Homo Situs

= Homo situs aims to be an alternative to homo oeconomius, the worldview (view of the human) of the ideology of the capitalist marketplace

Description

Hassan Zaoual:

"homo situs encapsulates and transcends homo oeconomicus and brings it to life. Located. in an anthropologically codified space-time, rationality can no longer be assumed to be pure, uniform or even limited by keeping a single vision of the world. Plural, it is constructed in situ in a dynamic and indeterminate manner. Through the forces of the site's entrenchment, situated rationality expresses the composite character of the complex universes that really exist in human lives. Indeed, in the factual world, solidarity, reciprocity, donation, etc. are also stakeholders in the human condition. The site, in its quest for cohesion and reproduction into eternity, generates relationships and social capital that support community members. These practical procedures draw their consistency from collective beliefs, kinds of “local deities” which rename the accepted economic laws. In other words, the site limits and confuses capital. It humanizes the laws of operation and thus defeats economic expertise. On the one hand, this social nature makes the site a non-economic concept in the sense of ordinary economics. But on the other hand, it is a very useful abstract entity to show the practical reasons that make an economy work or not.

...

In the multidimensional connections of the human condition, everything fits together: beliefs, knowledge and behavior. If the market uproots, the site roots. Thus, as close as possible to lived spaces, there is not the slightest techno-economic world totally separate from the imaginary meanings (in the sense of Cornelius Castoriadis) that the actors give to their world. This is the basis for the hypothesis that the territory is first a history, then a memory and finally a knowledge. And this knowledge is that of the organic community of belonging which produces the territory. It is with this endogenous social knowledge that it locates itself and organizes its reproduction. At this level of reality, it is a scientific illusion to separate the spheres of daily life from the actors. What we separate in the abstract by our sciences, the actor unifies and conjugates instantly. He's got more than one trick up his sleeve. Formulated differently, in this riddle, "the actor beats the system" (Michel Crozier's phrase). It is therefore rational not to impose a model and to adopt an accompanying pedagogy. This is the price for the buy-in of the right man for the job. Thus, homo situs, the man of the site, is a much more empirical and "realistic" concept than concepts such as homo oeconomicus or homo sociologicus, among others."

(https://www.cairn.info/revue-finance-et-bien-commun-2005-2-page-63.htm)

Discussion

The concept of "symbolic site of belonging"

Hassan Zaoual:

"Briefly, the symbolic site of belonging is an imaginary marker of lived space (see box). In other words, it is an intangible entity that permeates the entire local universe of actors. The site is, each time, unique, open and closed. It contains its own selection and evolution code: in this sense, it is dynamic. Unlike culturalism, “sitology” is a non-static approach, it considers the shifting, the complex and the cultural interbreeding. From this perspective, unlike economism, no dimension of human existence can be totally separated from the others. Beliefs, concepts and behavior revolve around a sense of belonging and thus create a great relativity of economic laws and the evolution of societies at the very moment when the world seems, on the surface, to become uniform.

A site, as an “imaginary homeland”, is above all an intangible entity, therefore invisible. It permeates underground individual and collective behavior and all the material manifestations of a given region (landscape, habitat, architecture, know-how and techniques, tools, etc.). From this point of view, the site is a living collective heritage which draws its consistency from the lived space of the actors. Its "black box" contains the founding myths, beliefs, sufferings, hardships endured, revelations, revolutions passed through, influences undergone or adopted by a human group. All of this accumulates in the identity of the site passed down through socialization between generations. This gives it a unique character, even if we can also discover similarities encountered in other human groups, neighboring or distant. This uniqueness is the basis of the diversity of the multiple sites of a region, of a nation, of a continent and ultimately of all of humanity. Thus, diversity is omnipresent and proliferating due to the exchanges and the incessant change that characterize all social circles. Humanity is one and diverse.

Any site is unique, while being open to its local, regional, national and global environment."

(https://www.cairn.info/revue-finance-et-bien-commun-2005-2-page-63.htm)

=Source:

The above is translated from:

• Article: Homo oeconomicus ou Homo situs ? Un choix de civilisation. Hassan Zaoual. Finance & Bien Commun 2005/2 (No 22), pages 63 à 72

URL = https://www.cairn.info/revue-finance-et-bien-commun-2005-2-page-63.htm

Synopsis originally in english:

"This article highlights the anomalies of the market paradigm by underlining the way in which it generates uncertainties. It points out the paradoxes inherent in the principal concepts of ordinary economic thought, such as the homo economicus. It invites readers to discover the worlds of homo situs, the site man. This is actual living man, capable of juggling a plurality of imperatives, within which inter-relationships make good any rational deficits in the scientific sence.

In economics, human behaviour is driven by a single, unique rationality, the maximisation of objectives seen in homo economicus. This model of rationality is scientifically postulated, hence universal.

Homo economicus is prone to going to any extreme to maximise his usefulness and profit. Consequently, opportunism, moral uncertainty, cynicism, and so on become the norm in trading relationships. Thus, in paroxysm, the market destroys the quality of human relationships and opens the way to the destruction of social ties.

In this sense we are definitely witness to an economy at work against humans and nature. Freed from humans’ ethical restraints and need for harmony vis-à-vis their fellows and living conditions, the market’s only goal is the market itself. In so doing, it desocialises humans. We should not be surprised by the resurgence of regions, identities, religions and spirituality in general: faced by uncertainty, all actors seek greater certainties.

The values upon which informal and solidarity-based practices repose are, in fact, the expression of the necessity to alter the definition of humans in relation to their daily existence. It is not the definition of homo economicus that is sought, but that of a relationship-centred human living in solidarity with his/her fellows and the neighbourhood within which s/he actually acts: homo situs, the local economy man.

From the ‘sitologist’ viewpoint, and unlike economism, no dimension of human existence can be totally separated from all others. Beliefs, concepts and behaviour all inter-mesh around a sense of belonging and thereby create a large degree of relativity within laws of economic and societal evolution at the very moment when the world is becoming more uniform, or so it might appear.

The theory of symbolic sites of belonging is posited upon greater proximity to the human condition. This proximity can only be achieved through accessing the shared beliefs that shape a site and its structures. The belief spaces generate a confidence and cohesion that markets cannot provide.

Proximity and solidarity are two sides of a single process. They can only be unified by leaving the make-believe world of economics. This would require economic and solidarity-based alternatives to be set up and strengthened through the incorporation of the meaning with which the actors invest their world. It is another way of conducting economic activities, one where technical considerations are overridden by a shared ethical sense. Through this agency we begin to glimpse new vision of humanity in all its universality and diversity.

The site-based paradigm offers us recognition of the invisible. If the market can be said to uproot, the site provides a space for roots to take hold. Neighbourhood is first a story, then a memory, and finally knowledge. This knowledge is that of the inclusive community that forms within the neighbourhood; it identifies and organises its own reproduction with this endogenous social learning.

As a concept, homo situs is far more empirical and ’realistic’ than homo economicus.

In spite of a host of anomalies, the political economy continues to think that there is only one model, and that only that which can be modelled and quantified is scientific. Arrogant economic science must acknowledge the tremendous relativity of paradigms, all the more so as the topics that it addresses are in reality wholly embedded within the social.

It remains true, however, that the proximity approach that seeks to reduce the scale of intervention cannot guarantee a scientific revolution: whatever the scale of the research and intervention, the same distortions and misrepresentation may occur at any moment.

The concept of governance should thus also be treated with caution. We live in a mosaic world, which presupposes a situated mode of governance, i.e. one that is flexible and modular."