This dissertation examines the socio-cultural conditions of Japanese society as reflected in factors that induce recent Japanese immigration to Canada. The examination is based on interview research done with six female and six male Japanese immigrants living in Vancouver, who arrived in Canada after the mid-1990s. While previous migration studies emphasized political-economic conditions as the causes of migration flow, the narratives of these interviewees reveal a different migratory pattern that is motivated by spiritual well-being and life values. In order to encapsulate the complexity of contemporary migration flow, the push/pull factors that induced interviewees' emigration are thematically categorized and analyzed within a frame that emphasizes both these factors' interdependence with the interrelationships of Japanese social systems that have swayed the interviewees' decision to emigrate from Japan, and the nature of complexity in Japanese society. Showing the pluralism of these factors, they are categorized into nine themes: 1)physical environment; 2) spiritual enrichment and a stress-reduced life style; 3) socio-cultural constraints; 4) family life; 5) education; 6) age restrictions; 7) gender roles; 8)diversification, and 9) self-actualization. Luhmann's theory of social systems and Foucault's notion of governmentality serve as touchstones for the re-interpretation of the push/pull factors based on the examination of the interrelations among three Japanese social systems of family, education, and employment. The analysis reveals the complexity of the push/pull factors. Moreover, the interviewees' image of a "simple Canada," which also contributes to their decision to immigrate, is explained in terms of the "double complexity" of Japanese society stemming from both the complexity of modern society and the complexity of an amalgam of "modern" and "pre-modern" elements in Japanese society. Through an extensive examination of the correlations between the experiences of contemporary Japanese migrants and Japanese social systems, this study brings new insights to discussions on tensions between human agency and social structure, and the importance of intangible, mental images in the ways people shape their lives. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

M.A. (Social Work) / The research resulted from the lack of reliable and valid measurement instruments on community functioning. Operationalization of community functioning is complicated by the general character of widely used theories es related to communities in South Africa. Measurement is severely hampered by insufficient conceptualization. In the exploration of social service theory, the Living System Theory was selected as the theoretical underpinning for the research. Living System Theory offers a framework for processes and structures to critically and systematically describe, analyse, explain and interpret communities. Operationalization of community functioning was greatly expedited by the selection of the Living System Theory in view of its detailed description and universal character. In this study the term community from the Living System Theory, is conceptualized to In new synthesis and is also analysed systematically. In the systematic analyses of a community it was concluded that six relevant assessment areas occur in community context, namely: physical structures; transport; communication; decision-making; policy; and product/service. All six identified assessment areas were analysed systematically, but for the purposes of this study only decision-making was operationalized...

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[Truncated abstract] The dominant approaches to knowledge management practice and the design of knowledge management systems are driven by a resource-based view of knowledge. In this thesis, it is argued that the resource-based view of knowledge is limited and lacks social sensitivity. In this thesis, Knowledge Management is viewed as a social activity and the development and examination of an alternate approach to conceptualising the social processes of knowledge management in organisations, is the primary objective. In pursuing this objective, the question of whether an activity-based view of knowledge processes can assist the design of knowledge management practice and systems is examined. To address this research question, a conceptual framework is developed which redefines the conventional, universal approach to knowledge context . . . From an organisational perspective, the ABCs framework suggests that the institutionalisation and contextualisation of knowledge provides management with another dimension for considering knowledge management and knowledge management systems implementation. The findings from the case study suggest that knowledge workers are influenced by environmental factors. As a result, organisations can use this research to develop knowledge management practices that take environmental factors into consideration. As a starting point for organisations, the findings from the case studies are used to develop a set of guidelines for the design of knowledge management practice and systems. Further research is suggested in terms of extending to considerations of other aspects of Luhmann’s theories and exploring other complexity sciences as the basis of knowledge management.

Unlike many of their North African and West African compatriots who reunified with family and settled in France in the 1970s and 80s, the decision of migrant worker hostel residents not to return definitively to places of origin at retirement is puzzling. Firstly, it calls into question the assumptions of the ‘myth of return’ literature, which explains non-return on the basis of family localisation. In the case of ‘geographically-single’ hostel residents, however, the grounds for non-return cannot be family localisation, since the men’s families remain in places of origin. Secondly, older hostel residents also remain unmoved by the financial incentives of a return homewards, where their French state pensions would have far greater purchasing power. Instead of definitive return, the overwhelming preference of hostel residents is for back-and-forth migration, between the hostel in France and communities of origin. The aim of this dissertation is to resolve this puzzle, by asking: What explains the hostel residents’ preference for back-and-forth mobility over definitive return at retirement? In order to make sense of these mobility decisions, several theories of migration are presented and evaluated against qualitative data from a multi-sited research design incorporating ethnography, life story and semi-structured interviews, and archive material. This fieldwork was carried out across France, Morocco and Senegal. Although no one theory adequately accounts for all the phenomena observed, the added value of each theory becomes most apparent when levels of analysis are kept distinct: at the household level as regards remittances; at the kinship/village level as regards re-integration in the home context; at the meso-level of ethnic communities in terms of migrants’ transnational ties; and at the macro-level of social systems concerning inclusion in healthcare and administrative organisations. Widening the focus beyond the puzzle/dilemma of late-in-life mobility, the thesis concludes by questioning what ‘home’ can mean for the retired hostel residents. An innovative way of theorising home – building on conventional conceptions of home based on territory and community – is outlined, arguing that to be ‘at home’ can also mean to be ‘included’ in different ‘social systems’. With this argument the thesis aims to contribute to broader debates on what it means for immigrants to belong and achieve inclusion in society.

This thesis is about police reports concerning school violence in Sweden involving children below the age of criminal responsibility. Police reports about incidents caused by pupils in Swedish compulsory schools have increased since at least the 1980s. In research on violent, threatening and insulting acts among children in schools, incidence and causes are often studied in terms of bullying and degrading treatment. Criminological studies on children's violent acts, in schools, is mainly based on information on children aged 15 and over. Research on why police reports are filed about younger children in compulsory schools is limited. The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse school-related police reports, in relation to children’s unwanted actions in compulsory schools with the goal of understanding the intentionality in every day practice. The empirical material consists of four studies of which three have been conducted using qualitative methods through analysing legal documents, using content analysis of texts in school-related police reports and interviews with Principals. The fourth study has been carried out with statistical analysis of school-related police reports. The results of the studies are presented in four papers. This thesis takes the approach from modern sociology which is used both as perspectives and theory. The perspectives concern modernity, social control and cultural sensitivity. The theoretical framework is based on theory of systems and lifeworld. The concluding analysis shows local differences in the assessments on which action will be reported to the police. It is mainly Principals who make reports to the police but also parents. Principals’ police reports are based on social commitment and early intervention and parents report concern about repeated school bullying of their children. Despite diverse local practices certain patterns appear. Boys in the 13-14 years age group are the ones most often seen as perpetrators in the police reports. Two particularly prominent patterns become visible at the school level. Most police reports are related to schools with low grades and to so-called resource schools. This indicates that the unwanted actions of disadvantaged children are more often reported to the police than the actions of other children. The filing of police reports can be understood as a result of difficulties among adults to reach common understanding on how children’s problems should be handled in school systems everyday practice.

O objetivo principal desta pesquisa foi discutir a paisagem como objeto da geografia e, em sequência, sugerir uma metodologia para a investigação da paisagem geográfica. Para tanto, apresentamos uma retrospectiva crítica sobre bibliografia diversa, na qual os temas abordados estão concatenados em uma perspectiva temporal, indo da pré-história ao final do século XX. Começamos pelos povos caçadores-coletores, passamos pela civilização greco-romana e a sociedade europeia dos séculos XVI ao XIX, chegando aos primeiros sistematizadores da geografia moderna, Alexander von Humboldt, Carl Ritter, Friedrich Ratzel e Paul Vidal de La Blache. No próximo momento, discutimos a influência destes autores na produção científica sobre a paisagem e a geografia na Alemanha, França, Rússia/União Soviética e Brasil, buscando rastrear as relações e evoluções deste binômio. Como contribuição original, analisamos o trabalho de Niklas Luhmann, sociólogo alemão, que desenvolveu uma teoria que acreditamos ter potencial para enriquecer a abordagem geográfica sobre os fenômenos sociais no estudo da paisagem, com o intuito de aproximar geografia e sociologia sob o paradigma sistêmico. Concluímos três pontos sobre as relações entre a paisagem e a geografia ao longo do tempo. Primeiro, são as interações entre a natureza e a sociedade, sobre a superfície terrestre, que constituem a base da paisagem como objeto da disciplina em seus anos iniciais, sob a tutela de Humboldt e Ritter. Atualmente, as relações deste binômio abrangem duas vertentes: há, de um lado, uma abordagem naturalista e sistêmica das relações natureza-sociedade; de outro, há investigações humanistas e fenomenológicas sobre as interações sociedade-natureza e sociedade-sociedade. Segundo, a paisagem geográfica, entendida como um sistema concreto, é constituída por matéria, energia e comunicação. Contém ainda uma sobreposição de tempos e possui uma estrutura multiescalar, um funcionamento e uma funcionalidade. Terceiro, a abordagem geográfica tem sua particularidade no trato analítico e sintético das informações, principalmente no campo da síntese. Isso ocorre porque tem início em um levantamento idiográfico e evolui para discussões nomotéticas sobre as leis gerais de organização da superfície. Dessa forma, acreditamos que a geografia deva ser vista como conhecimento aplicado em sua maior parte, objetivando uma melhora na qualidade da vida humana e uso racional dos recursos naturais. / The aim of this research was to discuss landscape as the object of geography and, following that, to suggest a methodology for the investigation of the geographic landscape. To do so, we present a critical retrospective of the bibliography, in which we discuss and connect the themes in a temporal perspective, from pre-history through the end of the 20th century. We began with the hunter-gatherer groups of people, passing through the Greek-Roman civilizations and the European societies of the centuries 16th through 19th, arriving at the first systematizers of modern geography: Alexander von Humboldt, Carl Ritter, Friedrich Ratzel and Paul Vidal de La Blache. Next, we discuss the influence of those authors on the scientific production about the landscape and the setting of geography in Germany, France, Russia/Soviet Union and Brazil, seeking to track the relationships and evolutions of this binomial. As an original contribution, we analyzed the work of Niklas Luhmann, a German sociologist who designed a theory that we believe could enrich the geographical approach of the social phenomena within the study of the landscapes, aiming to approximate geography and sociology under the systemic paradigm. In conclusion, we arrived at three aspects of the relationship between landscape and geography throughout time. First, it is the interaction between nature and society that constitute the basis of landscape as the object of geography in its early years, as viewed by Humboldt and Ritter. Currently, the interactions of this binomial comprehend two fronts: on one side, there´s a systemic and naturalistic approach of the nature-society relationships; within the other perspective, we see humanistic and phenomenological investigations on the society-nature and society-society interactions. Second, the geographic landscape, understood as a concrete system, is constituted by matter, energy and communications, containing a superposition of times and a multi-scalar structure, an operation and a functionality. Third, the geographic approach has its particularity in the synthetic-analytical treatment of the information, especially within the realm of synthesis, since it begins with an idiographic data gathering and evolves to nomothetical discussions of general laws of the organization of the surface of the Earth. Considering this, we believe geography should be seen essentially as an applied field of knowledge, aiming the improvement of human life and the rational usage of natural resources.

Metódos analíticos de investigação são usualmente ineficazes para sistemas computacionais sociais já que apenas algumas iterações do sistema já são suficientes para que o sistema se torne imprevisível. Portanto, uma das principais questões na Computação Social é o desenvolvimento de modelos sociais passíveis de investigação. Assim é possível que se compreenda o relacionamento complexo entre os componentes de sistemas sociais computacionais e o resultado. Este aspectos incluem a modelagem, a estrutura de comunicação e características individuais do agentes envolvidos na resolução dos problemas. do processo social. Esta tese explora sistemas computacionais de resolução de problemas com foco em sistemas artificiais e heterogêneos. Nela é feita uma compilação extensiva da literatura relacionada em sistemas complexos onde as contribuições do candidato são expostas dentro de contextos específicos da área. Entre elas está o estudo de modelos abstratos e gerais de resolução social de problemas, a investigação do impacto da centralidade no resultado individual e coletivo, a análise experimental de modelos heterogêneos de resolução social de problemas. Quando integradas, estas contribuições reforçam o entendimento sobre a importância da rede e das estruturas de comunicação, a composição estratégica do sistema, a estrutura do problema e possíveis padrões gerais na resolução social de problemas. / This thesis reviews and investigates social problem-solving with a particular focus on artificial and heterogeneous systems. More specifically, we not only compile and comprehensively examine recent research results, but also discuss future directions in the study of such heterogeneous complex systems. Given their complex nature, such systems often defy analyses. Even computationally simple models can behave unpredictably after a few iterations. Therefore, one central issue in Social Computing is to devise models of social interaction that are amenable to investigation. This way, one can understand the complex relationships among the components and the outcome of the social process. This thesis surveys scientific inquiries concerned with fundamental aspects in social problemsolving systems and their impact in ability and performance of such systems. These aspects include modeling, communication structure and individual problem-solver traits. This thesis also reports the student endeavour during the period of research and summarizes several already published contributions. Among them there is (i) the study of general frameworks for the study of social problem-solving, (ii) the investigation of the role of centrality in individual and collective outcomes, and (iii) the exploration of heterogeneous models of social problem-solving. These three points, in an integrated perspective underpin the understanding of network and communication structures, adjust the strategic systems’ composition, and exploit problems’ structures and patterns in social problemsolving systems.

A moeda fiduciária permitiu o surgimento da política monetária e esta vêm ganhando cada vez mais destaque entre as ferramentas e políticas econômicas. Porém, não existe consenso no meio acadêmico sobre a influência da política monetária à economia, alguns acreditam que ela apenas resulta em variações nominais e outros que ela pode afetar fatores reais da economia. Diversas pesquisas feitas comprovam, ao menos no curto prazo, a existência do chamado ajuste nominal incompleto, onde choques monetários afetam os valores reais dos agregados econômicos. Porém, quais são os custos e externalidades que advem desta rigidez de preços? Tentando oferecer novas respostas a esta questão, remontamos o reconhecido modelo de Ball e Romer (1989) sob a perspectiva da complexidade e dos modelos computacionais baseados em agentes. Os resultados encontrados nesta nova perspectiva foram muito diferentes dos resultados encontrados no modelo original, com a possibilidades de vantagens e externalidades positivas da rigidez, inserção de problemas distribuitivos, valores mais significativos de custos privados e sociais vinculados à rigidez, tudo isso devido à heterogeneidade presente no modelo computacional. / The fiduciary money allowed the emergence of monetary policy, that are gaining more prominence among the economic tools and policies. However, there is no consensus in the academy about the influence of the monetary policy in the economy, some believe it results in only nominal changes, others that it can affect real factors of the economy. Several researches show, at least in the short term, the existence of so-called incomplete nominal adjustment, where monetary shocks affect the real values of economic aggregates. But which are the costs and externalities that come from this price rigidity? Trying to provide new answers to this question, we reassembled the recognized model of Ball and Romer (1989) from the perspective of complexity and computational agent-based models. The new results are very different from the findings of the original model, with the potential benefits and positive externalities from rigidity, insertion of distributive problems, more significant amounts of private and social costs related to rigidity, all because of the heterogeneity inserted by the computational model.

Orientadora: Maria Eunice Quilici Gonzalez / Coorientador: Hércules de Araújo Feitosa / Banca: Mariana Cláudia Broens / Banca: Leonardo Lana de Carvalho / Resumo: Na presente dissertação propomos uma abordagem filosófico interdisciplinar para examinar aspectos de relações constitutivas dos sistemas sociais. Especial ênfase é dada à seguinte indagação: Qual é o papel da informação ecológica nos padrões socioculturais constitutivos de redes sociais na contemporaneidade? Tal questionamento é realizado a partir de uma análise dos sistemas sociais inspirada na concepção de sociedade elaborada por Norbert Elias. Concordamos com a concepção elisiana de constituição de teias de interdependência que operam de forma auto organizada e sistêmica, além da investigação histórico sociológica que propõe a ideia de processo na organização de padrões socioculturais. Nessa perspectiva, nos inspiramos nas abordagens do Paradigma da Complexidade, Filosofia Ecológica e da Sistêmica Qualitativa da Comunicação para investigar hipóteses epistemológicas sobre a natureza comunicativa das relações sociais. Discutimos o conceito de comunicação, argumentando que a percepção de informação ecológica pode efetivar a comunicação social ambientalmente situada e incorporada. Em consonância com pressupostos da Filosofia Ecológica, caracterizamos informação ecológica como possibilidades de ação, para organismos incorporados e situados em seus nichos, que emergem de relações de mutualidade organismo ambiente. Discutimos pressupostos da Filosofia Ecológica, analisando os conceitos de reciprocidade, affordance e nicho. Objetivamos também investigar o papel desempenhado pela p... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: In the present dissertation we propose a philosophical-interdisciplinary approach to examine aspects of constitutive relations of social systems. Special emphasis is given to the following question: What is the role of ecological information in cultural patterns of contemporary social networks? This questioning is carried out from an analysis of social systems inspired by the conception of society developed by Norbert Elias. We agree with the Elisian conception of the constitution of interdependence webs that operate in a self-organized and systemic way, besides the historical-sociological investigation that proposes the idea of process in the organization of sociocultural patterns. From this perspective, inspired by the approaches of the Complexity Paradigm, Ecological Philosophy and the Qualitative Systemic of Communication, we investigate epistemological hypotheses about the communicative nature of social relations. We discuss the concept of communication, arguing that the perception of ecological information can effect localized and environmentally incorporated social communication. In line with the assumptions of Ecological Philosophy, ecological information is characterized as possibilities of action for embodied organisms situated in their niches, which emerge from relations of organism-environment mutuality. We discuss assumptions of Ecological Philosophy, analyzing the concepts of reciprocity, affordance and niche. We also investigate the role played by direct percep... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre