Communicated into being: Systems theory and the shifting of ontological status

Abstract

The inclusion of non-humans as persons into social systems raises the question: How exactly are they constituted as communicating beings? This article suggests an approach informed by Niklas Luhmann’s theory of autopoietic social systems. In particular, it addresses the question why some beings are more person-like in some contexts and more like objects or potencies in others. According to Luhmann, social systems consist not of persons but of self-reproducing, self-referential communications. Communicating beings emerge from communications that systems attribute to actors, not the other way around. The differentiated recognition of communication allows for a gradual, step-by-step ascription of personhood to non-human beings, with the possibility of shifting between ontological states. This approach is illustrated with rituals for agricultural spirits among Rmeet uplanders in Laos.