Seite - (000128) - in Knowledge and Networks

121 Often overlooked in the literature, however, is the systematic, recursive, and transformative link between the two realities—mobility (rotation) across systems of places and relational turnover—and that link’s implications for social life. There is a connection between movement and human relationships, for actors switch places in these circuits and change occurs as a consequence, at least in part, in their respec- tive sets of relationships—and, by extension, in their relational capital. In addition, the latter change affects the evolution of the system of places itself, an evolution that is apparent only if places are regarded not as purely contextual and exogenous but rather as endogenized by members themselves and thus as endogenous to the mech- anisms under study. The connection between movement and relational capital is often explored in detail in specific areas of social life. Migration networks, for example, are prototypical. When members of a family migrate across continents, separations between them and the family remaining in the country of origin are often devastating for individuals and social communities. The focus in studies on their situation is therefore justifiably on coping with the costs of leaving families behind, on marginality, loneliness, and the creation and management of new rela- tionships by agents striving for their own or their children’s social mobility and assimilation. But the mechanics and social costs of this link also deserve explora- tion, as do the effects that such movements have on the structure and governance of the system of places. It is about the stability and change of the system and the opportunity structure that it represents for its members. The structuration, or transformation, of organized mobility and relational turn- over (OMRT) may be called the complex dynamics that lead individuals and orga- nizations to change part of their relational and social capital as they switch places in relatively closed, partly overlapping loops, whether formally institutionalized or emergent. These dynamics trigger social processes that may, under specific circum- stances, reshape the initial opportunity structure of some members of the setting but not that of others. Each domain of social and economic life and every field of atten- dant research in the social sciences has its OMRT structuration processes. I define OMRT structuration as the dynamic link—as mediated by “dynamic invariants”— between places and positions. I use the label organized to qualify mobility, for both social actors and the social system create paths and rules for movements that are not allowed to be random. Whether physical or social or both, these linked, articulated movements and changes are fundamental to social structure and social order in the processes, which together contribute, for example, to cooperation between competitors, remain separate only for analytical purposes. They are dynamically linked, as by retroactive effects. The redefinition of rules can engender new solidarities. Normative beliefs produced by the regulatory process influence choices of advisors and, hence, learning, among other processes. Controversies in part energize the evolution of structures that facilitate collective learning. They contribute to the endogenous formation of the constraints that actors can then consider legitimate or not legitimate and that they submit to more or less voluntarily. Research is only just beginning on the manner of connection (articulation) between these processes and the forms of social discipline that they cre- ate (see Lazega, 2009; 2012). 7 Organized Mobility and Relational Turnover as Context for Social Mechanisms…