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Paper short abstract

I follow the stabilization of complexity science through the study of the CSH in Vienna. I focus on scientists’ perspectives and valuations to understand how they navigate the ‘epistemic’, ‘structural’, and ‘affective’ (Turner et al., 2015) tensions inherent to emerging interdisciplinary domains.

Paper long abstract

Despite having existed as a scientific label for roughly four decades, complexity science never institutionalized into a discipline and has instead been described as a ‘quasi-discipline’ (Williams, 2012) or as a ‘scientific platform’ (Li Vigni, 2021). In order to follow this idiosyncratic example of disciplinary and institutional rearrangement, I carried out empirical work at the CSH in Vienna. I relied on document analysis, interviews, and participant observation, and specified my research focus on the perceptions and valuations of scientists working there. Through my research, moreover, I have attempted to trace the history and organization of the CSH from its foundation in 2015 until today and tried to make sense of how this trajectory is influenced by academic and societal expectations.

Overall, I found scientists at the CSH to experience and struggle to navigate many of the tensions that characterize emerging disciplines and interdisciplinary fields – including ‘epistemic’, ‘structural’ and ‘affective’ dimensions (Turner et al., 2015). I also found the CSH to be largely in continuity with complexity science – specifically with the dominant current associated with the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) – but to also introduce elements of novelty – in particular with respect to the articulation of societal relevance. Finally, I found the institutional flexibility and ‘disciplinary porosity’ (Williams, 2012) of complexity science to be perceived as both a challenge and an opportunity by scientists at the CSH, who often struggle to ‘feel at home’ in complexity science but still construct their identity in opposition to academia.