
| Research affiliation: | Denmark > DARCOF II (2000-2005) > V.1 (SYNERGY) Coordination and synergy Denmark > DIAS - Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences |
| Funding Part: | 5-25% |
| Orgprints ID Number: | 325 |
| Contact: | Noe, Ph.D Egon |
| Deposited On: | 11 January 2003 |
| EPrint Type: | Journal paper |
| Published?: | Published |
| Online at: | http://www.otago.ac.nz/nzpg/csafe/ijsaf/archive/context/archive.htm |
| Peer Review Status: | Peer-reviewed and accepted |
| Additional Publishing Information: | A previous version of this paper has been presented at XVth ISA World Congress of sociology, RC40 Sociology of agriculture and food, Brisbane, Australia, 7 – 13th July 2002. |
| Related Links: | http://www.otago.ac.nz/nzpg/csafe/ijsaf/ |
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- Farm enterprises as self-organizing systems: A new framework for studying farm enterprises? (deposited 06 November 2002)**
- Farm enterprises as self-organizing systems: A new transdisciplinary framework for studying farm enterprises? (deposited 11 January 2003)** [Currently Displayed]
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