Complex Adaptive Systems Ecology: A Structuralist Analysis

In the following, I will analyze two articles called Complex Adaptive Systems Ecology I & II (Molin & Molin, 1997 & 2000). The CASE-articles are some of the more quirky articles that have come out of the Molecular Microbial Ecology Group – a group where I am currently making observational studies. They are the result of a cooperation between Søren Molin, professor in the group, and his brother, Jan Molin, professor at Department of Organization and Industrial Sociology at Copenhagen Business School. The cooperation arises from the recognition that both microbial ecology and sociology/organization theory works with communities of sorts. The articles explore if insights from the one field – organization theory – can be used fruitfully in the other field – microbiology. The two articles are written as prolongations of each other and I will consider CASE I & II to be two parts of the same textual body. It is my main goal with this analysis to localize actants and developmental dynamics, which I can use as guidelines in my later empirical analyses.