Many cultural benefits of ecosystems are difficult to capture in standard ecosystem services (ES) assessments. Scholars and practitioners often respond to this gap by seeking to develop new scientific methods to capture and integrate the plural values associated with diverse cultural benefits categories. This increasing emphasis on value pluralism represents an essential step toward recognitional justice within ES theory and practice. However, current approaches continue to rest on the assumption that ES-knowledge is only made available to decision-makers through scientific documentation. As a result, scholars and decision-makers fail to account for the role of knowledge pluralism as a core element of recognitional justice, and a key enabling factor for meaningful consideration of the plural values linked to cultural benefits of ES. In this paper, we contribute to a pluralist theory of cultural-benefits-knowledge, and ES-knowledge more broadly. Using a Critical Interpretive Synthesis of environmental management literature, we conceptualize a wider range of knowledge forms that convey cultural benefits, based on the knowledge-as-practice concept in addition to the knowledge-as-product concept more familiar to Western actors. As part of the synthesis, we explore when and how diverse forms of cultural-benefits-knowledge intersect with decision-making processes, and the value aspects and categories of cultural benefits most frequently conveyed by each form of knowledge. Our synthesizing argument offers a critique of the concept of “ES-knowledge-use,” proposing a shift in focus toward “learning opportunities” that exist across phases of decision-making. We demonstrate that attention to a greater diversity of knowledge forms (knowledge pluralism), and a fuller spectrum of opportunities to integrate them (learning opportunities) can support more meaningful consideration of the plural values associated with cultural benefits of ecosystem services (value pluralism). In combination, attention to knowledge pluralism and value pluralism can help bring the ES approach into alignment with environmental justice through the recognition and legitimization of multiple identities, well-beings, and human-nature relationships, as reflected in meaningful consideration of the diverse cultural benefits of ES.

Improved consideration of the cultural benefits of ecosystem services (ES) requires attention to knowledge pluralism in addition to value pluralism. Theorists have increasingly argued that meaningful inclusion of cultural benefits of ES requires attention to plural values, beyond the individual, instrumental values associated with ecosystems. However, there has been little engagement around the role of knowledge pluralism as a foundational enabling factor for meaningful consideration of plural values. This paper contributes to a conceptual toolkit for implementation of knowledge pluralism in ES theory and application by (re)conceptualizing ES-knowledge as a knowledge system. This can support personal and collective reflexivity around the role of worldviews embedded in our institutions, and illuminate what is at stake when assumptions about human-nature relationship and well-being remain hidden. Further, by locating benefits-knowledge as a core element of the ES-knowledge-system, we can imagine a greater range of possible cultural-benefits-knowledge-forms and improve our ability to comprehend and convey the plural values of cultural benefits of ES, as they arise across cultural contexts.

Background: Chronic pain is a prevalent and dynamic condition for both patients and providers. Learning how patients with chronic pain successfully manage their pain may prove helpful in guiding health care providers in their treatment of other patients with chronic pain. This research sought to identify successful strategies for managing chronic pain from interviews with individuals experiencing chronic pain who were able to do “most of what they want on most days.” Methods: Qualitative, descriptive study. Patients were from metro Denver, Colorado, USA and were recruited from community and health care settings. Appreciative inquiry (AI) was used as an approach to elicit stories of successful pain management. We conducted one-on-one, in person interviews using a semistructured interview guide. Analysis was completed using a grounded hermeneutic editing approach. Results: Twenty-four interviews were completed representing a range of adult ages, genders, race/ethnicities, and underlying reasons for chronic pain. Consistent themes were found in that all patients had developed multiple strategies for ongoing pain management and prevention, as well as a mental approach embedded with elements of positive beliefs and determination. Friends, family, support group members, and health care providers were key in support and ongoing management. Although 10 patients regularly used opioid pain medications, none were dependent, and all stated an active desire to avoid these medications. Conclusions: Successful chronic pain management seems possible as displayed from the patient narratives but requires persistence through individual trial and error. Recommendations for health care provider teams are made to apply these findings to assist patients with chronic pain.

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This article offers a conceptual framework on Indigenous storying ethics, storying methods, storying as ruptures and storying interventions, to distinguish elements, premises and practices distinctive to Indigenous storying. This conceptual framework is built from (in)formal relational storying experiences and more structured data from over twenty years of qualitative, ethnographic, and storying projects. In its departure from expected Western methodological approaches to collecting and reporting data, it lives in Indigenous truths and epistemologies in our responsibilities and in our grounding. The interplay between ethics, methods, ruptures and interventions illustrates and centers storying as it speaks of the epistemological power of storying from ancient and traditional nature-based immersions.