Bridging the Macro and the Micro by Considering the Meso: Reflections on the Fractal Nature of Resilience

Bergström, Johan; Dekker, Sidney

doi:10.5751/es-06956-190422

Cited by 100 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…The relationships between these different urban levels and resilience processes implicitly exist in the urban resilience discourse, although, because of the focus of this discourse only on one level, it is not yet conceptualized in a cities' context, despite general resilience paradigm, where the question of multi-level/multi-scale approach was raised by several authors [42,64,102,103]. For example, Bergström and Dekker [103] link micro (human resilience), meso (resilient organizations) and macro (societal resilience) levels of resilience, arguing that factors of resilience are common across these three levels. They consider resilience as "fractal, including learning networks across scales and social capital that allow autonomous action, diversity in terms of economics and skills, and leadership" [103].…”

Section: Discussion Of a Multi-level Perspective To City's Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, Bergström and Dekker [103] link micro (human resilience), meso (resilient organizations) and macro (societal resilience) levels of resilience, arguing that factors of resilience are common across these three levels. They consider resilience as "fractal, including learning networks across scales and social capital that allow autonomous action, diversity in terms of economics and skills, and leadership" [103]. The authors propose an interesting idea, arguing that resilience, as a system property, emerges from interactions and relations on local levels, which can be developed further in a multi-level approach to cities.…”

Section: Discussion Of a Multi-level Perspective To City's Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Urban Resilience Discourse Analysis: Towards a Multi-Level Approach to Cities

Rogov

Rozenblat

2018

Sustainability

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This study aims to understand the current state of research in urban resilience, its relations to urban sustainability and to integrate several distinct approaches into a multi-level perspective of cities comprising micro, meso and macro levels and their interactions. In fact, based on the meta-analysis of nearly 800 papers from Scopus from 1973 to 2018, we show that urban resilience discourses address micro and meso levels, considering shocks of bottom-up origin such as natural disasters. In contrast, the regional resilience approach addresses meso and macro levels (regional and global scales), considering shocks of top-down origin such as world economic crises. We find these approaches complementary and argue that in order to expand the urban resilience theory and overcome its limitations, they should be combined. For that purpose we propose a multi-level perspective that integrates both top-down and bottom-up dynamic processes. We argue that urban resilience is shaped by the synchronicity of adaptive cycles on three levels: micro, meso and macro. To build the multi-level approach of dynamics of adaptive cycles we use the panarchy framework.

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Section: Discussion Of a Multi-level Perspective To City's Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussion Of a Multi-level Perspective To City's Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Resilience Discourse Analysis: Towards a Multi-Level Approach to Cities

Rogov

Rozenblat

2018

Sustainability

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“…Whereas environmental studies at the individual and the societal levels are relatively common, the meso level deserves more attention (Bergström and Dekker 2014). Forms of organization can vary radically from group to group, and it is important to understand these structures before trying to intervene from outside.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social networks and environmental management at multiple levels: soil conservation in Sumatra

Matouš¹

2015

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Many agrarian communities in developing countries suffer from insufficient productivity and use farming practices that deteriorate the environment both locally and globally. Research suggests that social networks play a role in environmental management, different studies emphasize different aspects of network structures, and the implications of the scales at which networks operate are not explicitly discussed. Here, I ask what types of social structures in farmer networks are conducive to environmental protection and agricultural productivity enhancement, and I show that the answer depends on the scale of the investigation. Using original data representing 16 farmer groups comprising 315 households and 1575 information-sharing links, I analyzed the structure of farmers' social connections in relation to their soil conservation and productivity-enhancing practices, assessed through their usage of organic and chemical fertilizers. Furthermore, I conducted qualitative interviews with 25 stakeholders from different levels of the agricultural system to gain additional insights into the drivers of farmers' behaviors. The quantitative analysis distinguishes the effects of intraand extra-group links and reciprocity at the household and group levels. Fixed-effects logistic regression was applied at the household level to examine farmers' soil management practices. At the collective level, I used linear regression to estimate the proportion of adopters for each soil management practice. A lack of education and a lack of extra-group links are associated with unproductive practices, and a lack of reciprocity is associated with a lack of conservation efforts at both the household and collective levels. Dense intra-group links have opposite effects at the two levels. Whereas links within the farmer groups are associated with unproductive soil management by households, these links are associated with productivity maximization at the collective level. Qualitative interviews showed that farmers who opt for organic fertilizers do so partially because of pressure from global traders, mediated through external links and amplified by dense and reciprocal relations within their groups. The results highlight the need for environmental management policies to be based on research at multiple scales and demonstrate that, counter-intuitively, increasing global economic interconnectivity may, in some cases, stimulate the adoption of conservation practices via local social networks.

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“…healthcare, transport, petroleum, nuclear power) and countries [19,20]. A major current research challenge is the absent integration of different system levels from individuals, teams, organizations, regulatory bodies, and policy level [10,14,21,22], implying that mechanisms through which resilience is linked across the micro/meso/macro level are not yet well understood. For example, most current research addresses activities of front-line workers (micro level) (e.g.…”

Section: Some Current Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%