| 1. |
- Stålhammar, Sanna
(författare)
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Reconnecting with nature through concepts : On the construction of values in the ecosystem services paradigm
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The alarming rates of extinction and degrading ecosystems call for new means of understanding and accounting for how people depend on nature. Ecosystem services (ES) is a contested but widely applied concept aiming to connect ecosystem functions to human wellbeing and to assess and account for how nature matters in decision-making. More diverse frameworks and ideas of value intended for assessments are emerging to incorporate an array of disciplinary perspectives from the social sciences and humanities. This calls for closer examination of how human-nature relationships (HNR) are construed and captured. This thesis aims to critically examine and diversify the conceptualisations of value and human-nature relationships within the ecosystem services paradigm. In doing so, it follows the moving target of concepts intended for ES assessment of social value. By drawing on philosophy of science and qualitative methods in the social sciences, I examine theoretical foundations of ES concepts while also studying HNR and values empirically. Empirically, the thesis is based on fieldwork in Sweden, in Cape Town, South Africa, and in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In five papers, I investigate concepts or ‘arenas’ where values or benefits of nature are theoretically conceptualised and/or articulated by citizens and practitioners. Paper I is an analysis of existing critique of the ES concept and demonstrates how the idea of values used to describe human-nature relationships within ES has been influenced by economic theory. Paper II is an analysis of how Swedish focus group participants construct and perceive the values of their recreational experiences. The analysis highlights people’s emotional and self-evidential relationships with nature and thus shows a poor fit with the consequentialist framing of ES valuation. Paper III investigates what the concept of relational value (RV) adds to three fields and their value concepts: environmental ethics; ecosystem services valuation; and environmental psychology. It shows how RV solves methodological problems within ES valuation, due to narrow conceptualisations of intrinsic and instrumental value, and enables widely different interpretations of what relationality means for studying HNR. Paper IV is an empirical study based on interviews with civil servants and practitioners working with green space and biodiversity management in Cape Town. It shows diverse values and perceptions of biodiversity as a management challenge, emphasises the need for recognition of the importance of urban nature in green space planning, but also points to the limited usefulness of socio-cultural valuation in highly diverse cities. Paper V explores how the biocultural diversity framework can be an advancement over the ES to study HNR in cities in the global south, based on insights from fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro. It shows that BCD can be suitable to study HNR in highly culturally and biologically diverse cities but further theoretical and context-sensitive adaptations are required. As a whole, the thesis outlines theoretical and empirical challenges of including place-based and qualitative social science knowledge in the ES paradigm. It calls for a re-thinking of the focus within ES to go beyond concepts of value and descriptive modes of assessments, in order to create more inclusive and diverse conceptualisations of HNR.
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| 2. |
- Stålhammar, Sanna, et al.
(författare)
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‘Urban biocultural diversity’ as a framework for human–nature interactions: reflections from a Brazilian favela
- 2020
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Ingår i: Urban Ecosystems. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1083-8155 .- 1573-1642. ; 23:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Biocultural diversity (BCD), denoting the ‘inextricable link’ between biological and cultural diversity, has traditionally highlighted the coevolution between highly biodiverse regions and the ethnic–linguistic diversity of indigenous communities. Recently, European researchers have relaunched BCD as a conceptual foundation for urban greenspace planning capable of overcoming challenges of the ecosystem services paradigm. However, the methodological foundation for this particular approach to ‘urban BCD’ is still in its infancy, obscuring preciselyhowthe framework is an advancement for studying different urban residents’ experience of and connectedness to nature and biodiversity. In this paper, we further develop the urban BCD concept by using the culturally and biologically diverse city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as a ‘critical case’. First, we employ qualitative field methods to investigate manifestations of human–nature relationships in thefavela(informal settlement) of Rocinha and the neighbouring Tijuca Forest. Second, we reflect on how the urban BCD framework and methodology emphasise i) interrelationships, ii) varied group values and iii) participation, and iv) are sensitising and reflexive. Our findings challenge the ‘usual’ narrative aboutfavelasas places of environmental degradation and disaster risk, revealing BCD and nature connectedness that are as related to popular culture, fitness ideals and citizen-building, as to traditional livelihoods and spiritual beliefs. Departing from interrelationships, BCD can portray aspects that a narrow focus on ‘services’ and ‘disservices’ cannot, but attention should be paid to how operationalisation risks perpetuating ecosystem services thinking. Nevertheless, we identify promising avenues for its use in highly diverse cities with unequal access to natural areas.
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| 3. |
- Wamsler, Christine, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental and climate policy integration: Targeted strategies for overcoming barriers to nature-based solutions and climate change adaptation
- 2020
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Ingår i: Journal of Cleaner Production. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-6526. ; 247, s. 119-154
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Nature-based adaptation planning is a challenging endeavor, not least because it requires transdisciplinary approaches to unite different actors' efforts and capacities. However, empirical knowledge on associated governance processes is scarce and fragmented. Against this background, this paper examines the integration of nature-based approaches for climate change adaptation into municipalities’ daily planning practices and associated governance. A city-to-city learning lab was established to systematically analyze selected urban development projects step-by-step, from the initial idea, to comprehensive and detailed planning, procurement, implementation, maintenance and follow-up. The results show the numerous constraints municipal staff face and how they use targeted strategies to overcome them and tap into existing drivers. We identify five, complementary strategies: i) targeted stakeholder collaboration; ii) strategic citizen involvement; iii) outsourcing; iv) the alteration of internal working structures; and v) concealed science–policy integration. Importantly, these strategies reveal an increasing need for relational approaches that, in turn, require individuals to develop the cognitive/emotional capacity to establish trust, communicate inclusively and promote social learning, while at the same time dealing with an increasingly complex and uncertain working environment. We conclude that tapping into the potential of nature-based solutions for climate adaptation governance requires more financial and human resources, and capacity development to support personal development, systematic mainstreaming and, ultimately, more sustainable development.
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| 4. |
- West, Simon, et al.
(författare)
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A relational turn for sustainability science? Relational thinking, leverage points and transformations
- 2020
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Ingår i: Ecosystems and People. - : Informa UK Limited. - 2639-5908 .- 2639-5916. ; 16:1, s. 304-325
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In sustainability science, revising the paradigms that separate humans from nature is considered a powerful ‘leverage point’ in pursuit of transformations. The coupled social-ecological and human-environment systems perspectives at the heart of sustainability science have, in many ways, enhanced recognition across academic, civil, policy and business spheres that humans and nature are inextricably connected. However, in retaining substantialist assumptions where ‘social’ and ‘ecological’ refer to different classes of entity that interact, coupled systems perspectives insist on the inextricability of humans and nature in theory, while requiring researchers to extricate them in practice – thus inadvertently reproducing the separation they seek to repair. Consequently, sustainability researchers are increasingly drawing on scholarship from the ‘relational turn’ in the humanities and the social sciences to propose a paradigm shift for sustainability science: away from focusing on interactions between entities, towards emphasizing continually unfolding processes and relations. Yet there remains widespread uncertainty about the origins, promises and challenges of using relational approaches. In this paper, we identify four themes in relational thinking – continually unfolding processes; embodied experience; reconstructing language and concepts; and ethics/practices of care – and highlight the ways in which these are being drawn on in sustainability science. We conclude by critically discussing how relational approaches might contribute to (i) a paradigm shift in sustainability science, and (ii) transformations towards sustainability. Relational approaches foster more dynamic, holistic accounts of human-nature connectedness; more situated and diverse knowledges for decision-making; and new domains and methods of intervention that nurture relationships in place and practice.
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