Complexity Thinking and Evolutionary Economic Geography

Thus far, most of the work towards the construction of an evolutionary economic geography has drawn upon a particular version of evolutionary economics, namely the Nelson-Winter framework, which blends Darwinian concepts and metaphors (especially variety, selection, novelty and inheritance) and elements of a behavioural theory of the firm. Much less attention has been directed to an alternative conception based on complexity theory, yet in recent years complexity theory has increasingly been concerned with the general attributes of evolutionary natural and social systems. In this paper we explore the idea of the economic landscape as a complex adaptive system. We identify several key notions of what is being called the new ‘complexity economics’, and examine whether and in what ways these can be used to help inform an evolutionary perspective for understanding the uneven development and adaptive transformation of the economic landscape.complexity theory, evolution, economic landscape, networks, emergence, regional adaptation

Models and metaphors: complexity theory and through-life management in the built environment

Complexity thinking may have both modelling and metaphorical applications in the through-life management of the built environment. These two distinct approaches are examined and compared. In the first instance, some of the sources of complexity in the design, construction and maintenance of the built environment are identified. The metaphorical use of complexity in management thinking and its application in the built environment are briefly examined. This is followed by an exploration of modelling techniques relevant to built environment concerns. Non-linear and complex mathematical techniques such as fuzzy logic, cellular automata and attractors, may be applicable to their analysis. Existing software tools are identified and examples of successful built environment applications of complexity modelling are given. Some issues that arise include the definition of phenomena in a mathematically usable way, the functionality of available software and the possibility of going beyond representational modelling. Further questions arising from the application of complexity thinking are discussed, including the possibilities for confusion that arise from the use of metaphor. The metaphor of a 'commentary machine' is suggested as a possible way forward and it is suggested that an appropriate linguistic analysis can in certain situations reduce perceived complexity

Communicating about systems and complexity:from contingency to praxis

The chapter is part of a special Gedenkschrift publication honoring the work of Professsor Brenda Zimmerman in the field of complexity thinking. The term, Gedenkschrift, borrowed from German, can be translated as celebration publication. It is a memorial publication honoring a respected person, especially an academic, created and presented posthumously. The tribute tracks the influence of Brenda's work in formulating the heuristic developed by the author for teaching systems thinking in practice (STiP) as part of the postgraduate programme on STiP at the Open University

The Emergence of Complexity Thinking and Its Influence on Educational Research

The fast-paced and ever-changing modern world is witnessing the onset of a novel era of teaching methods, which often combine elements of traditional approaches such as reductionism and holism while providing prospects for fresh discourse, ideas, and outlooks. This paper aims to explain how perspectives on how education is understood have changed throughout time until complexity thinking emerged in more recent decades (Jacobson & Wilensky, 2022; Morin, 1992, 2011). In pursuit of this goal, the main characteristics of reductionism, holism, and systemic thinking are discussed, as well as how such transformations in perspectives have influenced the emergence of complexity thinking. As explained by Davis et al. (2015), complexity thinking started to spread among educational researchers not as a way of superimposing previous theories, but to present new points of view and possibilities instead. Complexity thinking in education is innovative as it goes against previous beliefs that learning occurs in linear ways, meaning that it recognizes and deals with conflict, uncertainty, and disharmony in learning processes. According to Jacobson and Wilensky (2022), educational researchers should continue to explore innovative pedagogies and technologies that embrace complexity, bringing crucial contributions to theories of teaching and learning

Analysing Change: Complex Rather than Dialectical?

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.This article offers a discussion of dialectics from a complexity perspective. Dialectics is a term much utilized but infrequently defined. This article suggests that a spectrum of ideas exist concerning understandings of dialectics. We are particularly critical of Hegelian dialectics, which we see as anthropocentric and teleological. While Marxist approaches to dialectics, in the form of historical materialism, marked a break from the idealist elements of Hegelian dialectics, they retained traces of this approach. The article offers a partial discussion of essential elements of dialectics, which we consider to be the analysis of change, the centrality of contradiction, and the methodology of abstraction. Points of overlap with complexity thinking are highlighted, together with those points where complexity thinking and dialectical approaches diverge. We conclude with some suggestions as to how complexity thinking might contribute to a development of dialectical approaches

Emergence in School Systems: Lessons from Complexity and Pedagogical Leadership

The theoretical framework for this study draws on conceptual advances from two bodies of scholarship: 1) complexity thinking in education, which has recently focused on school system change and, 2) school leadership research, which has recently attended to the effects of leadership interventions to school improvement. Using a complexity-thinking framework, the purpose of this study was to understand how leadership practices contribute to shaping change in school systems and how change occurred across the system. Our study was conducted in an urban centre in Alberta within a public-school jurisdiction and in an area of the city that had a high population of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds from low-income households compared to other areas across the school jurisdiction. Students in this area typically scored in the lowest quartile on provincial standardized examinations. Our findings are significant because complexity thinking in the context of school leadership has not received sufficient empirical attention. In our study we identified and described pedagogical leadership practices that play a central role in redressing disparities currently found in schools

Learner Diaries in Classroom Research: Beginnings of a Complexity Perspective

This paper attempts to connect the areas of classroom research, diaries as tools for data collection, and complexity thinking. The article draws upon two recently published examples of diary studies into language learning classroom environments, and endeavours to examine critically strengths and weaknesses of the two studies from the perspective of both general thinking about educational research and research conceptions based upon complexity thinking approaches. The article looks at the use of diary studies for classroom research in four areas: data collection techniques, data analysis techniques, soundness of study, and the drawing of inferences and conclusions. Through such an examination, points to be taken into consideration for the effective use of diaries to study the complexity of language learning classrooms emerge

Towards a Complicated Conversation Among Disability Studies, Complexity Thinking and Education

The presence of disability, an embodied form of extreme vulnerability that is socially enacted, introduces into complex systems such as education or society, a perturbation, embodied agents that are biologically and socially constructed as being 'unfit', 'mal-adapted' or who do not adapt easily to the specific ecologies in which they must operate and thus gestures toward a current limit(ation) (and new beginning) of the complexivist framework for theorizing the pragmatic question of "How we should act?" What is required of us in our interaction with dis/abled agents who are circumscribed by not being fully "capable of adapting... to the sorts of new and diverse circumstances that an active agent is likely to encounter in a dynamic world" (Davis & Sumara, 2006, p.14)?  In this paper I present a "complicated conversation" among complexity thinking, curriculum theorizing, and disability studies in education and argue that dis-embodiments prompt a certain type of ethical mindfulnes

(WP 2017-01) The Continuing Relevance of Keynes\u27s Philosophical Thinking: Reflexivity, Complexity, and Uncertainty

This paper explains the continuing relevance of Keynes’s philosophical thinking in terms of his anticipation of complexity thinking in economics. It argues that that reflexivity is a central feature of the philosophical foundations of complexity theory, and shows that Keynes employed an understanding of reflexivity in both his philosophical and economic thinking. This argument is first developed in terms of his moral science conception of economics and General Theory beauty contest analysis. The paper advances a causal model that distinguishes direct causal relationships and reflexive feedback channels, uses this to distinguish Say’s Law economics and Keynes’s economics, and explains the economy as non-ergodic in these terms. Keynes’s policy activism is explained as a complexity view of economic policy that works like self-fulfilling and self-defeating prophecies. The paper closes with a discussion of the ontological foundations of uncertainty in Keynes’s thinking, and comments briefly on what a complexity-reflexivity framework implies regarding his thinking about time