Islands of order : a guide to complexity modeling for the social sciences / J. Stephen Lansing, Murray P. Cox.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lansing, J. Stephen, Author.

Cox, Murray P., Author.

Contributor:

Dove, Michael R.

Series:

Princeton studies in complexity.

Princeton Studies in Complexity ; 33

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social structure.

Islands of the Pacific.

Asia--Malay Archipelago.

Pacific Ocean--Islands of the Pacific.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (239 pages).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

Over the past two decades, anthropologist J. Stephen Lansing and geneticist Murray Cox have explored dozens of villages on the islands of the Malay Archipelago, combining ethnographic research with research into genetic and linguistic markers to shed light on how these societies change over time. Islands of Order draws on their pioneering fieldwork to show how the science of complexity can be used to better understand unstable dynamics in culture, language, cooperation, and the emergence of hierarchies.Complexity science has opened exciting new vistas in physics and biology, but poses challenges for social scientists. What triggers fundamental, discontinuous social change? And what brings stable patterns-islands of order-into existence? Lansing and Cox begin with an incisive and accessible introduction to models of change, from simple random drift to coupled interactions, phase transitions, co-phylogenies, and adaptive landscapes. Then they take readers on a series of journeys to the islands of the Indo-Pacific to demonstrate how social scientists can harness these powerful tools to discover out-of-equilibrium social dynamics. Lansing and Cox address empirical questions surrounding the colonization of the Pacific, the relationship of language to culture, the emergence and disappearance of male and female hierarchies, and more.Unlocking new possibilities for the social sciences, Islands of Order is accompanied by an interactive companion website that enables readers to explore the models described in the book.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

FIGURES

TABLES

FOREWORD. The Malay Archipelago Revisited

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1. Models of Change

CHAPTER 3. Dominance, Selection, and Neutrality

CHAPTER 4. Language and Kinship in Deep Time

CHAPTER 5. Islands of Cooperation

CHAPTER 6. Adaptive Self-Organized Criticality

CHAPTER 7. Transition Paths

CHAPTER 8. From the Other Shore

APPENDIX A. Correlation Functions

APPENDIX B. Game and Lattice Models

APPENDIX C. Intra- and Intersubak Coordination of Irrigation

APPENDIX D. Fisher Information

APPENDIX E. Energy Landscape Analysis

APPENDIX F. Survey Questions Used in Chapter 7

INDEX

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 06. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780691197531

0691197539

OCLC:

1113918390