Peter Harries-Jones

Peter Harries-Jones is a cultural anthropologist and professor emeritus at York University, Canada. He has made significant contributions to the fields of African studies, communication theory, and ecological anthropology, particularly from a social network perspective. His academic career includes extensive research and writing on themes such as the environment, aesthetics, the complex relationships between ecology, society, and biosemiotics. 
==Early life and education==
Peter Harries-Jones was born in Oxford, England. He attended secondary school in both England and the United States and universities in the United States, South Africa, and Oxford University, where he obtained his doctorate.
==Career==
Harries-Jones he was a research officer in the Institute for Social Studies, Zambia where he introduced together with his research group the subject of social networks into anthropology. He taught in the University of Wales, Swansea University, University of Khartoum, Sudan and York University, Ontario Canada.
Until the 1980s he was a specialist in the field of African Studies. Subsequently he developed an interest in communication studies, systems theory and ecology. This research culminated in an intellectual biography on Gregory Bateson's 'ecological epistemology' drawn from the Bateson archives. 
==Early influence==
Peter Harries-Jones and British anthropologist J. Clyde Mitchell share a mentor-mentee relationship that is rooted in their mutual engagement with social networks.. Mitchell, a leading figure in social network analysis and a prominent member of the Manchester School, influenced Harries-Jones' academic trajectory and intellectual development. J. Clyde Mitchell's work in social networks was pioneering, focusing on how social structures are formed and maintained through interpersonal relationships and relationships derived through communications, particularly in the context of urban African societies. His approach was empirical, utilizing network analysis to map out social relationships and understand the dynamics within communities.
===Application of Mitchell's ideas===
Harries-Jones, under the mentorship of Mitchell, adopted and expanded these concepts by incorporating them into a broader theoretical framework that partly included cybernetics and social networks. His work reflects a synthesis of Mitchell's empirical methodologies with the more abstract, systemic thinking influenced by Gregory Bateson. Harries-Jones applied these ideas to various contexts, including ecological systems, communication networks, and cultural studies, showing how information and feedback loops operate within and influence social networks.
===Research on Gregory Bateson's ideas===
Peter Harries-Jones has made notable contributions to social networks and the history of cybernetics, particularly through his exploration of the work of Gregory Bateson renowned anthropologist. Harries-Jones is particularly noted for his work on Gregory Bateson, a Harries-Jones' books A Recursive Vision: Ecological Understanding and Upside-Down Gods: Gregory Bateson’s World of Difference, explore Bateson's ideas and their implications for understanding interactive communication as relational systems. 
Harries-Jones' work builds upon the foundational ideas of Gregory Bateson, particularly in the realms of cybernetics, social networks, and ecological thinking. Bateson was a pioneer in ecological thinking, proposing that mind and nature are part of an unified co-evolutionary system. Harries-Jones extends this idea by exploring the implications of Bateson’s ecological epistemology in contemporary environmental thought and activism. 
Bateson’s work in cybernetics, especially his ideas about feedback loops and the communication processes within systems, resulted in Harries-Jones' following Bateon's approach to both social systems and natural ecosystems. 
Bateson’s work on communication, particularly his exploration of how meaning is constructed and how communicative systems are different from the mechanial systems within Western societies system and which do not relay on the presence of "power" These foundational serves as a basis for Harries-Jones' investigations into how miscommunication or the breakdown of communication can lead to ecological degradation or social disintegration,
Harries-Jones also examines the evolution of Bateson’s thought over time, particularly how Bateson’s ideas have been interpreted, misinterpreted, and applied in various disciplines. Harries-Jones critiques and refines these interpretations, contributing to the ongoing dialogue about Bateson’s legacy in fields such as anthropology, ecology, cognitive science, and communication.
==Bibliography==
* Bioentropy, Aesthetics and Meta-dualism: The Transdisciplinary Ecology of Gregory Bateson (2010). Entropy 12, no. 12: 2359-2385. (Online and free in Issue on Cybersemiotics), ). 
* Culture is Natural: introducing biosemiotics. Paper given to the founding meeting of ALECC, [Assn for Literature, Environment and Culture in Canada) Sydney, Nova Scotia, (August 2010). 
* "Gregory Bateson's Spirited Culture of Refusal." On-line publication. Choreograph.net/articles April 3, 
* Harries-Jones, P " Honeybees, Communicative Order and the Collapse of Ecosystems". Biosemiotics. vol 2.2 July. pp. 193-204, (2008) 
* Gregory Bateson's 'Uncovery' of Ecological Aesthetics. In A Legacy for Living Systems: Gregory Bateson as a Precursor to Biosemiotics.(ed. Jesper Hoffmeyer). Springer-Verlach, (2008).
* Understanding Ecological Aesthetics: The Challenge of Bateson. Cybernetics and Human Knowing (Special Issue). Vol. 12 No. 1-2 pp.61-74, (2005)
* Gregory Bateson, Heterarchies and the Topology of Recursion. Cybernetics and Human Knowing (Special Issue). Vol. 12 No. 1-2 pp. 168-74, (2005) 
* Introduction to Special Section on Gregory Bateson Centennial, Australian Humanities Review Journal, Issue 35, (June 2005) 
* Revisiting Angels Fear: Recursion, Ecology and Aesthetics in SEED (Semiosis, Evolution, Energy, and Development) Online: www.library.utoronto.ca/see Volume 4.1 (Special Issue Celebrating Gregory Bateson's Centennial), (2004). 
* The 'Risk Society': Tradition, Ecological Order and Time-space Acceleration in Mario Blaser, Harvey A. Feit and Glenn McRae. (eds.) In the Way of Development: Indigenous Peoples, Life Projects and Globalization. London, New York and Ottawa: Zed Books in cooperation with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), (2004). 
* Consciousness, Embodiment and Critique of Phenomenology in the Thought of Gregory Bateson. American Journal of Semiotics (Special Issue on Gregory Bateson). (ed. Deborah Eicher-Catt) Vol 19 (1-4) pp. 69-94, (2003). 
* Where Bonds become Binds: the necessity for Bateson's 'Interactive' Perspectives in Biosemiotics, in Sign Systems Studies Vol. 30.1 (eds.) Claus Emmeche, Jesper Hoffmeyer, and Kalevi Kull (special edition on Biosemiotics) pp. 163-181, (2003) 
* Cultural Perspectives and Sustainability in David V.J. Bell and Annie Y. Cheung, ‘Introduction to Sustainable Development', Encyclopedia of Life-Support Systems (EOLSS), developed under the Auspices of UNESCO, Oxford, U.K. :EOLSS Publishers Online www.eolss.net, (2002) 
* Immanent Holism: On Transfer of Knowledge from Global to Local in E.L. Cerroni-Long (ed.). Anthropological Theory in North America. Wesport, Conn; London , Bergin and Garvey (pp.175-195), (1999) ENVIR
* A Signal Failure: Ecology and Economy after The Earth Summit by Peter Harries-Jones, Abraham Rotstein and Peter Timmerman, in Michael G. Schechter (ed.) Future Multilateralism: The Political and Social Framework, Tokyo, New York, Paris: Macmillan Ltd. (U.K.) and St. Martins' Press for the United Nations University Press, pp . 101-135.see also: Indian Journal of Canadian Studies, Volume VI (1997), pp 4-45, (1999) 
* Bargaining the Sacred: the approach from 'immanent holism' in Anders Sandberg and Sverker Sorlin (eds.), Sustainability - The Challenge: People, Power and the Environment, Montreal: Black Rose Books, pp. 42-50, 1998 
* "Gregory Bateson;" "Double Bind" entries in Paul Bouissac (ed.), Encyclopedia of Semiotic and Cultural Studies, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 64-67 and pp. 201-204. (1998)
* Aesthetics and Ecology: a Non-Fiction Approach in Patrick D. Murphy (ed.) The Literature of Nature: an International Sourcebook, Chicago and London:Fitzroy Dearborn Publishing, pp.434-439, (1998) 
* Affirmative Theory: Voice and Counter-Voice at the Oxford Decennial in Henrietta Moore (ed.) The Future of Anthropological Knowledge, London, Routledge, Association of Social Anthropologists Monographs 34, no. 4. pp. 156-172 (1996) 
* Co-editor with Edwina Taborsky, SEED (Semiosis, Evolution, Energy, and Development), a new on-line journal, www.library.utoronto.ca/see, (2001- 2006)
* Making Knowledge Count: Advocacy and Social Science, McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal and Kingston, (1991)
Category:Cultural anthropologists
Category:People from Oxford
Category:Professors
Category:Canadian people