grz for tokyo city univ guest lecture
TRANSCRIPT
Presentation given Nov 30, 2012
Tokyo City UniversityFaculty of Environmental and Information Studies
Yokohama, Japan
Keith G. Tidball, [email protected]
Community-based Ecological Restoration to Enhance Resilience and Transitions Toward Peace
Greening in the
Red Zone
What does this…
…have to do with this ?
Why do humans turn to nature, and restoring nature, in the wake of conflict and disaster?
Of what use might greening in human vulnerability and security contexts be in managing social-ecological systems for resilience and transitions to peace?
HUMAN VULNERABILITY & SECURITY CONTEXTS ….
+ +Population growth Climate Change Resource scarcity
= Red Zones
ROAD MAP FOR TODAY
• Definitions, Context, & Study Site
• Research Question in the form of Retroductive Hypothesis/Model
• Framing
• Initial Models
• Mining for Mechanisms (results)
• What Does It All Mean?
• Broader Context & Application
What is a red zone?“Red Zones” refer to multiple settings (spatial and temporal) that may be characterized as intense, potentially or recently hostile or dangerous, including those associated with terrorist attacks and war, as well as in post-disaster situations caused by natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes.
What is greening?• “Greening” is an active and integrated approach to the appreciation,
stewardship and management of living elements of social-ecological systems.
• Greening takes place in cities, towns, townships and informal settlements in urban and peri-urban areas, and in the battlefields of war and of disaster.
• Greening sites vary -- from small woodlands, public and private urban parks and gardens, urban natural areas, street tree and city square plantings, botanical gardens and cemeteries, to watersheds, whole forests and national or international parks.
• Greening involves active participation with nature and in human or civil society (Tidball and Krasny 2007)—and thus can be distinguished from notions of ‘nature contact’ (Ulrich 1993) that imply spending time in or viewing nature, but not necessarily active stewardship.
Some examples
Replanting of the Urban Forest of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Living Memorials creation throughout NYC, Washington D.C. , and Shanksville, PA after 9/11
Establishment of Band-e- Amir National Park in the midst of conflict in Afghanistan
Conservation efforts in demilitarized border lands in the Korean peninsula and between Greece and Cyprus
Restoration of Iraq’s wetlands, supported by community-based natural resources management among Iraq’s Marsh Arabs & partnerships with the scientific community
Evidence of the importance of greening
scientific journal articlesscholarly bookspopular press and news media public initiativeswebsitesblogs
RED ZONE-- HURRICANE KATRINA & THE NEW ORLEANS SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEM
Image by NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite or GOES.
Context - Study Site
Context - Study Site
A FOREST OF SYMBOLS
Context - Study Site
LAND COVER & CANOPY IMPLICATIONS
Context - Study Site
Wang & Qu, 2009. Assessment of post-hurricane forest damage using optical remote sensing. Spie. http://spie.org/x35463.xml
Chambers, J. Q., J. I. Fisher, et al. (2007). "Hurricane Katrina’s Carbon Footprint on U.S. Gulf Coast Forests." Science 318: 1107.
NEW ORLEANS CANOPY LOSS
Context - Study Site
Nowak, D. J. and E. J. Greenfield (2012). "Tree and impervious cover change in U.S. cities." Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 11(1): 21-30.
Photo of New Orleans after Katrina - NOAA
AVG -1.8
“A FAILURE OF RESILIENCE” AND OTHER (PREMATURE?) EPITAPHS
“All Coherence Gone: New Orleans as a Resilience Failure” (R. Westrum, 2006)
Context - Study Site
RETRODUCTIVE RESEARCH QUESTION
• General- If greening is happening in red zones, what could the model and theory be that might explain greening’s occurrence?
• Specific- If, despite the dominant discourse of a failed city, tree planting is spreading throughout the city of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, what models, built of mechanisms, can explain this phenomena?
Research Question
WHAT FRAME?
Harré, 1986. Varieties of Realism: A rationale for the Natural Sciences. Oxford, Basil BlackwellBhaskar, 1989. Reclaiming Reality. London and New York: Verso.Bausch, 2001. The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory. New York: Plenum.Bhaskar, 1979. The Possibility of Naturalism. Brighton, UK: Harvester..
)(Harré & others)
(Sayer)
(Bhaskar 1979)
Framing
The purpose of scientific activity no longer stands out as a statistical putting together of surface phenomena in an observed reality. The important thing … becomes to conceive this reality as an expression for, or a sign of, deeper-lying processes. Alvesson (2000)
A LITTLE MORE ON RETRODUCTIVE MODELS…
• Models are built of mechanisms such that, if they were to exist and act in the postulated way, they would explain the phenomenon being examined .
• Underlying mechanisms can only be known by constructing ideas (models) about them; and models reveal the underlying mechanisms of reality.
• Emphasizes tendencies of things to occur, as opposed to regular patterns of events.
Framing
METHODS – A MIXED MODELS APPROACH
Track 1 Greening Orgs
Phase 1
In-depth interviews (5)
Document analysis
Phase 2
GIS Mapping
Track 2Trees & Recovery
Phase 1
Exploratory interviews (30)
Phase 2
In-Depth interviews (30)
Photo Essay (5)
Track 3Tree PLANTING & Recovery
Phase 1
Exploratory interviews (30)
Participant Observation
Phase 2
Participant observation tree
planting
Phase 3
In-Depth interviews (25)
Photo Essay (5)
Phase 4
Focus group
Phase 5
GIS Canopy and Surface area
analysis
(Tashakkori and Teddlie 2003)
Retroductive modeling: via multiple literature and theory synthesis Iterative methods and data “mash-up” – difference between ”field data” & “experimental data”
Ethnographic qualitative methods
GIS quantitative methods
What models, built of mechanisms, can explain Greening in Red Zones?
ROAD MAP FOR TODAY
Definitions, Context, & Study Site
Research Question in the form of Retroductive Hypothesis/Model
Framing
• Initial Models
• Mining for Mechanisms
• Approaches & Findings
• Broader Context & Application
Experience loss, grief, helplessness and turn to nature in form of trees for solace
Recognize in natural assets (trees) a place to start anew, to move beyond loss, grief , helplessness
Begin action to enhance, restore natural assets, which recovers symbols, rituals and sense of place
Catalyzes ??
Initial models
SECOND MODEL… A SEARCH FOR MECHANISMS
Tidball, KG & ME Krasny. 2008. “Raising Urban Resilience: Community Forestry and Greening in Urban Post-Disaster and Post-Conflict Contexts.” Paper presentation at meetings of the Resilience Alliance, “Resilience 2008,” Stockholm, Sweden: April.
Initial models
MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS…
What Initiates?
Repeat & Expand?
How much?
What kind?
Initial models
WHAT MIGHT INITIATE GREENING?
What Initiates?
Urgent Biophilia
Restorative Topophilia
MemorializationMechanism
Social-Ecological Symbols and Rituals
Tidball, KG. 2012. Urgent Biophilia: Human-Nature Interactions and Biological Attractions in Disaster Resilience. Ecology and Society, 17(2).
Tidball, KG & RC Stedman. Positive Dependency and Virtuous Cycles: From Resource Dependence to Resilience in Urban Social-Ecological Systems. Ecological Economics. Doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.10.004
Tidball, KG, ME Krasny, E Svendsen, L Campbell, & K Helphand. 2010. Stewardship, Learning, and Memory in Disaster Resilience. “Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems: the Role of Learning and Education,” Special Issue of Environmental Education Research, 16(5): 341-357.
Tidball, KG (Accepted; expected 2013). Trees and Rebirth: Social-Ecological Symbols, Rituals and Resilience in Post-Katrina New Orleans. In: Tidball and Krasny, Eds., Greening in the Red Zone: Disaster, Resilience, and Community Greening. Springer publishing.M
echanisms
PD*
*Positive Dependency complex
Mining for Mechanisms
MECHANISM 1 = URGENT BIOPHILIA
URGENT BIOPHILIA
• Attraction humans have for the rest of nature (and the rest of nature for us?)• Process of remembering that attraction • Urge to express it through creation of restorative environments
• restore or increase ecological function• confer resilience across multiple scales
(Holling and Gunderson 2002)
Based on Biological Attraction Principle (Agnati et al. 2009)
Analogous to Newton’s Law of Gravitation
Biological activities, processes, or patterns are all deemed to be mutually attractive
Biological attractive force is intrinsic to living organisms and manifests itself through the propensity of any living organism to act
Tidball, KG. 2012. Urgent Biophilia: Human-Nature Interactions and Biological Attractions in Disaster Resilience. Accepted at: Ecology and Society.
Mining for Mechanisms
MECHANISM 2 = RESTORATIVE TOPOPHILIA
• Topophilia = love of place (Tuan, 1974,1975,1977)
• Emphasizes attachment to place and the symbolic meanings that underlie this attachment
• Base for individual and collective action that repair and/or enhance valued attributes of place
• Not only attachment, but also on meanings (Stedman, 2003,2008)
• Urgent biophilia & restorative topophilia together comprise “positive dependency”
• Positive dependency is resource dependence that enhances resilience, rather than eroding it
Tidball, KG & RC Stedman. Positive Dependency and Virtuous Cycles: From Resource Dependence to Resilience in Urban Social-Ecological Systems. Submitted to: Ecological Economics.
Mining for Mechanisms
MECHANISM 3 = MEMORIALIZATION • spontaneous and collective memorialization of lost ones through gardening and tree planting
• community of practice emerges to act upon and apply these memories to social learning about greening practices
• confers SES resilience, through contributing to psychological–social resistance and resilience and to ecosystem goods and services production
Tidball, KG, ME Krasny, E Svendsen, L Campbell, & K Helphand. 2010. Stewardship, Learning, and Memory in Disaster Resilience. “Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems: the Role of Learning and Education,” Special Issue of Environmental Education Research, 16(5): 341-357.
Mining for Mechanisms
MECHANISM 4 = SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYMBOLS & RITUALS
http://candychang.com/sexy-trees-of-the-marigny-2011-calendar/
Tidball, KG (Accepted; expected 2012). Trees and Rebirth: Social-Ecological Symbols, Rituals and Resilience in Post-Katrina New Orleans. In: Tidball and Krasny, Eds., Greening in the Red Zone: Disaster, Resilience, and Community Greening . Springer publishing.
Mining for Mechanisms
MECHANISM 4 = SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYMBOLS & RITUALS II
N = 34Mining for Mechanisms
MECHANISM 4 = SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYMBOLS & RITUALS III
N = 36
Mining for Mechanisms
HOW DOES THE CYCLE REPEAT & EXPAND?
Desired systemVirtuous cycle
Undesired systemVicious cycle
potential for action perpetuating virtuous cycle
barriers to change
(bifurcation zoneor ridge)
potential for actions perpetuating vicious cycles
Repeat & Expand?
Mining for Mechanisms
“GREENING” VIRTUOUS CYCLE MECHANISM
Repeat & Expand?
“VIRTUOUS”
4. Ecosystem services
1. Greening activities commence
3. Natural capital
2. Individual & family well-being
Feedback “primes” virtuous cycle to repeat and expand
Mining for Mechanisms
RED ZONE VICIOUS CYCLE
“VICIOUS”
5. Depletion of social capital
3. Natural capital eroded
4. Loss of ecosystems services
1. Red Zone community
2. Rioting, looting, etc. undermine individual and family well-being
Feedback “primes” cycle to repeat and expand
Repeat & Expand?
Mining for Mechanisms
QUANTIFYING TREE PLANTING EFFORTS
How much?
Mining for Mechanisms
ROAD MAP FOR TODAY
Definitions, Context, & Study Site
Research Question in the form of Retroductive Hypothesis/Model
Framing
Initial Models
Mining for Mechanisms
• What Does It All Mean?
• Broader Context & Application
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
FINDING 1 -- There appears to be a “greening in the red zone process or cycle” that contains fundamental key sequential components, but that likely is nuanced on a case-by-case basis reflecting landscape, disturbance intensity, and other factors .
2. Use available green assets1, Individuals gravitate toward available green assets for therapeutic benefits- different paths/pace 3. Clusters form-
communities of practice
4. Restore and create new green assets
5. Larger greening movement emerges
6. Greening activities recover & restore sense of
place
7. New sites recruit new individuals; expand cycle
Social-ecological system recovery & resilience processes
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
FINDING 2 -- Within this “greening in the red zone process” there are at least five important mechanisms that explain how the system functions from one sequential frame to the next:
• Urgent Biophilia
• Restorative Topophilia
• Memorialization
• Symbol & Ritualization
• Expansive Virtuous Cycles
Positive Dependency
Red zone commences
Social-ecological system recovery & resilience processes
2. Use available green assets; experience therapeutic benefits
1, Individuals gravitate toward available green assets for therapeutic benefits- different paths/pace 3. Clusters form-
communities of practice
4. Restore and create new green assets
5. Larger greening movement emerges
6. Greening activities recover & restore sense of
place
Urgent Biophilia
mechanismRestorative Topophilia
mechanism
Memorialization mechanism
SES Symbols & Rituals mechanism
Virtuous Cyclemechanism
IMPLICATIONS & APPLICATIONSAre there examples of this besides the New Orleans case?
Application for DNR? How do we go about “…maximizing biodiversity, enhancing and sustaining ecosystems, mitigating climate change, and managing natural resources in partnership with local groups, state agencies, and national and international environmental organizations...” in ephemeral, perturbed social-ecological systems like red zones?
The greening in the red zone modeland mechanisms may be a beginning …
Big picture issues
• Humans have lost their ecological identity; how can it be remembered and recovered ?
(Clayton & Opotow, 2003; Clayton 2003)
• Are there clues about how we might recover
our ecological identity in the way humans respond
to large scale disasters?
• How should we value community-based ecological
restoration in human vulnerability and security
contexts?
“…humans may be heavy hitters, but we must remember that nature bats last.” David Suzuki
CONCLUSIONS
Things to walk away with:
• Possible utility of methodology that is pragmatic and well-suited for coupled biophysical/social research
• A greening in the red zone process or cycle model
• contains fundamental key sequential components
• nuanced on a case-by-case basis reflecting landscape, disturbance intensity, and other factors
• Five greening in the red zone mechanisms
Thank you!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Ontological Assumptions Part IA Realist orientation…
Often, researchers conflate descriptions with objects.
1. The world is real, independent
of us.
2. Things exist, act independently of our descriptions.
3. Reality concept-dependent, not
concept-determined.
4. Descriptions = world of ideas
(transitive).
5. Objects = world of reality & nature
(intransitive).
Ontology
The ultimate objects of social scientific enquiry exist and act independently of social scientists and their activity. (Bhaskar 1989)
Empirical
Actual
Real
Socia
l Rea
lity
Epistemology – Critical realism
Social reality is viewed as a socially constructed world, a result of:
• social actors’ cognitive resources (i.e., the social has to be interpreted and understood)
• material but unobservable structures of relations
TRANSITIVE & INTRANSITIVE • We must distinguish between intransitive structures and mechanisms and transitive
concepts, theories and laws that are designed to describe the former.
Transitive = changing dimensions of scientific experience such as different historical conceptions of the world
or
Ptolemy’s planetary motion Copernicus’ planetary motion
Epistemology – Critical realism
Intransitive = causal mechanisms science seeks to discover and which exist in themselves regardless of whether or not humans exist.
TRANSITIVE & INTRANSITIVE CONT.
If the atomic model of oxygen is correct and oxygen does indeed have six electrons in its outer orbit and two electrons in its inner orbit, this is an ontological feature of oxygen atoms that is intransitive to our various theories and conceptions (the transitive) of oxygen. That is, according to Bhaskar, oxygen possesses these properties in itself, not merely for us, and these properties act and do their thing regardless of whether anyone knows it. Science is the search for these mechanisms, and requires a practice in order that they might be revealed or discovered.
Epistemology – Critical realism
As adapted from Holling and Gunderson (2002), a stylized depiction of the four ecosystem functions ( r, K, Ω, α) and the flow of events among them. Arrows show flow speed in the cycle; closely spaced arrows represent slow change and long arrows represent rapid change. The cycle reflects change in two properties (1) the Y axis is potential inherent in accumulated resources; (2) the X axis is the degree of connected among controlling variables. The transition from the K phase to the Ω phase is depicted here as ‘The Red Zone.’ Expression of biophilia is also represented, corresponding to the Y axis and potential. Low connectedness is associated with loosely connected elements whose behavior is dominated by external relations and variability. High connectedness is associated with elements whose behavior is dominated by internal relations that control or mediate external variability. The ‘back loop,’ in green, represents the stage during which urgent biophilia is likely expressed. The exit from the cycle at the left of the figure suggests the stage where the potential can leak away and where a ‘flip’ into a less organized and desirable system is likely.
WHAT FRAME?
Harré, 1986. Varieties of Realism: A rationale for the Natural Sciences. Oxford, Basil BlackwellBhaskar, 1989. Reclaiming Reality. London and New York: Verso.Bausch, 2001. The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory. New York: Plenum.Bhaskar, 1979. The Possibility of Naturalism. Brighton, UK: Harvester..
)(Harré & others)
(Sayer)
(Bhaskar 1979))
Framing
WHAT FRAME?
Harré, 1986. Varieties of Realism: A rationale for the Natural Sciences. Oxford, Basil BlackwellBhaskar, 1989. Reclaiming Reality. London and New York: Verso.Bausch, 2001. The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory. New York: Plenum.Bhaskar, 1979. The Possibility of Naturalism. Brighton, UK: Harvester..
)(Harré & others)
(Sayer)
(Bhaskar 1979))
Framing
SO, WHY RETRODUCTIVE?
Inductive Deductive
Retroductive
WHAT’S THIS ABOUT?
Big picture issues
• Humans have lost their ecological identity; how can it be remembered and recovered ?
(Clayton & Opotow, 2003; Clayton 2003)
• Are there clues about how we might recover
our ecological identity in the way humans respond
to large scale disasters?
• How should we value community-based ecological
restoration in human vulnerability and security
contexts?
Context
“…humans may be heavy hitters, but we must remember that nature bats last.” David Suzuki
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/01-9
INITIAL MODELS… IMAGINING MECHANISMS
“…there will be social mechanisms behind management practices based on local ecological knowledge, as evidence of a co-evolutionary relationship between local institutions and the ecosystem in which they are located.” Berkes & Folke 1998
NOT GARDENS …
Context - Study Site
CRITICAL REALIST NUANCES AMONG “NATURAL” & SOCIAL WORLDS
1. Social structures can’t exist w/o natural world
2. Social products less enduring than natural structures
3. Social structures not independent of
social actors conceptions
4. Social systems more open than physical systems
5. Yet, social actors able to act upon and transform physical
systems
Framing
Personal Ecology
Social Ecology
EnvironmentalEcology
CosmicEcology
Wimberley 2009
Nested Ecologies
Gunderson & Holling 2002
Panarchies
Three points of analysis
Trees
Tree Planting Tree Planters
One Community of Practice
Tree Planting(Practice)
Trees(Domain of Knowledge )
Tree Planters(Community)
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Wenger, E. (1998). "Communities of Practice: Learning as a Social System." Systems Thinker , June.Smith, M. K. (2003, 2009) 'Communities of practice', The Encyclopedia of Informal Education, www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm. Daniel, Schwier et al. (2003) “Social Capital in virtual learning communities and distributed communities of practice.” Canadian Journal of Learning & Technology 29(3):113-139.
QUANTIFYING TREE PLANTING EFFORTS
How much?
Mining for Mechanisms
GIS ANALYSIS – CANOPY
How much?
Mining for Mechanisms
GIS ANALYSIS – SURFACE AREA
How much?
Mining for Mechanisms