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- Martínez Peña, Rodrigo, 1980-
(författare)
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Complex causality : Bridging analytical sociology and social-ecological systems research
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Understanding the complexity of social-ecological phenomena like climate change, ocean acidification, and biodiversity loss requires interdisciplinary collaboration. However, scholars that engage in interdisciplinary work face the challenge of grasping other disciplines’ causal reasoning. Without proper understanding of the presuppositions, theoretical commitments, and justificatory support behind other approaches’ causal claims, it is difficult to build systemic representations and to know how well they capture phenomena, which limits the usability both for further research and to inform action. The overarching purpose of this thesis is to develop conceptual tools to navigate the diversity of causal reasoning in SES research, in general, and between analytical sociology and SES research, in particular. This is achieved in four essays. In essay I, me and my co-authors introduce Analysis of causal argumentation, a method to analyse causal claims and their justificatory support; we demonstrate its use by applying it to a selection of nine diverse and influential studies; we found that different forms of questions, data accessibility and justificatory support causal claims that vary in terms of the type of causal information they capture, strength and scope of generality, but no approach scores high in all. In essay II, we move from the rather methodological aspect of making causal claims to investigate how causal reasoning is shaped. We propose the framework Co-Map to explain how substantive theories, methods, accounts of causation, analytical foci, and causal notions, assemble different forms of reasoning. Through four in-depth studies, we show that researchers’ choices on these elements create path dependence that influence what each approach can capture; the case studies are analytical sociology, dynamic systems modelling, ecological modelling and the process-relational analysis. In essay III, we present the social-ecological Coleman’s diagram to facilitate integration between analytical sociology and SES research on the grounds of mechanism-based reasoning. Colemans diagram is a tool to think about micro-macro relations typically used in sociology; we show how it can be used for social-ecological phenomena. In essay IV, I move from abstract tools to a concrete attempt to link analytical sociology and SES research. In this paper, I bring together a model of behavioural diffusion from sociology and a model of population growth from ecology into Cod-rush, an empirically informed agent-based model that advances a generative hypothesis of opportunistic fishing that explores outcomes of fishery collapse and non-collapse.
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| 2. |
- González García-Mon, Blanca, 1993-
(författare)
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Harvesting from land and sea : Social relationships, trade networks, and spatial connectivity in changing social-ecological systems
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the era of global change, the connectivity of aquatic and terrestrial food production systems across spatial scales is increasing. At the same time, diverse actors that participate in food systems, from production to consumption, face the need to adapt their daily activities to an increasingly changing context. This thesis aims to better understand actors’ responses to social or environmental changes in food systems that are characterized by their cross-scale dynamics and social-ecological interactions. The four papers that constitute this thesis address this overarching aim by investigating two processes that are important in responding to changes and creating spatial connectivity between geographical locations: trade (Papers I-III), and spatial diversification or actor’s geographical mobility (Paper IV). The papers analyze fisheries and agricultural systems in Mexico and South Africa, using interview-based data collection and analysis, network analysis, agent-based modeling, and combinations of these methods. Papers I-III specifically examine how trade networks, which are embedded in social relationships and networks that operate across spatial scales, can influence the responses of food system actors to multiple types of changes. Paper I shows that trade relationships across fisheries and agricultural systems are generally embedded in stable business relationships characterized by reciprocity. Paper II finds that different trade network structures in a multi-species Mexican fishery can buffer changes in fish availability and create cascading effects between different species and geographical regions. Paper III describes four types of social networks consisting of relationships within and across scales that enable responding to multiple types of changes in a South African agricultural trade network. Paper IV identifies potential factors, such as environmental changes, that could influence changes in fisheries actors’ spatial diversification observed in Mexico. The thesis contributes to social-ecological systems research with theoretical insights regarding the embeddedness of trade networks in multidimensional social relationships within and across scales, where diverse types of social relationships and networks can influence fishing and farming practices. In addition, it highlights that spatial and temporal heterogeneity can have a key role in responses to changes based on spatial connectivity. Finally, the mixed-method methodology applied in this thesis enables simultaneously analyzing networks and processes in social-ecological systems, while illustrating the challenges and opportunities of method integration.
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| 3. |
- Orach, Kirill, 1987-
(författare)
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Understanding interest politics in social-ecological systems : Mechanisms behind emergent policy responses to environmental change
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Environmental policymaking is embedded in social-ecological systems (SES) that continuously evolve and change, often in unexpected and non-linear ways. Such challenges call for responsive policymaking that adjusts policy when new information and knowledge about social-ecological change is available. However, policy adaptation can be difficult as policies often emerge as an outcome of multiple interactions between state and non-state actors that pursue their different interests, aim to achieve their individual and shared goals and make sense of information and knowledge. Complexities inherent in SES can be better captured through diverse types of information and knowledge, while adaptation to social-ecological change can occur through innovation and learning. Research has emphasized the contribution of non-state actors or interest groups in realizing such processes in policymaking. However, interest group participation can also be a source of conflict or result in dominance of powerful interests and resistance to learning and policy change. This thesis aims to shed light on the dynamics of the policy process in social-ecological systems to better understand some of the mechanisms that drive its responsiveness to social-ecological change. It focuses on interest groups and their properties as well as the social and ecological conditions of their participation in the policy process to investigate how responsive and sustainable policies can emerge out of the “messy” political struggle. The thesis first explores the case of 2013 EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform to trace the mechanism of interest group influence and identify their contribution to the flow of information from SES. Further it applies the empirical mechanism in an agent-based model to: 1) test the scope conditions of the mechanism; 2) extend it to include interest group responses to change in the managed SES. Paper I of the thesis analyses theoretical frameworks of the policy process originating in public policy research to assess their suitability for capturing political complexity in SES governance research. Paper II looks at the CFP reform case, using process tracing to understand how interest groups have been able to achieve influence on the reform. Paper III further investigates the case to find the role of interest groups in shaping information flows within the policy process. Paper IV uses empirical findings in Papers II and III, along with frameworks analyzed in Paper I to develop an agent-based model that explores how individual characteristics of political actors in interaction with political conditions and issue characteristics influence the responsiveness of the policy process and result in sustainable outcomes. I find that through interest group participation policies can better respond to change in the managed SES; however structural factors (such as presence of institutional ‘window of opportunity’, issue salience and beliefs of policymakers) can make the response adverse or weaken it. Interest groups also engage in transmitting and interpreting diverse information about policy impacts, social and ecological context of the issue and use framing to convey information that better supports their proposals.
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| 4. |
- Elsler, Laura G.
(författare)
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The complexity of seafood trade relations across scales
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- There is growing concern about the unprecedented rise in international seafood trade that relies on increasingly overused and climate-driven fisheries. Seafood trade relations, the multi-dimensional relations between fishers, traders, and countries for seafood exchange and other interactions, are central in the process of globalization. Despite empirical evidence of their importance, (bio-)economic models that inform fisheries management usually reduce trade relations to price dynamics. Here, I aim to understand better the role of seafood trade relations for models that guide the sustainable and equitable management of globalizing fisheries. I studied traders' collusion in Mexico (Paper I), fisher-trader relations in Indonesia (Paper II), countries trade relations in a global network study (Paper III), and fisher-market relations in a theoretical model (Paper IV). I demonstrate that seafood trade relations are affected by social-ecological change (SEC), such as climate change. Their responses, in turn, influence how other fishery actors, such as fishers, are affected. Together these interactions shape the importance of seafood trade relations to SEC. These insights suggest that seafood trade emerges from, interacts, and co-evolves with seafood trade relations across scales, which needs to be represented in management models that analyze the 'interplay of seafood trade relations with globalizing fisheries'.
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| 5. |
- Lindkvist, Emilie, 1973-
(författare)
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Learning-by-modeling : Novel Computational Approaches for Exploring the Dynamics of Learning and Self-governance in Social-ecological Systems
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- As a consequence of global environmental change, sustainable management and governance of natural resources face critical challenges, such as dealing with non-linear dynamics, increased resource variability, and uncertainty. This thesis seeks to address some of these challenges by using simulation models. The first line of research focuses on the use of learning-by-doing (LBD) for managing a renewable resource, exemplified by a fish stock, and explores LBD in a theoretical model using artificial intelligence (Paper I and II). The second line of research focuses on the emergence of different forms of self-governance and their interrelation with the dynamics of trust among fishers when harvesting a shared resource, using an agent-based model. This model is informed by qualitative data based on small-scale fisheries in Mexico (Paper III and IV). Paper I and II find that the most sustainable harvesting strategy requires that the actor values current and future yields equally, cautiously experiments around what is perceived as the best harvest action, and rapidly updates its ‘mental model’ to any perceived change in catch. More specifically, Paper II reveals that understanding these aspects in relation to the type of change can yield not only increased performance, but also, and more importantly, increased robustness to both fast and slow changes in resource dynamics. However, when resource dynamics include the possibility of a more fundamental shift in system characteristics (a regime shift), LBD is problematic due to the potential for crossing a threshold, resulting in possible persistent reductions in harvests (Paper I). In Paper III, results indicate that cooperative forms of self-governance are more likely to establish and persist in communities where fishers’ have prior cooperative experience, fishers’ trustworthiness is more or less equal, and that this likelihood increases when resource availability fluctuates seasonally. Finally, to achieve a transformation toward more cooperative forms of self-governance, interventions are required that can strengthen both financial capital and trust among the members of the cooperatives (Paper IV). The unique contribution of this thesis lies in the method for ‘quantitatively’ studying LBD, the stylized model of a small-scale fishery, and the analysis of the two models to advance our understanding of processes of learning and self-governance in uncertain and variable social-ecological environments. Together, the results shed light on how social and ecological factors and processes co-evolve to shape social-ecological outcomes, as well as contributing to the development of novel methods within the emerging field of sustainability science.
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| 6. |
- González-Mon, Blanca, 1993-
(författare)
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Cross-scale mechanisms and adaptation strategies in Small-Scale Fisheries
- 2020
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF) are increasingly facing shocks and changes that affect their capacity to provide food and maintain the livelihoods of millions of people who depend on fishing activities. At the same time, SSF influence and are influenced by interactions across scales, where interdependencies between different places are increasingly evident. In this context, there is a need to better understand actors’ adaptation to such changes, explicitly considering actors that participate in post-harvesting activities and their associated cross-scale interactions. This licentiate thesis aims to understand cross-scale mechanisms that influence the adaptation strategies of SSF actors to environmental changes. The first manuscript (Paper I), contributes towards understanding the spatial diversification (or the mobility of fisheries actors across space) in response to environmental changes. The second manuscript (Paper II), investigates how local trade networks can influence the resilience of fish provision at the individual and the system level. Both manuscripts analyze the influence of the social and social- ecological context in which SSF actors are embedded. They address the effect of fisheries institutions and policies (Paper I), and of the social-ecological network structures in which trading takes place (i.e. local trade networks in Paper II). To investigate these cross-scale mechanisms, I use a combination of methods consisting of network analysis and agent-based modelling, grounded in qualitative empirical research of the case study of Baja California Sur, Mexico. Such combination of structural and dynamic research approaches, with the understanding of a single case study, allows to untangle and interrogate how structures and mechanisms interact in SSF. The results of the two manuscripts describe cross-scale mechanisms in SSF to investigate actors’ adaptation strategies to different environmental changes. They show how such adaptation can create interdependencies between different places, which may ultimately influence outcomes associated to the resilience of SSF at different scales. In addition, the results show how institutions, social and social-ecological relationships can play an important role in influencing the capacities of small-scale fishery actors to adapt to environmental changes. In this way, this licentiate contributes to the cross-scale understanding of small-scale food production systems from a social-ecological perspective.
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