Ethan Greist

Cohort

2023

Subfields

Quantitative Methods, Social Networks, Theory

Profile

My work primarily uses network analysis, agent-based modeling, and the occasional bit of archival data to study the broad areas of social evolution, social emergence, and the sociology of technology:

1) Social Evolution – How does change in social structure occur through time as the result of selection pressures at multiple levels and interaction across multiple domains? I am developing a theoretical monograph which adapts the most robust concepts in contemporary evolutionary theory for an audience of social theorists.

2) Social Emergence – How do processes at one level or speed construct entities at other levels and speeds? I am primarily interested in the emergence (and half-life) of formal organizations as a function of the interactions of their component persons. I am working with agent-based network models to write a series of articles on more specific empirical questions within this topic.

3) The Sociology of Technology – Social evolution and emergence are processes in (i.) space and (ii.) time that involve many conversions between (iii.) information and (iv.) material. Technological innovations shift the mappings of mutual constraint between these four basic substrates in ways that we do not fully understand. I am writing a theoretical “framing” paper on this topic in order to lay the groundwork for future (likely historical networks oriented) empirical work in this area.