Seite - (000144) - in Knowledge and Networks

137 positions (e.g., niches) in advantageous relational infrastructures. In the organiza- tional society individuals are part of organizational systems, and organizations are part of interorganizational systems. The coevolution of the levels is not necessarily peaceful and harmonious. Synchronization entails costs of adaptation to the other level, and the costs of adjustments in dual and asynchronized opportunity structures are dumped onto the weakest parts of the system (Lazega, 2013, 2014, 2015). These costs can be measured only if one understands how OMRT dynamics shape the coevolutionary, recursive nature of the transformations they create—that is, struc- tural emergence. Much remains to be done to carry out this program. Changes in social mecha- nisms that help members of collective actors manage the problems of collective action are occurring in contexts defined more and more by OMRT dynamics and structuration derivable from residential, educational, and professional forms of mobility. Collective learning is only one of the processes that help members of soci- ety deal with these dilemmas (Glückler & Hammer, 2012, 2014; Lazega, 2012). The capacity of societies to adapt to changes and environments that they themselves have brought about depends on their OMRT dynamics. In addition, this chapter’s exclusive emphasis on status as a relational infrastruc- ture of vertical differentiation is due only to lack of space. Other such social forms, such as horizontally discrete social niches and systems of niches, can be regarded as linchpins between OMRT and collective action. They represent forms of the social division of labor in all socially organized contexts, with their multilevel and super- imposed role systems. Social niches in their system of niches are among the rela- tional infrastructures that precondition social processes such as solidarity and social control. They are part of the definition of the initial system of places across which mobility takes place to begin with. Niches and status alike are forms by which socially rational actors seek to structure the contexts of their interactions and their social and economic exchanges. If the changes in the system of places itself are interpreted as OMRT driven and as the ultimate expression of domination, then places will no longer be regarded as exclusively exogenous entities in the social sci- ences but rather as coevolutionary detrminants and outcome of social processes. It is fundamental to understand that the links between interdependent processes also have an effect on the relational infrastructures reconstituted by the observer and endogenized by the actors. These effects lie at the origin of the dynamics of rela- tional structures: New rules can reconfigure a system of niches; exercise of social control can encourage the emergence of new forms of social status and modify principles of status consistency. In turn, the new processes that result from these changes facilitate new modes of coordination. To improve the understanding of what agency means in this interpersonal, interorganizational, and dynamic context, neostructural sociologists must still develop methods that combine the systematic study of longitudinal and multilevel data on identities, trajectories (in the long term), exchange networks, and representations (or controversies). The fact that new rules can reconfigure a system of places is not obvious. Orthodox structuralists have challenged such statements (Pizarro, 1999, 2007). It is on this point that sociolo- 7 Organized Mobility and Relational Turnover as Context for Social Mechanisms…