ABSTRACT
Embeddedness-talk remains ubiquitous, but it is conceptually inconsistent and confused. This has tangible implications for how we are able to identify and respond to social dilemmas. Following on from Chapter 4’s exploration of the internal inconsistencies of embeddedness and what this means for those who deploy this little metaphor, Chapter 5 turns to the implications of embeddedness for our responses to financial crashes, social crises, and environmental catastrophes. Embeddedness, as a tertiary-level, ontological metaphor, repeats and entrenches the fiction of the separate law, economy, and society. In so doing, it precludes constructivist understandings of these social phenomena, impoverishing our potential responses to pressing social needs. This chapter proposes an alternative way of doing, talking, and thinking about legal and economic phenomena that responds to the limitations of embeddedness-talk, and suggests two shifts in focus: from actors to their interactions, and from embeddedness to feedback loops. Our guides, Academic Ann, Policy Pol, and Lay Lil explore the implications of these shifts in real-world contexts.
