Transnational immanence: the autopoietic co-constitution of a Chinese spiritual organization through mediated communication

Abstract

Information and communication technologies are often cited as one major source, if not the causal vector, for the rising intensity of transnational practices. Yet, extant literature has not examined critically how digital media appropriation affects the constitution of transnational organizations, particularly Chinese spiritual ones. To address the lack of theoretically grounded, empirical research on this question, this study investigates how the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation (Tzu Chi), one of the largest Taiwan-based civil and spiritual nonprofit organizations among the Chinese diaspora, is co-constituted by various social actors as an operationally closed system through their mediated communication. Based on an innovative theoretical framework that combines Maturana and Varela's notion of ‘autopoiesis’ with Cooren's ideas of ‘incarnation’ and ‘presentification’, we provide a rich analysis of Tzu Chi's co-constitution through organizational leaders' appropriation of digital and social media, as well as through mediated interactions between Tzu Chi's internal and external stakeholders. In so doing, our research expands upon the catalogue of common economic and relational behaviors by overseas Chinese, advances our understanding of Chinese spiritual organizing, and reveals the contingent role of digital and social media in engendering transnational spiritual ties to accomplish global humanitarian work.

Keywords:

• information and communication technologies
• social media
• autopoiesis
• transnationalism
• communicative constitution of organizations
• nonprofit
• authority
• Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation
• Taiwan
• Asia

Acknowledgements

Please direct all correspondences to [email protected]. We are grateful for the support provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, as well as the A.T. Steel Faculty grant award, Center for Asian Research, Arizona State University. We would like to acknowledge the kind participation of the research interviewees. In addition, we would like to thank James Taylor and Robert McPhee for helpful comments on an earlier draft which was presented at the 2012 meeting of the National Communication Association in Orlando, FL., as well as the editor and anonymous reviewers for their insightful recommendations on our paper.

Notes on contributors

Pauline Hope Cheong (PhD, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California) is Associate Professor at the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University. Her research focuses on the social and cultural implications of communication technologies, including the examination of religious authority and community. [email: [email protected]]

Jennie M. Hwang (PhD, State University of New York at Buffalo) is an invited researcher at the Département de Communication, Université de Montréal, Canada. Her research focuses on the effects of new technologies on individual well-being and learning, as well as children and media. [email: [email protected]]

Boris H.J.M. Brummans (PhD, Texas A & M University) is Associate Professor at the Département de Communication, Université de Montréal, Canada. His research looks at Buddhist organizing in various parts of Asia. [email: [email protected]]