Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 5
Complexity, Chaos
and Emergence
Steven M. Manson
Introduction
Geographers use concepts of complexity, chaos, and emergence in their research,
whether focused on society and space, human-environment systems, geographic
information science, or ecological and biophysical systems. At the same time, non-
geographers increasingly fi nd that complexity research - the general term applied
to work on complexity, chaos, and emergence - leads them to concepts of space
and place that undergird the geographical enterprise (Byrne, 1998; Cilliers, 1998;
Lissack, 2001; Manson, 2001; Reitsma, 2002; Urry, 2003). The synergy between
research in geography and complexity is supported by some shared characteristics.
Geography and complexity both span a broad array of substantive areas, synthesise
across multiple disciplines, and focus on an array of human and environmental
systems that encompass multiple spatial, temporal and organisational scales. More
broadly, complexity research is found in a variety of fi elds that have varying levels
of engagement with geography, ranging from policy (McKelvey, 1999; Gatrell,
2005) to the natural sciences (Rind, 1999; Phillips, 2003; Brose et al., 2004), social
sciences (Arthur, 1999; Batten, 2001; Sampson et al., 2002), and the humanities
(Nowotny 2005; Portugali, 2006).
While the combination of complexity theory with geography in general and
environmental geography in particular has excellent prospects for continued growth,
it also confronts a series of methodological and conceptual challenges. Perhaps the
greatest issue in complexity research is that there is no single or widely shared defi -
nition of complexity. Clear defi nitions are also lacking for more specifi c topics such
as chaos and self-organisation, which have been used in various ways in complexity
research across disciplines. In many respects, complexity follows the old adage that
'geography is what geographers do' because complexity researchers are often self-
identifi ed. Complexity is therefore usefully seen as an interdisciplinary endeavor in
which individual disciplines and practitioners borrow techniques and approaches
from other fi elds.
Thus, the terms complexity theory or complexity sciences serve as placeholders
for a wide array of research. It is possible to identify three distinct, but highly inter-
