I am a co-convener of the international Working Group on Governance of Social-Ecological Systems in the framework of the Earth System Governance Project. In this Working Group, we are keen on exploring and discussing the challenges, possibilities, and opportunities one encounters when seeking to understand and explain complex emergent social-ecological phenomena – such as shifts in governance arrangements, ecosystem collapses, or the emergence of innovations. We attempt to do so through diverse conceptual avenues. Social-ecological systems (SES) are characterized by co-evolutionary dynamics that define the relationships between human and non-human components and through which diverse phenomena emerge. Understanding how social and ecological entities in SES interact, develop agency, and lead to specific emergent phenomena is vital to govern the system towards sustainability, e.g., higher resilience. By focusing on relations rather than on responses of entities or individuals, one can better account for the embeddedness of humans within natural systems – which helps to better understand the complex causal nature of emergent social-ecological phenomena.
However, accounting for and capturing the structural and dynamic complexity of SES is a challenge in itself. Failure to do so may lead to misinformed governance processes or policies resulting in unsustainable, maladapted, or surprising outcomes in the short or long term. The Working Group on Governance of Social-Ecological Systems aims to focus on challenges and opportunities offered by diverse conceptual avenues to analyze the emergence of SES phenomena by assessing the dynamically evolving interactions between system components. The conceptualization of such an SES analysis will: 1) capture the intertwinedness of the social and ecological entities that contribute to a system’s phenomenon; 2) explore complex dynamics that underlie them and their effects on the system; 3) help build hypotheses about pathways towards sustainable governance of SES and system resilience; and 4) support multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research.
Objectives
We want to build an interdisciplinary community of ESG researchers interested in improving theories, concepts, models, frameworks, and tools to better grasp the intricacies of the human-nature interface and respond to the multiple challenges of studying emergent SES phenomena. These challenges are, for instance, context-dependence, complex causality, intertwinedness, multi- and transdisciplinary communication for case description and analysis, or hypotheses-building.
The discussions within the Working Group will focus on: 1) outlining and specifying problems or opportunities we find in studying SES and SES governance; 2) the different approaches or tools for conceptualizing SES, explanatory mechanisms, and causal pathways; 3) how these approaches or tools can tackle diverse goals (e.g., explanation vs exploration vs futuring) and propose diverse methods; 4) case studies and their specificities; and 5) proposing solutions to encountered challenges in order to open up new avenues for researching SES.
The formats in which the group works and meets may comprise the following
- Regular meetings (every 2 months): Building an online community
- Webinar series
- Panel sessions at the Annual Conference on Earth System Governance
- Organizing workshops related to the topic of the Working Group
- Special feature or issue in a sustainability-focused, interdisciplinary journal, e.g., ESG
- Working on an ESG-edited book
- Policy Briefs
- Paper seminars – presenting ready-to-be-published manuscripts
- Discussions about conceptual challenges with other ESG Taskforces
Systems we study
- Lakes https://limnoscenes.org/
- Small-scale food systems (fisheries & agriculture)
- Agricultural systems (innovations systems and food security)
- Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus
- Trade-off situations between Sustainable Development Goals
We welcome early career researchers, senior academics, and experts in the field to become members of the Working Group on Governance of Social-Ecological Systems. Please get in touch with me if you are interested.