Probing the interfaces between the social sciences and social-ecological resilience: insights from integrative and hybrid perspectives in the social sciences

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Social scientists, and scholars in related interdisciplinary fields, have critiqued resilience thinking's oversimplification of social dimensions of coupled social-ecological systems. Resilience scholars have countered with "where is the ecology" in social analyses? My aim is to contribute to current efforts to strengthen inter-and transdisciplinary debate and inquiry between the social-ecological resilience community and the social sciences. I synthesize three social science perspectives, which stress the complex, dynamic, and multiscalar interconnections between the biophysical and social realms in explaining social-environmental change, and which place both the social and ecology centre stage in their analyses: materio-spatial world systems analysis, critical realist political ecology, and actor-network theory. By integrating, in a nondeterministic and nonessentialist manner, the biophysical environment into social inquiries (integrative approaches) or by altogether abolishing the ecology/nature and human/culture divide (hybrid perspectives), these three social-science perspectives are well placed to foster stronger inter-and transdisciplinary ties with social-ecological resilience. Materiospatial world systems analysis is highly compatible with resilience thinking. The emphasis on world systems structures and processes offers the potential to enrich resilience analyses of global environmental change, global governance and stewardship, planetary boundaries, and multiscale resilience. Critical realist political ecology offers avenues for more in-depth interdisciplinary inquiries around local/traditional/indigenous knowledge systems and power. It also challenges resilience scholars to incorporate critical analyses of resilience's core concepts and practices. Actor-network theory proposes a very different starting point for understanding and assessing social-ecological resilience. Its focus on "resilience-in-the-making" offers unique insights but also pushes the conceptual boundaries of resilience thinking.

Environmental change and social conflict: the northeast Atlantic mackerel dispute

“…The concept power always refers to social power and intends to capture the abilities that allow humans to influence the conduct of others and the contexts in which these others are situated. Recently, it has been argued that the term "others" not only does refer to other humans but also includes non-anthropogenic entities (Stone-Jovicich 2015), and that "contexts" refers to both social and environmental contexts (Boonstra 2016). In this paper power is operationalized as 'balances of power' as introduced by the sociologist Norbert Elias.…”

Understanding process, power, and meaning in adaptive governance: a critical institutional reading

“…So for example, they see studies of environmentality (Boyd et al 2014) as valuable in illuminating power processes. Stone-Jovicich (2015) has considered the benefits of probing the interface between resilience research and three fields of social science, namely materio-spatial world systems analysis, critical realist political ecology, and actor-network theory. Moreover, Cote and Nightingale (2012:475) argue for "critically examining the role of knowledge at the intersections between social and environmental dynamics [in order] to address normative questions and to capture how power and competing value systems are not external to, but rather integral to the development and functioning of SES.…”

Towards Integrating Political Ecology into Resilience-Based Management

“…For example, as Nadasdy [49] explains, even though native people may possess rich knowledge about their environment, power to manage the environment often lies in the hands of natural resource managers, and integrating these types of knowledge and different management perspectives is difficult. Political ecology can highlight these challenges: that some people gain while others lose in the process of resilience building, and that resilience for some people or places could lead to the loss of resilience for other social-ecological systems [8]. This is important in effective resilience-based management.…”

“…Originally, resilience thinking largely built upon insights from non-equilibrium ecology [7,12]. Over the years, resilience research has been expanded beyond the confines of its original ecological origins [8,13]. A resilience approach to social-ecological systems developed after the recognition that management systems based on optimization of a particular good or service (for example timber production) through getting rid of or altering change were not leading to either environmental or social sustainability [14].…”

“…The concepts of political ecology and resilience thinking have been compared and contrasted by scholars over the past 15 years [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Some continue to argue that they are fundamentally incompatible, largely because political ecologists and resilience scholars often come from different disciplines and schools of thought [7].…”