Lecture notes:

Table des matières

Plan: ............................................................................................................................................ 2
Exam: ......................................................................................................................................... 2
Lecture 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................... 3
Lecture 2: Systems thinking: ...................................................................................................... 6
Lecture 3: Resilience: ............................................................................................................... 11
Defining resilience ............................................................................................................... 11
Understanding key concepts in resilience thinking .............................................................. 13
Conférence : Se repenser dans un contexte socio-environnemental : le rôle des émotions ..... 15
Charline Urbain (psycho, émotions et cerveau). .................................................................. 16
Tilman Hertz (émotions pour élargir nos compréhensions) : ............................................... 17
Lorette Moreau (théâtre, expérimentation des émotions) : .................................................. 18
Myriam Bahaffou : ............................................................................................................... 19
Discussion ............................................................................................................................ 21
Lecture 5: Ecosystem Services: ................................................................................................ 21
Valuation .............................................................................................................................. 23
Types of research on ES: ...................................................................................................... 26
Assessments: ........................................................................................................................ 27
Lecture 6: Stewardship: ............................................................................................................ 28
Lecture 7: Political ecology, environmentality and environmental conflicts: ......................... 34
What is a discourse? ............................................................................................................. 36
Lecture 8: Complexity .............................................................................................................. 41
Frameworks and models in complexity: .............................................................................. 48
Institutional complexity: ...................................................................................................... 50
Conclusion:........................................................................................................................... 53
Lecture 9: Intertwinedness and Process-relational perspectives .............................................. 54
Why conceptualisations matter? ........................................................................................... 54
Intertwinedness ..................................................................................................................... 55

Maria Mancilla Garcia. Call her Maria.

Studied Political Science, then journalism, then environmental governance. MA in Envi
studies, PhD in Development Studies (Titicaca pollution analysis, political ecology, socio-eco
systems). Before ULB she was working for the Stockholm Resilience Centre (water
governance in Peru and Brazil, environmental justice, exclusion, power, participation, …).
Social-environmental dynamics focus.
She will post slides and a lecture summary after classes.
Questions to start:
• Which session seem closer to your area of expertise?
• Which seem further away?
• Which session do you feel most interested in?
• What do you expect to learn?

Plan:

Le 08/03 c’est le 05/03.

All the lectures interact with one another.
- Lecture 5 = the role of emotions in sustainability sciences. Rethinking ourselves in
that frame.
Chthulucene: Harraway’s reaction to the Anthropocene term, form of provocation. She’s
against the catchword, there is a momentum with these terms at the moment (resilience,
Anthropocene, …). Thus, she created a term that cannot become a catchword.

Exam:
Essay to write, 1 question to be chosen among 3. Answer thoroughly, in an argumentative
way.
3h, English or French.
No expectation to reference.
Lecture 1: Introduction

Commonalities and differences?

- Terms sometimes mixed up, but the terms matter and reflect different schools and
backgrounds.
- Questions also what term you start with, which one is at the forefront?
- ‘Dynamics’: things are not mechanic. Versatile term that allows a plurality of
disciplines to tackle the topic. We are talking about constant change, movement!
- A binary division, mutually exclusive blocks NATURE/HUMAN. But there is a
hyphen, a connexion, connecting the blocks. The presence of the hyphen tells that we
lack words to think both at the same time. The hyphen is a symbol that reflects our
lack of capacity to think the intertwinedness.

o We interact with the environment: we cannot make

sense of the forest without thinking about societies. The forest shapes human
societies too! The boundaries are blurred. The forest is a social-ecological
reality.

o Comes blurring the thing even more. Village: we

cannot identify a distinction between a social and an environmental part.

Intertwinedness: we cannot separate social and environment.

Arrows as having an effect on, as drivers on other systems.
On the right side “harvesting” as a social practice, has an impact on environmental dynamics.
But is still represented in a distinctive way.
Here: coupled. We can see interactions, embedded circles. And arrows. Trying to couple
them, but they still remain separated…

Here: idea of embeddedness. The arrow going through tries to get things together. But we still
have self-contained donuts: if you actually cut in one, there is an effect on the others! We still
lack the interdependence, the “coupled systems”.
➔ All these pictures are representations of the profound distinction between
“societies”/”humans”/”culture” and “nature” that has been produced and constructed
with the emergence of a certain (and socially + historically situated) philosophical
thought that has now become dominant and has rendered us incapable of thinking both
together, at the same time, in a jointed way.
o Comes from the era of modernity in the West. Scientific revolution. Pragmatist
philosophers’ production. We can trace it back to the bifurcation of nature.
▪ Bifurcation of nature consists of separating nature (what exists) into 2
types of qualities: primary and secondary qualities, like properties.
o This separation echoes other separations: there are a lot of dichotomies that
structure our thinking. Object/subject, culture/wilderness, rationality/emotions.

➔ Everything that exists (things) have essential qualities that are theirs (primary). And
these things/substances are apprehended by our minds (secondary). The mind is
 putting qualities into these things. The things we experience are not always related to
what we experience, but mostly to the mind way of perceiving it.
➔ The point is the humour of Whitehead, the exaggeration of the modernist production
of being. He identifies how absurd some of the separations are.
The separation is not necessary: it comes from a certain place, a certain time.
Modernity (our inheritance to separate both) has also created an ordering of the world
with specific categories and fixed boundaries. And that is extremely successful!
However, those fixed boundaries might not always exist, and does not allow us to
study “reality”.
A bee cannot be understood if separated from the
flowed. You cannot study a bee in isolation!
Metaphor of the socio-environmental dynamics.

Fable in
which
scientists
were asked to identify the most important part of
the elephant. If you look at something blindly,
just at a portion of it, you miss the majority.
Because the scientists were all assigned one part,
they were incapable to identify the holistic
importance of the body. Separation is diminishing.
These representations organise the way we know, we understand the world. But has been
criticised in sustainable thinking, as the very thing that blocks us to understand and act on the
environmental issues.
It separates things in a way that are context independent! Often, we find a formula and apply
it to completely different contexts (agriculture science for example).
- The development practitioners of the Nile wanted to help developing the Nile river,
but destroyed the richness of the river: it relied on floods, but they prevented them. It
has had serious implications for the region.
- Same in Bali, Water Temples: Lancing
studied their role. During the green
revolution, these temples were thought to
be a religious/spiritual practice that had
nothing to do with agriculture. So,
agricultural intervention that encouraged
farming based on pesticides and
fertilisers, with the purpose of
maximising production. But the water temples actually communicate between one
another! It works as an amazing organisation of water use: the pest could not travel
from a place to another. It was invisible to the practitioner: they saw it as a spiritual
object. But both religious and agricultural practices worked together! Western
centrism rendered practitioner’s blind!
 - In other places, this separation is not the case, is not
valid! Not saying that everything in modernity is bad.
Other conceptualisations of the world exist and are
effective, operative.

Beyond the dualism.

Earth-beings are together, they exist together. Challenges the classic anthropology: she asks
us, readers, to embrace the view of the world (the paradigm) of the people she studies. The
mind/body, objects/subject’s separation is considered as not useful to understood the world
view of the people she studies. A mountain is an object, a human a subject (animated). But we
should not think that humans are the only ones acting. Rather, they are together, they coexist,
and as such are place. The place exists because humans and mountains are together, they
constitute the place: the place is the togetherness, the ensemble.
Ayllu = communal organisation in the Andes, Quechua name. She is redefining the term: in
anthropology the term is understood as a form of organisation of villages, but it needs to be
understood as a relation. It is not a relation of worship/veneration: it is not that these people
think that the mountains are god. The sacred mountain if understood like that requires a
distinction. But here, it is rather a togetherness mountain-human.
➔ There are other places in which the “modernity” logic is not valid, is not followed. The
paradigm, the logic is different. They occur together, as such they are place.
➔ The modernist separation nature/culture comes with a lot of other distinctions.
➔ The separation that structures our way of being/thinking comes from a certain place
and time and has become dominant. Before that were the Middle Ages, and the duality
did not exist with the strength and range we see today. Production of the 16th century.
PROCESS RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVE: emerging theory/perspective. Relations are what
exists before things exist. The relations make them what they are. Systems. The idea of
processes brings the idea of changes.

Lecture 2: Systems thinking:

There are many definitions of a system, plurality of theories. But they agree on 1 thing:
➔ The sum is more than the parts.
This approach asks us to go beyond the parts. The origins of this approach are in the 20th
century. Came as a reaction to reductionism: was separating components, to highlight the
keys, the fundamentals, decompose and study the cumulative properties. Super limited
approach, especially in biology! We can see this in the picture.
 Each of the ant’s properties don’t simply add up to
create this bridge: they create a new system with
their interactions rather than just adding their
properties. When studying an ant isolated, you
wouldn’t be able to see what they can do together.

Ludwig von Bertalanffy. He criticised reductionism,

and believed we must understand interactions, the
links between the parts. We can see it in the ants’
picture. You need a perspective that goes beyond the
cumulative parts. For that reason, systems aren’t just a collection of things, but things glued
together in a new way.
What a system is not? Difficult task
to define systems. Some concepts
help:

➔ Boundaries: a system perspective acknowledges that the systems we study are open
systems. For which the boundaries are not clear, hard to say when/where it starts and
stops.
In the picture, we see how difficult it is to define the boundaries of a system. Will the
boundaries depend on the challenges? In the pic it is about food system. Based on
spatial criteria? If you study the village, you stop at the river upstream for example.
Based on social criteria? You study certain people. Based on time? etc.
Difficult concept, but first entry in the system lens.
o We could consider the landscape as an emergent outcome, as in the picture.
➔ Emergence: extremely difficult concept.
o Important notion in the complexity thinking: brings different approaches
together, but agreement about the fact that what makes something complex are
the links, the glue, what holds things together, the relations.
▪ Complex things are not “complicated”: when complicated you must
entangle, decompose it. Could be an administrative procedure (forms
involved, schedules, …).
Complex has specific links, changing processes. Thus, linked to the
idea of systems.
Emergence is a debated concept. It is an outcome of the interrelations that we observe
in a system.
 The heart is emergent: none of the cells alone can make the heart pump, but
together they do.
The mind/conscious, awareness is also emergent. We know these things exist,
so it proves there is a certain emergence.
The problem is that we do not have enough knowledge to explain it, it is a debate.
Others say that there are outcomes and processes that are characteristic of certain
systems, and that cannot be predicted: only explained when they have happened. An
emergent property cannot be predicted before it happened. Not the parts, nor the
links/relations can explain emergence. A social norm is an emergent outcome of a
system.
It is a different thing than a system, rather a system features emergence.
The picture is an image on agent-based
model (actors follow rules that they
follow, and the model produce
outcomes that are used afterwards). It
is a study about the types of people
that you want to have around you
(Schelling model).
The parameters are that each actor has
a mile preference (they want 1/3 of
their neighbours to be the same origin)
to be in a neighbourhood. If you
ensure that, you end up with an extremely segregated neighbourhood.
→ Could be considered as an emergent outcome. But criticised (not emergent, unrealistic)
➔ Levels: when you identify links, you might observe that
some links are stronger than others. Can help defining
levels. Several links can have specific types of effects
on other processes. A level constitutes a context to other
levels. You can distinguish scales.
Within the system (stronger relations e.g.). defining the
start and end of levels is difficult.
They present different rhythms.
Predator and prey are different levels. The predator
level has a constraining effect on the prey.
The higher the level, the less the entities that are part of
this level (pyramid).
Exercice: pick a system (a football team, coastal area, city, …)
Forest system (tropical)
- Boundaries: different spatial boundaries (birds, snake, trees, people living in the
forest, people logging the wood, hunters).
- Parts: humans, animals, plants, waters, soil, subparts (like humans not going to a
part of the forest).
o Education, knowledge, nature sensitivity
- Relations: easy to think of.
- Levels: system of a single tree versus the entire forest.
Parts – Interactions – Functions
Hospital:
- Levels difficult to define (health public policy, …).
- Parts: cleaners, doctors, nurses, …
- Relation hospitals-society nowadays (incoming + outcoming patients) =
emergence? Rather an open system (in/out). The impact it has on society could be
seen as an emergent outcome. The taxis integrated the network of hospitals during
the pandemic, transporting sick people.
A film set:
- Actors, the machines, the stage, …
- The director level, the distribution level, …
- Outcome = beauty?

➔ Feedbacks: there is a process that feeds back, loops back. If we change a variable, that
change leads to further differences. Imagine a lake, profusion of algae. Prevents the
sun to penetrate the lake. Makes it difficult for the communities around to access the
lake and fish. What happens is that local populations shift from fishing to another
thing. But this action reinforces the loss of fish already started by the profusion of
algae: feedback process.
In the image: coffee and energy available for work. Addiction is typically a feedback
process (the one that takes, needs more with time).
o Balancing feedbacks: comes to regulate an effect. You have a normal state,
then perturbation, then a balancing feedback brings you back to the normal
state (the sweat for example).
o Delayed feedbacks: we know that the destruction of habitats leads to the loss of
species, but in a delayed way.
Typically used in feedback studies:
o Causal loop diagrams allow to make explicit relations of causation. Image is
about the role of profit for sustainability.
Loops here produce reinforcing feedbacks.
You can decompose the diagram.
▪ The + sign means that a factor that
increases (A), variable B increases.
 They are positively linked. When A decreases, B decreases too! This is
the positive link.
▪ If negative, if A increases, B decreases.
Imagine we have strong environmental conservation and consumption.
The more the conserve, the less you produce: negative link.
▪ The R summarises the consumerism loop.
Representation of links between people
(here clans in Madagascar) and the
relations between the clans, and the link
between forest patches: linked to people
and to themselves. There are flows from
parts to others. You have 3 types of link:
- Red lines: links between clans (family
links, friendship, trade, …). Red dots are
the clans.
- Green lines: Forest patches connected
(movement of species).
- Blue lines: links between the clans and the
forest patches. These are social-ecological
links.
Aim is to understand better how the social
and social-ecological links might lead to
specific outcomes. When studying
networks, you can ask 2 questions:
- How do they come to be the way they are? Why does the network above look like
that?
- What do they produce?
Allows to conceptualise connections between apparently separate systems, that are in fact
connected. Method used to work with public officers, to understand governance processes,
particularly the notion of “fit”. Asks whether governance is easier or better if we observe
social connections to fit.
The use of social-ecological network is a good fit for the questions we raise about systems.
Not for everything, but for the interconnections yes.
Different disciplinary approaches:
Ludwig von Bertalanffy and open systems: there is a continuous exchange between
environments that allows life to continue. Could be applied to any field, just thinking in
certain terms. Most influential approach within sustainability sciences.
Many of the social scientists have engaged with the concept of systems. Has been deepened in
organisational studies. Many debates about the status, the ontologies of systems.
 ➔ A very common question: do systems exist in the world, or is it a tool/lens to make
sense of the world. Offers a set of conceptual tools. Remains an open question. Two
trends
o System thinking: systems exist in the world.
o Systemic thinking: it rather is an approach to make sense of the world. We
don’t discover something that is in the world. There are complex processes in
the world and we have this tool to make sense of it.
▪ Soft system thinking/perspective: systems as creative constructions
composed of meanings that people attribute to their systems. Broad
type of studies. Aim: understand the meaning people attribute to the
dynamics they study.
▪ Critical systems thinking: awareness of the consequences of framing in
a certain perspective. A more reflexive approach that provides a
reflective comment on the study of systems.
The debate helps clarify things when reading papers: does the author describe
something that is real, or considers it is a tool?
Social sciences criticisms: strong rejection in social sciences towards mechanistic approach.
A systems perspectives focuses on STRUCTURE (the links) and on FUNCTION (leading to
something), thus ignores some aspects! It disregards other processes, it choses what to focus
on. It is not neutral, like any other perspective and theory. Many system studies have ignored
power dynamics in the past. It tends to disregard key social processes like culture.
That’s why some stay away from the idea of systems, rather talk about dynamics and
processes. To avoid engaging with these debates. If boundaries are difficult to find and to
define, why should we try to? Work on the fluidity of boundaries. Practice, intertwinedness,
perception, dynamics, movement.
◼ ((Question for myself: WHERE/WHEN DO WE STOP? How to know if the
boundaries you’ve subjectively set make any sense at all? How to know that the web
you see isn’t simply the human-eye / your projection on something that “is” not
isolated from your understanding of what you experience ? How to avoid the risk of
creating a system, because you project this view on “stuff”)).

Lecture 3: Resilience:
Defining resilience
Difficult concept to define.
It is an etremely used concept, not always clear. Strongly associated with sustainability.
Sustainability is a normative concept: it tells you a path that is right. But resilience, originally,
was not a normative concept. Sustainability tells you that what is right is to not destroy the
planet. Resilience was a description of something.
It arises in several disciplines, we will focus on ecology. But stems from psychology, too.
Resilience is the capacity of a system to deal with change, and maintain its identity, to
develop in that direction. Resilience thinking pushes to think that shocks lead to renewal.
People who do models of SES, think quantity of change that a system can undergo. Or in
terms of degrees to which they can reorganise, learn, adapt. There are different kind of
flavours in the definition, but summed up in the reading definition.
Resilience thinking is larger than resilience. It builds on the hypothesis that humans and
nature are coupled. It means that in our planet, there aren’t ecosystems untouched. No people
without the need for ecosystem services.
The picture tells us about states: we see lakes at similar
conditions. We can think they were in similar conditions.
Yet, they look different. Why? Because they actually are
in different states. The states are the main functions and
structures of systems.
The one on the left is turbid, dominated by cyanobacteria
(too much phosphorus pollution). On the right it is a
clearwater lake. The lake on the left has probably shifted states.
It is not easy to transition from one state to another. A change is a substantial difference in the
function.
States are studied with ball and cup diagrams: helps to represent to change in states. When a
system flips to another regime, it is complicated to come back. A state isn’t a fixed variable.
Variability has limits, it is called thresholds. Certain regimes are preffered to other ones.

Threshold: it is a limit, the amount of change a variable can undergo until the system
changes. It is about non linear change, not incremental change. A shift in regimes leads to
different actions. The main links and structures that characterise a system then change. It
comes as a result to shocks or gradual change. It is easy to think shocks (hurricane, or a coup
e.g.), because it overwhelms the system feedbacks. But happens also with gradual change,
which is harder to grasp and manage (accumulation of pollutants, the destruction of certain
habitats, …). It slowly erodes the dominant feedbakcs until it reachs a threshold with no
return. It doesn’t mean that every variable has a threshold, but a certain combination can make
a system shift. Regime shifts in complex systems are strong as you cannot go back: an
addition of pollutants changes a system, but withdrawing the pollutants won’t mean going
back to the previous state.
Regime shifts: understanding regime shifts is a discipline in itself. It came from mathematics,
a sub discipline the studies the dynamics of systems. Strong influence for sustainability
science. Dynamical systems can represent the systems as self-organising around some
attractors. There are works also on empirical evidence. Exercice: www.regimeshifts.org .
transformation is about action/capacity, not the same. A regime shift happens/is an ouctome,
transformability is navigated. Regime shift is associated with catastrophic regime shifts, but
discussion about that in academia. Regime shift is at the opposition of resilience. Regime shift
is unintentional, while transformability is intentional.
Trap: you get stuck in an undesired state/regime. You cannot leave this state. You cannot get
your lake back to clearwater. But whose desire are we talking about?
Leverage points: a leverage point is a point in the system (variable or relationship between
variables) where a small change can have a large impact. Columbia: indigenous knowledge as
a leverage point, as their knowledge can lead to more sustainable types of engagement with
the environment, it opens up to different conceptualisations. By including indigenous people
in formal state governance, you obtain a very positive impact.
Understanding key concepts in resilience thinking
The adaptive cycle: tells about
processes and dynamics of SESs. It
brings attention equally to processes of
destruction and reorganisation. It shows
the dynamism of a system. It presents 2
phases:
- White: Slow phase of growth and
accumulation. Here, stability
increases, connectedness
strengthens. It can lead to the
dominance of certain dynamics,
but diversity remains. Skills,
networks, relationships, are developed from r to K.
- Black: Back loop, rapid phase of reorganisation and renewal
Idea of disturbance, diversity,
selforganisation, memory for
renewal.
This cycle is useful to
conceptualise the degree of
change, the cycles through
which SES go. It is a tool to

make sense of certain dynamics in time, but it is

important to think about the adaptive cycle as
one of many levels. They are always nested in
hierarchy across time and space. That hierarchy
provides for different things. If you think about
the higher level, it provides memory:
stabilising. The lower level would provide
novelty and innovation.
Panarchy = this nested cycle. No system can be understood when looking at one level. Space,
time, social organisation, … scales are crucial.
Invented concept:
- Pan = persistance, conceptualisation of resilience.
Revolt and remember: different scales have different temporality and effects. The larger one
is conceived as providing the conditions (forest would moderate the climate within an area,
the species would benefit from that). In each level you can still find the adaptive cycle, the
dynamic circle.
Panarchy brought the idea that you can’t freeze a system, stop being in the idealised set of
fixed conditions: panarchy stops that. It helps governance methods. It helps to conceptualise
the constant change. Fires in forest: in some areas, they’ve tried to suppress any kinds of fires,
but fires are useful for forest systems. By not letting any fire to happen, the forests are too
connected and become vulnerable. The panarchy perspective has tried to open up the range of
scales for policy operation. It pushes for the need to incorporate this lens when managing.
Managing Social-Environmental Dynamics : 7 aspects (but nuanced perspective!). How to
use resilience in practice?
➔ Diversity and redundancy:
o Diversity (response): if something affects a component, not the entire system is
affected. It is not always a good thing. Can reduce the possibility for adaptation
o Redundancy (functional): like an insurance system, if something stops
working, other things fulfill that task. You have several species of insects that
fulfill the same function (redundant respective to that function).
➔ Managing connectivity. Connctivity deals with how and how much system
components interact or disperse.
o Well-connected systems can better recover from disturbances by ensuring there
are diverse links to sources of recovery, or by providing information, for
example.
o Overly connected can lead to rapid spread of disturbances or the
homogenization of knowledge. Example of forest fires.
➔ Managing slow variables and feedbacks.
o A slow variable is one with a rate of change that is slower relative to the
timescale of a given ecosystem service
o A feedback is an effect that loops back to what caused it.
➔ Foster Complex Adaptive Systems thinking. Acknowledge that there are connections
at multiple scales, unpredictability, uncertainty, non-linear change and multitude of
perspectives. Foster this kind of thinking is key for maintaining resilience. Move away
from fixed level thinking. Allow the movement to happen.
➔ Encourage learning: individual or collective. Learning understood as experimentation,
trust, relationships, safe space to learn, … and decide what type of learning matters for
which thing.
Encourage the 3 types:
o Single loop: actions (are we doing things right? Am I teaching right?)
o Double loop: assumptions (are we doing the right thing? Is it important to
teach what I’m teaching?)
 o Triple loop: context (how do we decide what is right/matters?).
Learning never stops: SES are characterised by change, so you must revise knowledge
constantly. Understand how learning occurs!
➔ Broadening participation: active inclusion of relevant stakeholders in governance.
➔ Promote polycentric governance:
o “many centres of decision making which are formally independent of each
other” but functionnally dependent
▪ In water governance, you have lots of levels of decision-making
(regional, national, european, …) and other independent centres (urban
planning, land management, …). They’re functionnaly dependant as
their functions are dependent!
The idea here is that polycentricity enables all the other principles (learning,
redundancy, …). You need coordination.
Resilience assessment steps: continuous way of
engaging with a system, first step is
preparing/scoping.

Wayfinder: new perspective on

resilience. It is a type of resilience
assessment. It is very intrinsically
collaborative, it builds on collaboration.
It has been conceived to ge through.
https://wayfinder.earth/resource-library/
- Exercice: think about a system,
its historical timeline. Identify events, … adaptability, change, resilience,
transformability, shocks, adaptation (what made it possible?).
https://wayfinder.earth/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/activity-sheet_work-card-12-
1.pdf
Think recurring events, so cycles! Learning. Polycentricity (what actors are involved,
effects, redundancy). And idea of participation, transdisciplinarity. Different moments
of change, variability. There are different types of knowledges, and all of them are
valid.

Conférence : Se repenser dans un contexte socio-

environnemental : le rôle des émotions
Paradigme : conception du monde, ordonne la science et les epxlications envisageables.
Qu’y a-t-il à comprendre. Va au-delà de la science, percole dans l’organisation du savoir et de
la société en général. Le paradigme dominant actuel ne permettrait pas de faire face à la crise
(environnementale et d’identité individuelle et collective).
Il faut donc changer de paradigme, qui sépare environnement et société. Cette vision du
monde n’est pas nécessaire, elle n’existe pas partout et pas depuis toujours. Hérité de
Descartes ou Locke. Ancré dans la production du savoir occidental. Sépare la
rationalité/raison des émotions, entre autres.
Pour changer de paradigme, des travaux s’intéressent au rôle de l’émotion dans de nombreux
domaines. L’émotion permet de mieux comprendre les dynamiques socio-environnementales.
On prend le concept dans son sens large : anxiété, envie d’agir, joie, satisfaction après action.
Charline Urbain (psycho, émotions et cerveau).
L’hypothèse universelle :

Les chercheurs ont montré que ces émotions sont exprimées de façon automatique, donc pas
de contrôle sur ces émotions. Peut être exprimé de façon inconsciente. Les émotions sont
influencées par la culture, l’apprentissage donc l’environnement. Il y a des boucles de
rétroaction : émotions-environnement, environnement-émotions.
Influence des émotions sur les comportements, et donc l’environnement : les émoitions nous
protègeraient face à des situations dangereuses. Peur, permet de réagir par la fuite, la colère
nous met en état de combat, … Cela va nous rapprocher des autres.
Au niveau du cerveau : cortex
préfrontal, amygdale, et rattaché à ça,
l’hippocampe. Une partie de notre
réactivité émotionnelle est régie par
l’amygdale. Très puissante et active,
notamment chez l’enfant. La réactivité
de l’amygdale diminue avec l’âge, car
zone gérée, contrôlée, par le cortex
préfrontal, qui vient réguler les
émotions.
L’amygdale joue un rôle important dans le perception et l’expression des émotions.
Hippocampe centrale dans l’apprentissage, la mémoire. Les émotions ont un impact important
sur notre capacité à mémoriser les faits. Associer émotions et apprentissage c’est important.
L’amygdale est en interaction proche avec le cortex préfrontal. L’amygdale influence les
comportements, comme la motivation (œuvre à des tâches) ou inhiber certaines de nos actions
(peur, protection, …). C’est géré via l’interation entre ces 3 régions.
Notre cerveau est précablé pour réagir au danger, à la peur. On l’observe clairement. Les
bébés ont des prédispositions innées pour identifier des stimuli dangereux. Le circuit du
danger est très présent dans le cerveau. Il y a des zones particulières qui s’activent face à des
émotions négatives, pas le cas pour les émotions positives.
L’environnement influence nos réactions émotives : au niveau cérébral, boucles d’actions
amygdale qui influence cortex préfrontal, mais aussi cortex préfrontal qui régule/tempère ka
réactivité de l’amygdale : boucle.
Les parents jouent un rôle de régulateur des émotions pour les enfants par exemple.
En analysant les réseaux du cerveau de participants exposés aux attentats de Paris, on voit que
certains ont une forme sévère d’anxiété, et d’autres non. On voit que le cerveau des
participants fonctionne différemment.
➔ Pose la question de la résilience : interactions complexes entre prédispositions
génétiques et facteurs environnementaux.
Comment l’environnement peut-il nous aider ?
- Laisser s’exprimer les émotions, il ne faut pas les atténuer. Il faut y être à l’écoute.
- Mettre en place des interventions pour réguler ces émotions. Pensée complexe,
systémique, éducation à l’empathie, …
Donner des outils en termes de communication. Permettre le savoir participatif.
La puissance de la métaphore, qui serait la clé de voute de nos pensées. Donc
importance de la culture, de l’art, …
➔ À l’université, on met en place des projets dans cette direction. Magazine participatif
visant l’éducation à la complexité, la transversalité, notamment en matière climatique.
Diffusion des savoirs sur les thématiques de la durabilité. Intégration des notions de
durabilité dans les enseignements. Mise en place d’un conseil étudiant au
développement durable.
Tilman Hertz (émotions pour élargir nos compréhensions) :
Emotions, concept, et la gouvernance socio-environnementale. Les émotions ont un rôle
important pour une conceptualisation de Socio-envi plus sensible. Peut amener de nouvelles
conceptions.
Pouvoir du langage, des concepts qui le
comosent. Offre la possibilité même de
comprendre le monde. Le langage a une
dimension ontologique, définit le monde, permet
de penser le monde. Nous sommes piégés dans le
langage.
Concept de système socio-écologique, concept
horrible : il ne reflète pas ce que les gens entendent par là, vu qu’ils veulent penser un
système, uni. Mais le corpus conceptuel ne permet pas la symbiose. Donc produit des façons
de le penser, de le gérer.
Les concepts posés orientent les solutions dans une voie spécifique. Les problèmes et
solutions sont déterminés via les concepts ! S’en suit que différents concepts peuvent
permettre de nouvelles conceptions. On peut connecter cela, c’est en évolution constante. Il
faut être conceptuellement équipé pour un monde en constant changement.
➔ Exemple : les « subaks » : culture de riz balinaise. Reconnu comme de simples
systèmes d’irrigation. Mais en fait comprend les forêts, les temples, les rizières, des
villages entiers, … pensée en réseau. Phénomène émergent. Philosophie qui propose
une harmonie nature-humain-spiritualité. Les rituels produisent une relation entre les
gens et l’environnement : le riz est un don de dieu, donc relation profonde nature-
humain. La révolution verte est arrivée à Bali, et de là le vocabulaire
technoscientifique les a cantonné à des systèmes d’irrigation. Les acteurs de la
révolution verte fonctionnaient avec une logique de résultats, donc solutions
techniques pour croissance (autre riz, fertilisants, …). Vision de l’agriculture dans
laquelle relations sociales et spirituelles n’existent plus.
Montre la puissance de certains concepts. Après une courte période de production,
augmentation des pest problèmes. Car les rituels avaient un rôle dans la bonne gestion
de l’irrigation !
Le déterminisme conceptuel et langagier est-il
absolu ? Métaphore du bateau. On ne peut sortir
du langage, mais les concepts peuvent évoluer,
de façon progressive.
Comment peut-on imaginer cela ? Pour la gouvernance environnementale, quels concepts
appropriés, dans un monde en constant changement.
➔ Charles Sanders Peirce, thèse de l’abduction (versus induction/déduction). Induction et
déduction partent de postulats opposés, mais les schèmes conceptuels sont fixés et
déterminés. Dans l’abduction, on commence par les phénomènes, et on spécule sur ce
qui aurait pu les créer. La spéculation ne doit pas être déterminée conceptuellement :
on peut transcender la conceptualisation. Le tout c’est de produire de la connaissance.
Les émotions arrivent alors
comme des possibilités de
transcender les concepts !
Elles alimentent et servent à
la construction de concepts
neufs. Les émotions ont une
place légitime. Il ne faut pas le purger du processus scientifique. Peut nous informer sur les
systèmes qu’on souhaite gouverner.
Lorette Moreau (théâtre, expérimentation des émotions) :
Partage d’expérience, arts de la scène. Parler d’un spectacle crise écologique et émotions
- On va bâtir une ile et élever des palmiers
o Pièce qui commence en 2014, les représentations annulées, COVID.
o Fiction théatrâle. Fait suite à des expérimentations méthodologiques. Auteur
dramaturge + matériaux documentaires et scientifique = convergence.
 o Histoire sur une ile déserte, où le protagoniste et le public sont les survivants
d’une catastrophe. S’inscrit dans les visions d’apocalypse. Question de
l’organisation collective. Se base sur communication empathique, gestion
collective des ressources, théories des groupes, …
o Gros focus empathie, psycho sociale, …
o Démarre de Jeremy Rifkin, « une nouvelle conscience pour un monde en
crise »
▪ Postulat : l’empathie est à l’origine des révolutions humaines. Nous
sommes mus par le désir de rentrer en relation. Va à contre-courant de
l’idée de l’humain loup pour l’humain. On est au bord d’un gouffre
anthropique, il faut élargir l’empathie à tous les vivants. Il bascule
ensuite dans l’idée d’un capitalisme vert, donc moins fou. Ce n’est pas
une adaptation de son livre.
▪ Méthode d’intelligence collective, sociocratie. A permis une
dynamique de travail fructueuse, facilitation d’intelligence collective,
…
o On est sur une ile déserte, donc métaphorique, on réduit tout à des archétypes.
▪ L’ile figure la terre
▪ Personifié l’entropie sous la forme d’un monstre affamé mais sympa.
▪ Les noix de cocos sont la seule et dernière ressource naturelle
▪ Bigorneau dernière espèce animale vivante, palmiers dernière flore.
Permet de créer un ancrage dans la métaphore. La scéno est composée de mots
qui composent le décor, donc langue importante.
o Part aussi de la collapsologie (Servigne, …). Ces lectures l’ont affectée
émotionnellement. Fait perdre les distance critiques, est venu taper dans son
écoanxiété. Abattement, angoisse, perte de sens, sidérée, paralysée, las, et aussi
fascination sous-jacente pour la catastrophe à venir. Elle est maintenant
revenue de cette collapsologie. Vision apocalyptique sont partout. Donc elle
s’interroge sur les dangers de ceette puissance narrative. A amené à…

- Solastalgia : il s’agit de partir des émotions suscitées par le flot d’informations autour
des crises actuelles. De les nommer, et de créer un espace temps pour les déplier, faire
des rituels de réconfort collectif.
o = néologisme inventé par Albrecht, pour définir cet état dans lequel on peut
être quand l’environnement familier se déteriore.
o Admettre l’écoanxiété, y plonger, pour comprendre de quoi elle est faite
o Qu’est-ce que la prise de conscience écologique produit chez les gens?
o Quels rituels peut-on imaginer pour créer des moments de réconfort ? Créer un
espace de régénération. Ressources pour dépasser la paralysie.
o Sera une installation/performance déambulatoire. Donner de la place au corps,
pensées écoféministes, …
Myriam Bahaffou :
La rage écoféministe comme nouveau geste écospéculatif de la pensée.
Ecoféminisme est adapté pour parler de l’émotion. C’est une manière de lire, comprendre,
vivre l’écologie, à partir des émotions. Assume la place de l’émotion. Mises au second plan,
mais justement point politique.Permet de pratiquer la lutte écologique.
Réappropriation de l’hystérie comme essentielle (partir à partir du genre), en contraste à ses
yeux de la forte présence de l’empathie, le soin, la douceur dans l’écoféminisme
contemporain.
➔ Histoire de l’hystérie : vient d’un papyris, associé à la femme. Hippocrate le reprend,
et en attribue l’origine à l’uterus qui se dit hysteria en grec, qui signifie la matrice.
Hystérie, hystéria, uterus, matrice. L’hystérie se lie de plus en plus à la féminité avec
le temps. Le terme est encore massivement utilisé dans les milieux féministes, pour
critiquer un féminisme qui dérangerait, qui serait trop proche de rage, haine, … donc
irrationalité.
Pourquoi les hystériques sont de retour ? les hystériques débordent d’elles-mêmes, elle ne
savent pas se tenir, qui sont dépassées par leur propre tempérament. Lié à la conception
mysogine du corps féminin. Le registre de l’émotionnel est relié à l’histoire de la construction
de la féminité. Opposé du rationnel, du froid, du distant. La « bonne femme ».
Intéressant dans le contexte écologique actuel car touche aux émotions, à la névrose,
psychose, … parler d’hystérie dans un monde en destruction parait approprié. C’est très
approprié face à la situation.
Deuxième niveau de lecture : dans le mouvement écoféministe. Selon elle, dans le discours
écoféministe contemporain, quand on parle d’émotions on pense care, empathie, donc registre
doux et de soin des émotions. Revaloriser ces émotions dans le mouvement face à l’histoire
qui valorise des émotions comme la haine, … on peut donc penser à partir d’ailleurs,
d’émotions comme soin et tendresse. Pourquoi ces émotions étaient dévaluées ? Car associé à
la femme. Mais les autres émotions sont aussi valables !
Les hystériques sont de retour : car apparait et disparait totu au long de l’histoire. Associé aux
sorcières, … puis aujourd’hui réapparition. L’hystérie revient régulièrement dans l’histoire
socio-environnementale.
Retourneons à la colère, la force, le courage. Les émotions sont un lieu de résistance, alors ne
choisissons pas seulement celles qui nous arrangent ! La rage écoféministe dans un monde de
destruction et detricotage des vies est une bonne attitude politique ! Descendre du mental pour
être dans le corps. Vivons en hystérique, lâchons prise pour vivre cela. Permettrait un regard
critique sur les systèmes de domination. Permet un décalage dans la narration. Narration
spéculative. On vient nourrir un imaginaire, on crée des histoires. On pense à côté des
chiffres, la prétendue rationalité. On tisse à partir de ce qui est par bribes, versus le récit
linéaire rationaliste global. Parler en hystérique c’est changer complètement de registre.
L’hystérie parle à partir des émotions, mais des émotions non admises, sales.
Tension entre émotions (individuelle) et action (collective). Donc comment faire pour que
l’hystérie se meuve en action ? Comment garder sa force sans qu’elle se détruise. Prenons
acte de cette colère, de cette rage. Parlons à partir de cette rage brute ! ça a une pertinence. La
colère n’est pas négative. Ne pas se laisser gagner par une bienveillance à l’extrême. À
l’intérieur de l’écoféminisme, trop de bienveillance, de gentillesse. Ne pas s’oublier.
Comment ne pas reproduire la domination ? Ce n’est pas parce que colère était le patriarcat,
destruction, qu’il n’est pas possible de se réapproprier la force, la destruction, la colère. Ne
pas s’excuser, parler fort, prendre de la place. Est-ce possible de faire cela sans reproduire la
domination
- Accepter la rage, car elle compose notre réalité. C’est une fenêtre sur notre monde.
- On peut parler d’écoféminisme sans être dans le care, fait un geste spéculatif.
Devenons collectivement hystérique.
Discussion
Attention à ne pas créer de binarité émotions douces / dures. Ne pas faire du « plutôt
hystérique ou care » ? Contextuel.
➔ Abordons les émotions ! Parlons-en dans nos cercles, réseaux, ateliers, …
➔ Anxiété, angoisse, sont des émotions complexes à (se) représenter. Donc informons-
nous, connaissons. Transformer cela en peur, en action. Accès à la connaissance, et
action. Transdisciplinarité, embrassons la complexité sur ces questions.
Quelle intersection art-recherche. Qu’est-ce que ça produit ? Maria fait du théâtre. C’est riche,
fructueux, ouvre une place à l’émotion dans la recherche. On peut alors parler d’émotions, la
boite est ouverte.
Comment les émotions pourraient aider à sensibiliser des personnes peu sensibles à
l’environnement ? Quelle place des émotions pour les personnes très investies ?

Lecture 5: Ecosystem Services:

What are ecosystem services?

Mini exercise: What are they? What does it mean? Reflect on the term service? What
socio-environmental relationship does it suggest? Type of exam questions
➔ For me, nature services to humans. But more: coproduction. Nature as an object?
ESS as services only to people?
o Drivers, but also coupled systems or even embedded systems. Not
intertwined (connectivity and cross scale interactions).
➔ Constanza: “the benefits humans derive from ecosystem functions”. Ecosystems
are presented as separate/excluded from the human. The functions presented are
presented as separated from humans. No coproduction in this. Plea/Aims at
drawing attention on the dependence of societies from ecosystems. It links nature-
society in an interesting way.
He tries to come up with a single figure to convey the value of ecosystem services
in the world. Lots of reactions: it doesn’t mean anything, it is too low (without
ecosystem there is no economy), or even what does that tell us? But these questions
fall short as it did mean a lot.
Great concept to understand words at play (language): programmes are done, plans are
there to govern and manage ecosystems. People measure them, they exercise different
types of attempted control.
Ecosystem’s goods and services: timber, food, fibres, control of floods and erosion in a forest,
biodiversity, … but goes also to recreation services, which are co-produced. Agricultural
system: the crops growing are a coproduced system.
It is an extremely influential concept. Lots of papers talking about it.

We can see that around the end of the 1990s something is happening, and same for 2005.
1997: important publications from Constanza. Key publication. See above.
2005: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment published. It
is a quite impressive endeavour launched in 2001 by
Kofi Annan. First time that there was a global effort to
assess the state of ecosystems in the world. It brought
together 1 300 experts from everywhere, 4 years of
work. Makes the ecosystem services popular. It was
very influential, insisted on the idea of wellbeing. Link
between society and ecosystem present. They classified
ecosystem services (picture).
- Supporting services criticised as not being
services but fundamental functions.
- Cultural = what does not fit anywhere else, and
that is social.
They provided also with a framework (way of seeing the world, selects what to pays attention
to, it formulates h). Different from theory as this tells you something about that, what you
should expect. A model runs hypothesis. You could refine their framework by doing more
research, and discover other arrows, …
As we see, there is a centrality of well-being in the framework. They classified well-being.
Width describes the intensity of the link. Colour is how you can intervene in governance and
mediation. The darker the arrow, the higher the potential for mediation.
Valuation
Fundamental aspect of ecosystem services. The economics perspective is important in it.
Environmental Economics versus Ecological Economics.
Ecosystems are not adequately valued: underlying ideas. If we value ecosystems correctly, we
will manage them better. It goes beyond human-made capital. Idea of natural capital.
But orientation towards markets (links values and prices). It is fair to say that ecosystem
services literature pushed to add value that reflects how much nature is worth. But has it
helped decision-making? That endeavour has had communication impact. It is intuitive
language for many people. There are different valuation methods, but not the point here. Do
not forget they all convey something, for example the willingness to pay.
So, basic idea: policies would be improved if we internalise the natural capital value. It
provides tools to choose between 2 services, by looking at the associated trade-offs.
It has been linked to the idea of payments for ecosystem services. People benefitting from an
ecosystem services should pay the ones providing it. If I am maintaining water clean for you
downstream, you should pay me. It was not intended for development but has been argued.
Payment for ES
timeline.
It has a past. Useful for
PES but also to broadly
work on the concepts
associated with ES
concept.
REDD+ (see “the
history of climate
change negotiations in
83 seconds). Idea of
reducing greenhouse
gases in the developing
countries.
Difficulties of PES:
- Only for selected aspects, it does not fulfil the facilitating policies’ mission.
- Markets change…
o Costa Rica launched the PES in 1997. Finca Santa Fe: it was a property where
coffee plants were being grown, close to a forest, where pollinators were
living. The ranch benefitted from the pollinators. What value of the pollinators
then? The owners switched crops, to transform the place into a pineapple
ranch. But not useful for pollinators. Thus, the market fell dramatically.
Shows how markets change rapidly, sometimes radically.
- Measuring systems? How?
- Difficulty of targeting/separating one service from another? Whom do you target?
- Risks when property rights are insecure. And economists need secure property.
Critique of PES: the critique differs from difficulties, as it goes into a criticism of the very
approach.
- The commodification of nature: the PES is conceived as a device leading to
commodification of nature. Meaning the extension of the market into areas that were
not part of the market. It has commodified for sure. But has it been a progression of
neoliberalism? Debated. Most PES are subsidies from the government, which
questions the idea of neoliberalism, but it is debated. Whom, how, who gets the money
are complex questions that don’t find a single answer in the critique. Neoliberal
sometimes, but also laws for land use change too… How the PES happens does not
find 1 answer. But risk of neoliberal focus is real critique.
- It has been difficult to integrate others’ perspectives in PES, especially critical
perspectives from social sciences, and even more critiques coming from other types of
knowledge. Social sciences critiques (see paper)
o Who has access? Who can derive benefits from ES? Skills and abilities to
extract a service, more than a right to. Bundle of powers. Most prevailing
critique from the social sciences.
o Problem of valuations: we have to value it. Leads to aggregation and
categories. As if systems were interchangeable.
o Not enough attention has been paid on changing ecosystems (biophysically).
Change is so central to conceptualising SED.
The link to policy: IPBES shows how strong science and policy work together. Many
scientists working on ES work with the IPBES. The provide assessments by thematic. It has
changed through the years.
➔ Willingness to bring other perspectives/types of knowledge to the discussion.
Different from the Millennium Assessment. Explicit will to bring in indigenous
knowledge, traditional knowledge, …
 ➔ They recognise the criticism that ES does not capture other visions and perspectives,
so they followed a proposal to change and stop using the term ES and start speaking
about nature’s contributions to people. It has ES in the name, but they use a different
term. Should you change or stick to a term…? Trial and error. Pragmatic approach or
stick to the term? Debatable.
New framework:
Nature has a bow.
In blue they try to show other
perspectives. Different language.
Numbers forming a circle.
Many things appear. Attempt to
integrate the criticisms and move
forward by expanding the
conceptualisation to other visions.
Idea of “intrinsic values” is new too.

Nature’s contribution to people:

term questioned. Beyond discussions around the terms, there were other fundamental
critiques.
- Nature is a problematic term, contested. Conveys this idea of wilderness and
separation from everything that is social. Reinforces the dichotomy. It excludes urban
systems for example.
- From nature to people, where is the complex relationships…?
- ES worked very well, so why changing? Not that it was not problematic as a term, but
now that it’s there and operational, shouldn’t we stick to it? This new term tries to
acknowledge a critique, being a more inclusive term. But does it? ES was a successful
communication tool about the importance of ecosystems.
Valuations: in the image, they try to situate nature’s contribution to people as respective to
where is the focus of value. Try to do the opposite of nature as opposed from society. Was
endorsed by IPBES. Relational, instrumental, non-anthropocentric values, terms again
debated.
 ➔ Centrality of values: “notions of appropriate or desired relationships between people
and nature”. The study of values is hype for the moment. Relationality,
intertwinedness, … relations are more important than the things that they relate. They
are more constitutive of what’s going on. Relational values come in, could give
another flavour to ES. Idea in the definition that relations have a value.
o The distinction between intrinsic, instrumental (direct use) and relational value
is problematic. What is interesting about relational value, is that the content of
the value is relational. All values are relational. Relational values are about the
content: what is valued is the relation. Rather than getting at the value through
the relation. The IPBES has endorsed the idea of relational values as a way to
give full importance to values that are not economic. The idea of intrinsic
value is problematic, as they bring in 3 meanings of intrinsic (inherent property
of an object, epistemically independent from human assessment, things with
values in/by themselves not for someone else) and conflate them. It is
problematic as it is difficult to imagine a value in the epistemic sense that is
independent from human assessment. You could not speak of them if
epistemically intrinsic! Conflation of 3 different things in 1. Values as
independent in human interest or of human assessment? The centrality of
values is sometimes not thought enough, leading to confusion. See lecture on
intertwinedness for more info.
Types of research on ES:
- Valuation: economic and other types, relational values, new approaches, … see above.

- Distribution of the services, who benefits, power relationships: lots of research in

social sciences. Named ES “governance”. Not enough attention has been paid to path
dependency, historical determinants, … Ecosystem services are not experienced the
same way by different people.
o Example: what do men and women value about ecosystem services?
 And also, the question of access: when one’s market becomes more valuable. Octopus
fisheries is normally done by women in Tanzania, but when the price increased, they
have been replaced by men. Interesting.

- Interaction among multiple ES – bundles: ES interact with each other, they come
together in complementary terms or with trade-offs, … Idea is to group together
different services and see where the trade-offs are, how they occur, …
In the example they classify
municipalities into different types. They
study how services link to one another.
If you increase one service, another
could decrease (trade-off). If you
maximise crop production, you might
lose water/soil quality. They occur
across space and time. Important to
think in dynamic terms. The trade-offs can be driven by common drivers (crops and
water) or interactions (carbon sequestration of trees means losing water provisioning).
You also see synergies, the ones linked to context, …

- ES are increasingly present in planning and policy: increasing research evaluating the
effects of that.
Assessments:
Several question one should ask themselves when doing a research on ES.
- Which services are you going to focus on? Fundamental question linked to your
research question. What do you want to get at? What are you trying to understand?
o Who will use this information?
o What are the boundaries of your study area?
o Try to understand the interactions between services. Complexity, links. When
focusing on one, you forget everything else. You lose the complexities of
ecosystems!
- What will be the scale of your assessment?
o Service Providing Units: “the smallest distinct physical unit that generates a
particular ES and is addressable by planning and management”. Useful
concept.
o Think temporal scales, and spatial scale with the concept of teleconnection
(generate something somewhere but is experienced somewhere else). Drinking
water is produced at the regional level but is delivered in a city. The type of
service you focus on will lead you to a spatial scale.
- What are the resources and time available? You need time and resources to interview,
measure, … if you cannot, adapt.
 o Which indicators will you use?

Lecture 6: Stewardship:
- Transdisciplinarity = academia and non-academia.
- Interdisciplinarity = within academia.
- Pluridisciplinarity = scale how much integration there are between the disciplines.
Very used concept. It has different definitions. Within sustainability science used in different
ways by different schools of thought.
➔ “the conducting, supervising, or managing of something”. Especially the careful and
responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care.
o Care
o Responsible
o Management
Political history: in the declaration of the UN’s general assembly. Commit to “adopt in all
our environmental action a new ethic of conservation and stewardship and, as first steps,
resolves… to intensify cooperation to reduce the number and effects of natural and man-made
disasters”.
Ethics. Socio-envi as a problem of responsibility.
Very present un policy and management. FSC, MSC, Forests for all, … criticism of
greenwashing as well.
 What does this image convey? The purpose of the
concept of stewardship? Nature as contained and small
in our hands, gives power to humans. The picture also
suggests the idea of nurturing, care. You need to take
care of it, so it develops properly. Use it in wise and
responsible ways.
More recently it has been broadened, movement apart
from the commander control of nature idea. Shift away
from the managerial approach. First: techno-managerial approach (as opposed as
transdisciplinary approaches). Focus on efficiency, maximisation. Nature as exterior to us.
Usable for humans. Expertise focus. Can you apply expertise everywhere? Yes, they have
abstract knowledge, that can be applied whatever the context. Using abstract knowledge in
concrete setups has sometimes really negative impacts. Managing from formulas has limits
here, despite it characterises techno-managerial approaches. The term stewardship has been
used against that focus: foster local types of knowledge.
What makes us want to become biosphere
stewards? Picture: someone ready to conquer
the world, or someone small and humbled.
Picture for Instagram. Showing off. Check
the blog related.

Other articles than the mandatory one:

➔ Understandings of stewardship: different meanings.

o Action: stewardship is a set of practices. Things we do. Straightforward.

o Outcome: certain results of intervention can be characterised as stewardship.
Reducing the pollution of a lake means stewardship in a way.
o Ethics: more complex and debated. Considers stewardship as the way we
should / are to behave with nature. Moral guidelines. Stewards are the ones that
behave in that direction. Social pressure to religious reasons.
o Motivation: linked to ethics.
Let us dig deeper into the ethics: ethics as a set of moral principles, a set of guidelines of
what is good.
 ➔ “One particular danger of such a search [for new words and concepts] is the tendency
to latch onto already existing, familiar concepts, which seem at first glance to solve
the problem. In fact, these terms may act as blinkers which block out deeper
consideration of the questions at issue. It is this, which I am suggesting has happened
with the widespread adoption of ‘stewardship’”. Palmer 1992.
Among managers there was a will to move forward from the commander approach. But
danger with new words. Gives a feeling to solve the problem of techno-managerial approach.
But blocks deeper questioning of the problem.
The term comes from Christian texts, with the idea of entrusted stewardship. Morality. But
whose resources (that we have to manage) are we talking about? Idea that nature is someone’s
possession (God), who has left the management on the humanity. Vertical conception.
one of the main criticisms is that stewards are set apart
of the natural world (humanity as separate, taking care
of).
There is this idea of nature as fragile: we could crash it.
Idea of need! Nature would need us to take care of. It
supposes that nature as a will too, that it wants to
maintain itself. Idea: we are doing for nature, we do it
in circular terms.
But who has entrusted us to committing to that? God / for future generations. But problematic
concept: not strong enough to mobilise behaviours. What if you do not have children? Moral
imperative on the youth, as if they owned the Earth. School strikes, Greta, she asked “how
dare you spilling my future”.
Can concepts evolve? The concept is problematic from the start, but can it change and
transmit new things? The concept has always been linked
to morals, values, … it has a problematic past, but is
associated to taking care. It was presented as a duty
(pressure).
Back to the 4 understandings of stewardship: idea of
shared and collective values in addition to the pressure
aspect. CKA framework →

“Sense of place” concept. Belonging to a place.

Explores the place attachment (how people feel
about a place, how much they care about a place),
and place meanings (what meaning is attached to a
place). Mobilises a broad range of methodological
approaches. Ask people to take pictures of what
they call home, during a week, for example. Qualitative methodology. But also, systematic
questionnaires where they try to identify cause and effect: how does it lead to certain
environmental outcomes. You behave in certain ways. Studies aspects linked to emotions and
cognition. The meanings and attachment to a place are studied at the individual and collective
levels. Place contributes to answer the question “Who am I?”. Concept divided in two ways:
- Dependence: resources for example (fishing), has
an impact on our identity, as it guides our
practices.
- Identity: extractive industries have caused
numerous environmental conflicts in the world.
Some mining companies have offered
compensation to villages where they wanted to
develop their activities, so that they free the
place. The communities have reacted differently.
One famous case is the one of a woman that
refused to leave the place. Makes sense of the “place”. The woman explained she
could not be elsewhere. I can only be in this place.
It is the idea that certain identities can lead to
particular behaviours. Then, a strategy of
management is about capitalising on this.

Knowledge: there are different types of knowledge: science but also indigenous knowledge,
experiential knowledge (comes from practice), memories.
➔ Is the lack of more widespread sustainability action simply because we do not have
enough knowledge about the threats facing the planet, or because the type of
knowledge we generate is not conducive to choosing transformative and palliative
action? Tabara and Chabay 2013.
Question of whether the type of
knowledge that has led us to where we
are can lead us to somewhere else…?
Image sums up the need for different
types of knowledge. First approach =
techno-managerial approach.
Often, the “lack” of knowledge is used as
a way for inaction. But we navigate the
world with uncertainties, so there is no
possibility of specialised knowledge that would one day be enough. Detached approach of
“expertise”. But the other perspective considers knowledge as composed of different
configurations that readapt, are constantly validated through practice, thus strongly tied to
place and context. Hybrid. Comes from certain science.
Identifies different moments in the process. Cross-fertilises through knowledge. Coproduction
of the problem definition. The very definition of the problem is collaborative. The way a
problem is framed determines the path for solutions. Constant process of negotiations.
Indigenous communities often do not feel respected because we try to translate their
knowledge into a Western perspective, something operational. There are things that cannot be
translated, that must be respected as a radical different knowledge, conceptualisation. How do
you do with this radical difference? There is a first step of recognition. Then you can
distribute responsibilities in different ways.
Agency: refers to the capacities of
individuals/companies/networks to engage in
certain practices (here stewardships actions) and to
produce actions.
Collective action is an important example of
agency. Power dynamics too.
The “Tragedy of the commons”: describes an
imaginary medieval village, where the cattle
capacity is at its maximum, but people have an
interest to have more animals. Collective interest
as opposed to individual interests. Individual
interests lead to overuse and destruction of the goods, so you need regulation. It has been
criticised. By historians: this set up never happened. Then by economists: he considers that
environmental goods are public goods, but they aren’t (it is owned by people, by the village).
He ignores the collective agency, the capacity to agree and find rules for themselves.
Thus, comes Ostrom and her 1990 book.
“Unfortunately, many analysts – in academia, special-interest groups, governments, and the
press – still presume that common-pool problems are all dilemmas in which the participants
themselves cannot avoid producing suboptimal results, and in some cases disastrous results”.
Ostrom, governing the commons 1990.
In her book, she says people still believe in the tragedy of the commons, despite all the
criticisms. She studied the work of communities for long.

3 types of rules too

- Operational level rules
- Collective choice rules
- Constitutional level rules
Leads her to say that
common-pool resource
management works.
She developed that
framework: TROU.

West et al 2018.
The concept has been extended to relationality. Increasingly understood as a social-ecological
dynamics concept. 4 types of stewardship in the current debate.
- Reformist: focuses on small changes. Remaining within the current framework.
- Adaptive: focuses on limits and challenges growth. Challenges the perpetual economic
growth. Expects to change the models, trying to suggest different science-based
decisions, from the decision-making perspective.
- Transformative: see underneath
- Sustainability: sustainable development implemented.
They differ depending on the (1) role of science, (2) exploration and integration of different
values, (3) capacity to modify decision systems.
Mushrooming of terms that have emerged.
Transformation refers to the idea of leaving
the current economic and social to go
towards more equal types of society. It needs
to be a radical change, so that it would entail
a transformation. Producing a new type of
socio-environmental relationship. They deal
with knowledge systems, values, perceptions,
… goes from the local to the global.
Here, focus more on the capacity to engaging
profound change. In transformation they have identified 3 phases, where in transition it is
more flexible.
The role of specific actors is central in agency in transformation studies. Agents of
transformation: key people.

What would urban stewardship entail?

A case: The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC): skipped.
Conclusion: lots of emphasis on the outcomes now, while before it was on individual actions.
Not enough attention to the root causes of the different practices in stewardship. But the
concept has been extended.

Lecture 7: Political ecology, environmentality and environmental

conflicts:
Political ecology is a broad field. Plural and diverse. One concept essential = POWER. Again,
multiple conceptualisations.
Political Ecology History: first a research field in the 70s. Interdisciplinary. Influenced by
cultural ecology. Discussion between disciplines, systems theory, … led to political ecology.
First, insisted a lot on ecological aspects. It has been lost today, less focus on earth sciences’
insights. Political ecology comes as a reaction to something. Reacts to the new Malthusian
theory: no, we should look at the organisation, the structures of social dynamics. Inspiration
from peasants’ studies (subfield of anthropology, Marxism, sociology and history). Influence
of Marxism, thus power structures come in. Different oppressive concepts organise relations
in the world (against development universalism, …). Political ecology tried to take those
concepts/features as forces that shape trajectories of inequality. Distinguishes it from systems
theory. Unequal power dynamics: not adaptations but focus on mal-adaptation.
Until the 90s, framed as structuralist political ecology (Marxism influence, our behaviours are
determined by certain structures, certain paths that condition what we do, overarching).
Strength of influence of earth system perspective, ecological system theories.

Walker 2005.
Social-environmental dynamics + different groups within society.
There is no crosspollination of the concepts: the two components are not linked yet. Then, in
the 90s, starts an evolution away from ecology: post-structuralism (structuralism offers
insights, but questioning of the rigid structures that “guide” behaviours, pays suddenly
attention to local dynamics, influence of Ostrom). Progressively, moment to the local. It shifts
attention to new types of studies: power in concrete and localised contexts, role of symbolic
politics, knowledge, crafted discourses. So:

Seems trivial, but it is a fundamental shift: it is not about the global political economy, and
inequalities in a historic path dependent sense, but about daily practices that constitute
mechanisms of resistance. What are the dynamics? Micropolitics of struggles. Movements,
discourses. But some things were forgotten… the focus on ecology was left aside. When you
study a conflict, you are interested in the dynamics of power, but remains far away from the
content of the movement itself (the environment e.g.). + Political ecology is a critical field
that has no intention to contribute to policy. Controversial: some say they want to contribute
to policies, another contest this.
Today: the field is categorised in 2 categories
- Understanding, resources, distribution of resources. Comes from the Marxist
perspective. Access and distribution.
- Discursive approach. How these distribute different positions.
Both of them insist on the questions of inequality. The motivation is to understand the
political causes. History of distributions and concentrations of access or understand the
history of the positions/words. Pay attention to socio-cultural factors and political contexts.
Discourses: “The Politics of the Earth” and “The politics of environmental discourse”. Very
influential books on discourses beyond political ecology. Recently, the environmental
discourse is mobilised in research. Interphase between research and policy/practice.
➔ Intuitively: bias towards language, speech. But goes beyond. Movement in the 90s:
material turn. Turn because an approach becomes dominant in the field. There was a
long focus on speech in social sciences. Material turn: speech is not separated from the
material world. Discourses have material existence, have an impact on the material
world. Those are not separated.
What is a discourse?

Hajer 1995.
Materiality because reproduction of practice. Idea of meaning. Derives from speech but not
only. Discourse is about ordering (categories) the world in certain ways.
Other approach: Dryzek (and others).

We must understand what discourses do: they act in a certain way. They codify relationships,
they distribute roles, they determine what/when/how is valid. They include and exclude other
things.
➔ Exercise: Water in the techno-managerial discourse:
o A means to achieve humans needs. Resource for humans. Humans.
▪ People on the one hand and nature on the other.
o Humans benefitting from. Domination and control.
o Rational, market based. Buying and selling a good.
o State, water companies and engineers. Experts.
o Technical sciences. Expertise. Hard skills. Engineering.
o Use, goods, efficiency. “no single drop of water should be lost to the river”.
Interesting, as the water is the river! Efficient use of resources.
Discourses compete: they coexist. Understand the different perspectives, visions. Useful to
prevent conflict and find spaces for dialogue. What are the dynamics between the discourses,
is the question?
Foucault + Gramsci = strong influence. Hegemony. Powerful when associated with
discourses. What a discourse achieves when it becomes common sense: it means a discourse
has reached a hegemonic position. Within this hegemony you have resistances. There can be
counterhegemony (comes as a substitute). Allows to understand domination. The techno
managerial discourse has been so central in water management, that not building a dam was
perceived as dumb. Hegemony of the conceptualisation.
Example Guinea: savanna. Example based on a book. In colonial times, the administrators
were sure that forest had been destroyed and
transformed into a savanna by the people there.
Strong conviction in the historical material.
Originally (when…?) there must have been a dense
humid forest. The inhabitants created a savanna.
Supposedly because of a shift in cultivation. The
authors show that the forests are actually derived
from the savanna! They created the forest to protect
their villages. They were co-constitutive. Forests are associated with settlements, but in a
reversed way.
The view of the forest as derived from a beautiful past. Leads to policies that take nature out
of the locals’ control. The discourse of villagers as destroyers is monopolised to take control
over the landscape to supposedly restore it. This led to repressive policies to orientate the
management of a space. The very creation of natural areas excluded people, perceived as
destroyers, leading to the criminalisation of these people. Justified exclusion and inclusion of
others.

Here, the authors go beyond the settlement-impernancy dichotomy! There are different
lifestyles. Much more intertwined vision in which they think in socio-environmental terms.
Termites live in villages. Hunters live in impernancy.
Their study is revolutionary. Attracted international attention for so-called ‘environmental
rehabilitation’, changed the frame of international donations. They call attention to the
richness of discourses: there are different positions and worldviews in the discourses of locals.
Different people have different access (gender, age, longstanding citizens, and strangers). We
are not talking about a mono-discourse. But a plurality, a variation, that articulates itself
coherently.
Social movements and conflicts around the environment: one of the main focus of
political ecology. Access, which understanding and discourse of nature, what use is made of a
zone, … sometimes, you have open conflicts. Latent and active conflicts. Active conflicts can
be of many types. Some of them are linked to social mobilisation.
 ➔ When they organise themselves, campaign, go into
confrontations, … Movement resisting the mining
industry in Cajamarca, Peru.
➔ Social movements = Processes of collective action that
go beyond a locality and are sustained in time. they transmit a perception of
unfairness, injustice, grievance, and constitute proposals for a different agenda. The
organisation needs to be sustained across time. It is more than an organisation, as an
organisation cannot be a social movement. Social mobilisation can be understood as a
reaction to threats (to livelihoods for example). SEM can make a latent conflict open.
Can be a strategy to make a conflict visible. It is rare that they succeed, but often
manage to negotiate, open doors that were closed. In some cases, like conga in Peru,
they delayed, managed to recraft the discursive system. Change the worldviews.
You can find socio-environmental conflicts in many contexts. It has developed as a field of
study, as it touches upon different aspects of governance: water, landscape, agriculture,
livelihood, SED, … very important area of study. These conflicts are reframed more and more
as the commodity frontier. Capitalism has been analysed and understood as something
wanting cheap nature: it extends to commodity frontier to other areas. It has been very much
studied in Africa and Latin America.
Grassroot organisations can have a strong impact. Got support from movements at the
international level but managed to rally on specific cases.
➔ Water war, Cochabamba:
privatisation of water delivery.
Significant increase in the price of
water it would unveil. Closing of
their well. They decided to
mobilise violently. Started
grassroot. It did not last so much.
Finally, the plan for privatisation
won. But it is not the point: the
discourse was changed. Awareness
of participation and inclusion of
people. It was a successful mobilisation, like in Cajamarca. It creates new alliances,
and appeal supports internationally to “voice” the locals. Makes the conflict visible at
other scales. It has been framed into territorial rights.
o Right to the territory paradigm. These
types of movements have loose networks.
They mobilise when conflict but work
loosely in regular times. Interesting
networks to study.
▪ “No dirty gold” movement. Loose
movements with different agendas mobilise together.
Movement from academia and social movements to create databases, maps, to share
information on SE conflicts, to gather the strength. Calling attention to similar conflicts in
other places, crafting in these networks. Interesting to see those maps.
 ➢ There are conflicts that seem to be conflicts over world visions and perspectives on the
environment that are conflicts about other things, older and deeper stuff. Maria
encountered that when working in Bolivia: the communities were against a project to
build sanitary land field. The officers were surprised, they thought they would be
happy. They did not understand why. The problem was actually about the history of
relations with the state, that had let them down repeatedly. Problem of trust, that had
to be reconstructed. + lack of clarity on territoriality: they did not include local people
from the beginning. They had resisted so much for so long to the state, that they
needed to defend the prevalence of their rights. Deep mistrust, because of the abuses,
because of half-finished projects, …
When you see conflicts of discourses, positions, try to hear the narratives. Identities.
Foucault and environmentality: a powerful idea in
political ecology is the concept of environmentality and
governmentality. Reading for the lecture. Foucault.
Panopticon. It can be empty. You internalise the fact that
you are being watched. Intimate and internalised
government.
Foucault is an influential thinker in political ecology.
Generated lots of discussions. Power. It is relational, not
something people hold. Revolutionary. Power is a set of
practices, it is alive. He gives tools about subject formation.
The subject does not preexist: it is constituted in the practices, in the technologies of
government (way of ordering the world, the roles of people). Let people internalise certain
behaviours.
Government is the right disposition of things, so as to produce a convenient effect.
Everything is about how things are organised. To be able to govern, you need knowledge.
Power and knowledge. Regimes of truths. You need certain knowledge to produce certain
subjects. You produce a certain type of knowledge, of date, allows you to manage people in a
certain way. You need a type of knowledge to constitute subjects. Then it will be internalised
by people. Knowledge as power.
Not “who is powerful”, rather “what strategies of government work”. What is leading people
to become certain subjects. He calls attention on the study on techniques. Representations that
allow for specific types of governance. The governance of the forest, in the reading, goes
through data collection. Leads to governmental action.
There are limits: the separation of government and society, … calls attention to the interplay,
the dynamism. These environmental subjects, how do they emerge? Here comes the reading.
➔ Paper: Agrawal takes a step in a different sense than Foucault. He has been dealing
with scholars working with categories. You can add up categories (cast, gender,
ethnicity, …). And how goes beyond/on the side of that. Goes beyond this simplicity,
by adopting an approach based on practice. It is by negotiating, by practices of
regulations, that things emerge. It is not a linear movement from beliefs, much more
fluid. Done in negotiation. The mechanisms of participation craft the subject positions.
Helps to better understand the engagement. How do people evolve, transform their
 interest, define their interest, and constitute themselves at the same time? You can
directly translate that into practice, observable actions.

You need to know what you are governing.

Role of the colonial state, and colonialism in redefining the relation with the environment, as
a way of managing that is exterior to society. The bureaucracy management of knowledge can
really be related to colonialism. The role of history is fundamental to understand the power
distribution that has been at play.
Resistance: important in political ecology. What is the role
of resistance? What can we call resistance? Scott calls for
attention to resistance to understand the dynamics of
conflicts. “Everyday forms of resistance”. Sometimes, there
are only minimum freedoms, thus open protests are not a
viable option. It is not a way to organise social movements.
What is left are hidden forms of resistance. Defend certain
perspectives, and challenge discourses that destroy them.
Against exploitation, dispossession, cultural destruction,
psychological abuse, … all the mechanisms of government can have a prevailing effect on
local populations.
When the technologies of government are subtle. It can be evasion, false compliance,
ignorance, sabotage, boycott.
Criticised perspective: makes oppression invisible. But honestly, the author tried to find ways
where resistance is supported in its opposition to oppression. It has not convinced everyone.
People thought it is not a useful concept.
Environmentalism of the poor: other way to conceptualise resistance. Way of
conceptualising social movements of resistance as mobilising against the disproportionate use
of envi resources. Comes in contradiction with the Brunland report (Sustainable
Development), that puts forwards SD because poverty would cause environmental damage.
But it is false, the poor protect the environment. Poverty is not a driver of environmental
destruction. 2 famous social movements that have been studied with this view:
- The Chipko movement, in India in the 1970s, forest management. Resisted the
exploitation of the forest.
- Brazil, Acre, in the 1980s. Chico Mendez as the leader, murdered. Rubber trees.
Violence against them, responded with symbolism. Livelihood to protect, not a space.
Bibliography:
“The Politics of the Earth” and “The politics of environmental discourse”.
Anthony Bobbington.

Lecture 8: Complexity
Difficult lecture. She works with institutional complexity (like a paradigm), with the
perspective of complexity to describe the links of society and the environment.
What is complexity? We have talked
about. Often used to describe things
that are not simple things, that lack
clear explanations. But complexity
theory is presented rather as a new
approach to science. The purpose of
complexity theory is to identify links
and processes, explain how they occur.
Focuses on the lacks in stability and
order, that was typically the focus of
science before complexity, that aimed
at producing universal rules about
behaviour, outcomes, … Complexity
thus aims at explaining and identifying systems and processes that are linked to new context.
It comes as a reaction to the type of science that was
done “before”. It comes in opposition to certain things.
The system perspective has come to overcome
reductionism, e.g., so as complexity does. The
perspective of systems is close to complexity: there are
not “components” that determine the whole part, “big
blocks” added to one another as reductionism suggests.
The duck: simplifies complex processes, isolates links
that are fluid and you find many more links and organic
processes. Mechanistic view. Metaphor of the machine,
constituted of few blocks. Metaphors of organisms and
life are presented as replacing the imagery linked to reductionism.
Complexity also overcomes the disjunction, separating, distinguishing, categories
characterised by think boundaries and no links. Separation of disciplines (that would be
independent).
But what is complexity? Perhaps, interesting to say that people that are interested in
complexity focus on how elements interact in a system and how it creates overall patterns,
and in turn, how those patterns cause elements to change, adapt in responses to the patterns.
There is the creation of a pattern, and how it could change: we see the movement. Hopefully,
this description reminds of the concept of emergence.
➔ Emergence: left-hand side: there are diverse elements interacting with each other.
They interact differently, with different types of arrows. Idealised example. Those
interactions create patterns (emergent pattern), that can be a rule for example. The
patterns, when the rule
emerges, have in turn an
indirect effect on the different
elements that were
interacting. The individual
elements react to specific
patterns, which can change
them. This is what we see
with the different sizes and
colours of the elements.
It is a revolution from reductionism: the mission of science was to search for hidden order
that appears. Patterns were then appearances, and the purpose of science was to identify the
authentic reality of an ordered universe. Complexity stands against that, it sticks to the
messiness of interactions and links for what they are, what they lead to. It doesn’t shy away
from that; it doesn’t suppose that there is a hidden order behind things.
https://www.art-sciencefactory.com/complexity-map_feb09.html
There are trends in complexity sciences. Different focus, methods, … graph that shows the
positions but also links them. Helps to situate ourselves in the map, how what we have
learned links with other concepts and authors. Dig into concepts. It situates all the origins of
complexity in different science. We also see how in the 2000s it became more and more
spread. People talk about a complexity turn. Helps us understand how ideas of complexity are
in social sciences (economics, humanities [Silliez, Latour, Morin]), practical part with
management. Public administration and institutional analysis, global governance, strategic
thinking. All the perspective crosspollinate each other. They lead to concrete and specific
advice on how to govern socio-environmental patterns.
Complexity makes a de facto appearance with the second law of thermodynamics.
Thermodynamics indicates that energy degrades into caloric forms. The important thing is
that this law introduces 2 fundamental ideas that were not present in physics before:
- Irreversibility of time: principles were conceived as reversible before, there was no
need for the concept of time. Fixity of species claims independence from time but
destroyed by this law.
- Disorder is taken as a fact. Heat is the agitations of molecules. The disorder
movement is accepted to be unpredictable.
Dispersion, disintegration, disorder, unpredictability, … we face a conceptual bomb against a
deterministic ordered vision. From the 40s and 50s, these concepts arise and become
increasingly important for a small group of mathematicians and engineers that connected it
with information theory and systems theory. Remained contained in these disciplines, that
wanted to contest the order in their disciplines. We thus cannot say there was a general change
of paradigm. It came later, progressively within and around disciplines, these terms tended to
become more and more present. But confusion and overlap among the terms, difficulty to
define a position. But takes place, and becomes important, in the Santa Fe Institute.
One of the fundamental places to define
complex adaptive system (specific within
complexity). They particularly work on
dynamic systems and modelling of these
systems. They want to understand the large
number of interactions and feedbacks that we
discussed in the systems lecture (see synthesis
if needed). They observe processes characterised by the strong difficulty to predict and
control what is going on. They come up with the idea of complex systems in which the
conception of prediction was not adequate. They transition from a mechanistic view to an
organic view and leave behind the equilibrium approaches to think in terms of punctuated
equilibrium (sometimes equilibrium but most of the time there is change). Nonlinear,
surprises, stochastics, … the whole is more than the part is central in their approach. They
criticise the Newtonian perspective that was emblematic of science.
Complex (adaptive) systems are presented as composed of many and diverse elements that
exist in relation to each other. Their relation and organisation between them determines
system behaviour. Bring in also the idea of context: local interaction shape contexts and are
shaped by context. Adaptive: elements change to their environment continuously, out of
equilibrium.
A complex system cannot be
explained by bringing it down to
its component parts, because
those parts are interdependent,
you cannot separate them. You
need to understand the
combination, the sharing that
produces systemic behaviours.
The behaviour of complex
systems is impossible to predict.
Some forms of energy and action
are dumped, reduced, while others might be amplified. This means that small actions can have
large effects and opposite. A public policy can have no or little effect for example.
Complex systems are sensitive to initial situation, of path dependency. Initial conditions
determine (to a certain extent) the trajectory of the system. It does not mean that the system
cannot change, but that it is costly for the system to do so.
If we summarise the characteristics of complex systems, we talk about systems that:
- Are dynamic.
- Change over time.
- Present nonlinear behaviour.
- Lead to complex outcomes, emergent outcomes.
- Lead to behaviours difficult to predict.
- Have been studied from maths and physics.
The whole is more than the sum of its parts, but Morin also says that it is less: it is not the
sum of the parts and an addendum, it is something different, with different properties. Try to
understand the relations. The knowledge of the parts is not enough, but knowledge of the
whole is not enough neither, you need the links, the movement between both. We need this to
substitute the reductionism. The notion of organisation becomes capital. The organisation of
the parts leads to emergent qualities. They appear and disappear.
You cannot deduce the emergent qualities from the parts, they are irreducible. The
organisation leads to the emergent outcomes. Water: the molecules have a number of
qualities/properties that the H and O do not have separately, but when they come together,
they organise in a certain way and we have the emergence of water. If a system is a unit
composed of certain part, which is something intuitive, we need to hold the notion of unity,
plurality, and diversity at the same time. This kind of contradictory concepts come together in
the idea of complexity. We link concepts that logically are repelled by each other (unity vs
diversity).
 Shelling model: it gets at the results of
interactions between people moving and
choosing different neighbourhood based on their
preference (similar people around them or do not
care). Even small preference for similarity (1/3
of people being similar) you end up with
segregated patterns. The model was considered
an example of emergence for some, but others
say you could have predicted this from the initial conditions.
The shelling model has also been used for another characteristic: self-organisation. There is
no central control, thus there is self-organisation. This is what the shelling model shows: no
one is saying you should move here or there. You also see the absence of central control with
the image of birds: they do not obey to a king/queen bird. This system shows that there is a
certain path-dependency, it evolves in time and have a history that matters to them.
We can think of other examples of complex systems. Society is a complex system, it is the
product of interactions between different individuals, but it is also constituted by emergence.
Rules, culture, language. Language is produced by individuals, but it retroacts and produces
the individuals in a sense (subject formation). Individuals craft the language, words emerge in
specific local realities, … but we also evolve within a certain language. Sometimes we find a
perfect word in one language to describe something and can’t find the correct translation:
language is constantly produced and it produces us, it tells what we can say. We are at the
same time producers and products.
Brings us to the concept of cause. Cause precedes the effect, in a linear movement = classical
approach to science. Causes produce effects that are necessary for their own causation, so
there is a loop in cause and effect = complexity. Self-generating and self-producing
movement. Recursive loops. It brings us to break our ideas of product and producers, cause,
and effect. Brings together ideas that seem exclusive but actually are not from a complexity
perspective.
➔ Example: think about a system, how it is self-generating and self-creating, where
causes and effect are blurred. When it is cold, the heating starts, it produces a certain
temperature, until the room is cold again and the heating starts again. Heating causes
temperature which causes the behaviour of the heating system: cause and effect are
blurred; it is difficult to distinguish one from the other.
Abstract categories are not adequate to describe the reality. Remember the bees’ image
from the lecture 1. If you study the bee separated from its environment, you will miss the
connection it has with the pollen. Same for the pollen itself. Think about the techno
managerial knowledge led to the building of Nasser’s dam: application of abstract knowledge
to manage that did not take into account the role of the river, for example in fertilizing the
soil, the more complex system than just water. Jane Goodall, since the 60s, has been
observing chimpanzees. She shows the importance of observation in environment and context
in understanding behaviour and knowledge over experimentation in a lab. In a lab, whatever
you are studying, you really extract the subject from the interactions and context that make
the things/subjects whom they are. The chimps have complex relations among them, they
have personalities, they express themselves. You cannot observe that when they are not in
relation. Proved that the autonomy of living beings can only be known in its environment.
Through this importance of context and relations, it brings together two concepts that seem
contradictory: autonomy and dependence. Bees are autonomous but depend on their
environment. The more autonomous, the more their dependencies multiply. The links with
society are intuitive, same for computers: the more autonomous my thought is facilitated by a
computer, the more I depend on the material that the computer imposes on me. We cannot
conceive of autonomy without the links that maintain this autonomy. It is key to
understanding living organisms from a complex perspective.
Ok, until here it is a merge of different approaches to complexity to explain the basics, but
Morin stresses that there is a distinction between 2 approaches to complexity:
➔ Restricted complexity: linked to the study of complex systems. Santa Fe Institute. Try
to find out the rules, laws, of complexity. They try to understand the multiple and
interrelated processes that constitute complex systems in a way that will allow them to
identify principles that work in a variety of systems.
o This view has been called out by philosophers. Horgan says it is a seductive
syllogism: since a computer can follow a set of maths rules and produce
extremely complicated patterns, thus extremely complicated patterns are due to
simple patterns. Idea: because we observe something in certain contexts, then it
means that XXX. Problematic view on complexity.
o People who share this view say it is a matter of time and effort to build a
unified theory of complexity (theory of everything). Hope: complex
phenomena could be captured by a set of rules and definitions. This is what
dynamical complex models do. This view is still influenced by the hope to
simplify and reduce: it struggles with the fact of complexity itself. Typically
associated with systems.
▪ Nemo analogy: barrier reef in Australia but is taken to end up in an
aquarium at a dentist’s. Dory embarks to try to save him, but without
map or any clue on how to find him. Trying to find him in the ocean.
They keep swimming and navigate the territories.
Metaphor: it is an analogy to help us making decisions in uncertain and
unforeseeable ways, when far from predicting.

➔ General complexity: useful to turn to the work of Paul Cilliers. Argues that we cannot
solve the question whether complexity is an ontological characteristic of the world or
whether it is about rather our epistemological limited capacities to build and grasp
knowledge. But this is not the same as saying that complexity is a problem of
fundamental simple rules. It is not a problem of computing power, instead, it stays
with the dynamic local interactions that exist in parts of complex systems and between
parts. General complexity really focuses on the idea of context dependent
organisation. It is difficult for us to think in those terms. Why? Because we have been
domesticated, taught to separate, not how to connect. We have learned to keep things
apart and to simplify, to understand problems. Our capacity to connect is
underdeveloped. Knowing is connecting and separating at the same time. We make
analysis and synthesis together because both cannot be separated: there is a general
 interdependence of everything and everyone. We need to leave aside the principle of
determinism but bring and embrace relations that might seem contradictory. Order and
disorder come together, which we do with the concept of organisation. There are
stabilities, regularities, and organising cycles. But it does not mean there isn’t at the
same time dispersion, collusion, irregularities. This is the power of the concept of
resilience and panarchy circles. Resilience is more than resisting to change: there is
change in resilience. There are punctuated equilibriums, which doesn’t mean change
isn’t the main characteristics of complex systems.
This means that control needs to be left aside. From the moment an action is done, an
event enters in interaction with its environment, it goes beyond the intention of the
person that acted. It enters the action itself, feedbacks, interactions, and might go in
the opposite sense. Fundamental for future sustainability actors: good intentions and
design interventions might lead to completely different outcomes. Must be prepared
for that. Helps to identify specific connections and unexpected outcomes. We have a
‘command and control’ vocabulary: move to something more adequate. Navigating
instead of management e.g.

➔ Preiser’s paper: there are different approaches in complex systems, but there are
general trends and patterns in the discipline. Read Preiser’s paper. General trends
inform us. The different fields interact. Still, we can distinguish the different fields.
People focus on the ideas of nonlinearity, non-equilibrium, self-organisation,
emergence. Big field of study. She also argues that although there are these
differences, there is a vocabulary that characterises the study of complex phenomena.
There is a consensus that complexity tries to break with the cartesian, Newtonian
approaches, thus introducing a new scientific paradigm. The very point she makes
about the trends, is that complexity creates an awareness of the limits of knowledge, of
human understandings (natural and social phenomena). Acknowledgement of
limitation brings in humility. That awareness of limitation is key to navigate although
it is a movement against reductionism, because our knowledge is limited, there always
is a reduction of complexity. She offers that we understand complexity as a post-
 reductionist effort (we get over reductionism, but we must acknowledge that
recognising reductionism is not an adequate approach does not mean that our
knowledge of complex systems is complete. Our knowledge reduces).
Fundamental papers on SES conceptualised as complex adaptive systems:
➔ Ecosystems and the biosphere as complex adaptive systems (Levin)
➔ The shift towards SES perspectives: insights into the human-nature relationship
➔ SES as complex adaptive systems: organising principles for advancing research
methods and approaches.
➔ Capturing emergent phenomena in SES: an analytical framework (2019).
o Picture down below from this paper
Frameworks and models in complexity:

The situations are networked, associated to each other. On the right: generic framework to be
applied to various situations. They separated different types of “action situations” (AS): the
social action situation, the social-ecological AS, and the ecological. Each other produce things
that influence the others. Bottom of the pic: networks, we see how things are linked in certain
ways, the network crafts the different events. It adds up to another layer: the emergent SES
phenomenon.
The framework captures the dynamism and multiplicity of interactions, the interplay of scales.
On the left-hand side we see an illustration of the model in the case of a collapse of fishery.
The collapse of the fishery is at the top, this is the centre of interest.
It is explained, how it emerges, through different interactions that are totally social
(policymakers crafting regulations), which interacts with the centre (fishers) and the
ecosystem on the right. And these actors and actions are decomposed in the network below.
The AS influence each other. Emergent outcomes: the policies have an impact on the
practices of fishers, which has an impact on the ecosystem itself.
➔ Useful framework for analysing complex socio-environmental interactions evolving
through time.
Very simple frameworks like this one are an
option. Others try to capture all the complexity.
You choose between the 2 depending on what
you want to do.

Frameworks/models are linked to the time and space in which they are produced. What we
represent, exclude, …
It has ethical consequences. What are the ethics of complexity and the complexity of ethics?
We have a take on ethics that is something that constitutes an ethical position, but not only. It
is not a normative point, it rather is what constitutes our knowledge and identity. As soon as
we engage with complexity, we have to make choices, you describe phenomena in a certain
way. We cannot reach the complete knowledge of phenomena. It is not the purpose. What we
have to do is to interpret. We then quickly realise that our decisions necessitate choice, which
cannot be mobilised as neutral. It is partially based on normative judgement. What matters,
what is important to represent, what to focus on, these are all choices.
We cannot avoid thinking about ethics. Valid for research, but not only! Any model, any
framework is a reduction. We always leave out other aspects/considerations. Working with
governance, this means you could leave out interest of people that are relevant in our case.
Those interests that we exclude become non-existent in our models and paradigms. What is
characteristic of an ethical perspective on complexity, there is the position of trying to do
justice: trying to bring the ‘outside’ people ‘inside’. Ethics becomes a recursive mode of
engaging with our work. For that reason, it makes a difference to be aware of these facts: you
can adapt to exclusions, change, overcome these exclusions.
Somehow it is about adopting a self-critical analysis. Willing to respect diversity, to improve
our models. Avoid naturalising them. Present something as a model that would be natural, it
could not be otherwise, it is the way things are = naturalisation. This leads us far away from
an ethical perspective. Be open to the revision of the model, put in strategies that remind of
the complexity.
It does not mean that anything is valid: we are aware of what we’re doing, of how we are
reducing the complexity, how we are making choices that lead to certain parts and expose
assumptions openly. It is not assuming relativism, but sensitivity and humility. We need the
info, you need the necessary rigor, AND must recognise that our work does not resolve the
complexity. Building a model is hard. But we are responsible for the choices we make. Each
choice has different consequences, strengths, and successes. We have
to account for the process that led us there.
It is linked to our identity, to what knowledge is: it is not an objective
search for a truth that exists out there, rather it is a process to work
humbly, honestly towards the strategies that allow you to deal with
complex phenomena. This means that we must be aware with the
limits. Never be fixed with our knowledge, with the model.
A complex understanding of ethics says: this is good, it has worked
well here, but it is necessarily subject to revision and deconstruction. The good is provisional.
This awareness allows to move forward. Embrace the change that characterises the dynamism
of SES. In a way, we know that we need to act, while knowing there will be trial and error.
Thus, the ethics have a fundamental position in complexity action and thinking.
Institutional complexity:
She has worked for numerous years on this. It is the opposite of fragmentation: in
administration you have departments that deal with different things, and they don’t
necessarily communicate. The fragmentation and lack of communication among
administration causes problems in governance.
The complexity gets at the links of different sectors of
decision-making and actions. Image of the San Francisco Bay
water policy network. There are many actors participating in
the management of the bay. There are collaborative
organisations, different departments, national/regional/local
level water management, … the study found more than 100
institutions that operate in the bay. This is a nice visualisation
of complexity. It shows how environmental governance brings
together different policy actors; it affects different aspects of policies.
In institutional complexity, the environmental governance problems are described as wicked
problems: these problems have unpredictable consequences, they bring together a multiplicity
of interests and actors, and it notoriously is difficult to intervene and interest them.
The ecology of games framework: ecology refers to the discipline, but also to a system of
connections between different units. Here it refers to governance where there are multiple
policy games that take place simultaneously in a defined area. A policy game is a set of actors
that participate in collective decision making. They craft rules and make decisions on actions.
Different organisations/policy forums come together and constitute an institutional
arrangement of governance (designed of emergent). The framework helps to adapt from a
complex perspective: it considers policy outputs as the function of the interplay of decisions
made in the multiple games/spaces. It helps us to conceptualise governance as a network.
It considers 3 core processes of
governance: cooperation, distribution,
learning. In the framework (image), we
see the types of rules, participation
dynamics, identification of collective
action problems, … influenced by
Ostrom’s work, but more precise. It
focuses on the interrelated concepts
(policy actors, issues, institutions, the
system, the games). The framework
evolves with time, thus allows to
conceptualise change.
A game = when actors make collective
decisions (flexible definition). Allows
to analyse many different levels and with a cross scale perspective.
Works with institutions that have jurisdiction of multiple issues at a time. Thus, it is important
to see how the water department has competency to clean the water and maintain the
watersheds in a good state. Same with the urbanism department! Policy issues are, on the
contrary, linked to multiple institutions: pollution is linked to the water treatment, the
agricultural activities, … with all the actors having different prerogatives, which makes the
governance complicated.
The framework is in itself adaptive, moving through time as issues arise.
Links to the polycentric concept, but there are differences. The polycentric assumes that there
is a choice that citizens (e.g.) make: if the outcome is not the one desired, you can change.
The ecology of games looks more at the system in total. Interested in the links. But borrows
concepts like redundancy (which is positive because institutions fulfilling similar objectives is
a good thing when considering budget costs for example).
The frameworks leave aside individual accounts to grasp the holistic aspect of systems:
engages critically with the complexity of a phenomena. What works somewhere is not valid
somewhere else. Policy is not conceived as guided by a set of forces that exist here and there.
Rather: there is an important role being played by the context. The link with path dependence
is strong. Historical institutionalism has an influence: initial conditions matter. When a policy
is adopted, with allocated budget and people working on it, it produces returns in time.
changing the governance of that issue includes an important cost.
Agency: Crucial. Refers to the capacity to act/produce change. In the complexity perspective,
contrary to what was said before, there is not an opposition of structure and agency. Agency
and structure are two sides of the same coin. We act in structures but are not determined by
the structure. By acting, we change the structure. Actions and structures can be seen at the
same time. In complexity, we said that some people are working on self-organisation, and on
the other side you have the behaviours of agents that are self-referential, they react to changes
and create their own perceptions/decisions. You really have an interplay between the self-
organisation emergence and the actions of actants.
Therefore, there is a lot of work oriented to give an interpretive account of complexity: how
agents understand, interpret, adapt, influence their complexity. Complexity has used in-depths
qualitative tools, that can be combined with models! Working together pushes to a better
understanding of relations and patterns. Nice field for multidisciplinary studies. Brings
together concepts that have been opposed for long.
Preiser (2018, underneath). Synthesis of the practical implications when working on socio-
ecological dynamics with a conceptualisation of complex adaptive systems. We see in the
table the synthesis of structure-related features. But focuses also on processes. Builds bridges
among different lectures we have had.
Systemic change, complexity, and development (StockResi): Jean Boulton + Belinda
Reyers: Focuses on complexity, it is important, we might do a better job with inequality,
climate change, … when acknowledging for complexity. It comes from an activist
perspective. How the world changes and how can we play a role. The science of complexity
gives indications on how things change.
Complexity and development: there is a moral conviction and heart in the development field.
It often is about complex situations: actors, stakeholders, shifting contexts, … the
conversations are always about a desire to work more systemically, and a frustration of this
complexity of situations. NGOs have donors, these donors want to do what will exactly be
done (machine view), that goes in tension with the context view. Complexity is relevant and
has a role to play. It is not about giving up. Resonates with resilience that can be programmed,
designed, piloted, scaled, but the context is crucial (capacities and values). Different
perspectives on the problem. Resilience cannot be thought in a mechanistic view: it is about
trust, values, capacities, thus inevitably complex.
Methods and approaches: complexity thinking is not complexity as a method. The world is
interconnected, systemic, multicausal, context-dependant, historically shaped. The future is
shaped from what exists but is not determined (emergence and uncertainty). Through the lens
of complexity, the world appears as complex, whether you like or not. When approaching
complexity with a mechanistic view, you would just want shiny complex little tools (reducing
the world to certainty). If you move on, the idea is of a richer baseline. Understand the
background. What happened in the past? What is the history of the region? What are the
social, political issues? Recognising the complexity does not mean creating new methods: you
can tweak existing methods. Look back, up, around, down, forward. There are available
methods that are flexible and adaptable. It is about matching methods to the complexity of a
context. Trial and error. Co-create. The complexity of the diagnostic can make the
intervention clear, simple, cost-effective.
Intervention vs context focuses: understand the wider and historical context. Gives
information on how to intervene but see the intervention as an experiment (unintended
consequences, that could be positive!). There is a feedback loop, it is a reflexive process.
Some problems are sometimes really big. But often it has to do with reframing what we mean
by “going to scall”: suggest methods and principles, try them, and keep learning. Gentle going
to scale, about shared learning.
The role of the past: Africa, not dealing with a black canvas. But history is often forgotten in
international development. History and context matters, understand how the past has led to the
present. The past is in the present. If we understand the past better, we better understand the
present. All academics and taxi drivers are aware of climate change and economic inequality
(South African context), it is in people’s heads. It is incredibly rich. South Africa teaches
things to the world, it has a laboratory of complex reality and profound change. Different
ways of knowing exist there, there is a richness of context that makes complexity self-evident.
But still faces leap-frogging international development policies have been forced.
Conclusion:
Complexity is not something to resolve, to get rid of. Who we are, what are our roles, how we
can navigate the unpredictable links and their effects = plea for complexity. Maintain
ourselves open, adopt a general view of complexity (humility, transparency, rigor in the
approach). It is more about engaging in new ways of thinking. Remain open to recalibrate our
visions of the world. Acknowledge the limits. Reflect on how your actions enter. Avoid
naturalising. Try to act in ways that allow for alternatives rethinking our roles and place in the
world.
How? Irony, imagination, transgressivity, accept provisional things. Be creative! It allows to
engage with chaos, disorder, paradoxes. Take the perspectives of others, put yourself in
different contexts. Use projections and identifications that are foreign to us. She uses forum
theatre in her work. Everyone can complete what the character has said. Fosters empathy, to
see connections. The arts have a role to play in environmental governance. It helps with
imagination. It creates different ways of “governing”.
Lecture 9: Intertwinedness and Process-relational perspectives
Very much linked to the complexity lecture.
Why conceptualisations matter?
Does it matter at all? Conceptualisations evolve through time. What does it mean to use
concepts, whatever easy they are (such as nature)? Constructed nature/social nature, what
does that mean?
➔ Ex: take a scientific paper and newspaper article on climate change and compare the
way the mobilise notions/concepts. How are concepts used? What view do they
convey?
Noel Castree (“making sense of nature”) presents 4 meanings of nature.
- Nature as everything that exists.
- Nature as everything that is not human (as opposed to society).
- Idea of essence (the nature of), the intrinsic characteristic.
- Nature as a force organising life.
He argues that nature is used as a way to categorise and label the world, which produces
collateral concepts. Example with Georgia Smith’s ‘Pastoral interlude’: images of the British
countryside exclude black people, as if they only exist in urban settings. This shows concepts
produce realities. “Since we’ve been addicted to Nature for so long, giving up will be painful”
Tim Morton. Do we have to abandon the concept? Or, are we trying to deal with the addiction
we have, and how?
The point she’s trying to make: in our field, there are different epistemic communities,
different communities that use concepts and ways of knowing in particular ways. They can be
interlinked and have key actors. They each represent nature and its collateral concepts.
Representation: the word ‘represent’ means to speak for (linked to participation/democratic
practice) OR to portray. At the same time, representation is portraying certain images and
speaking for. By definition, representation is social (done by communities) and political (puts
forward certain images). What you choose to represent? Representation creates something:
it’s not only a disclosure, it’s performative (it invents). Therefore, it has to be reflexive and
open.
Nature and their concepts express thoughts, sentiments, behaviours that lead us to normalise
certain things and to find other things not acceptable. We must be sensitive to the power of
representation, how it can be an instrument to orient the feelings of people, how it can
represent resistance! It conveys different interests. Expresses thoughts, or conflicts. The
representation of nature matters (should resonate with environmentality and complexity).
When people claim that nature is natural, that nature
exists, that aspects are, that there is an intrinsic truth, …
this is in itself a representation. It is an attempt to
establish nature in certain ways. It has consequences on
the organisation of the society.
Rather than asking “what is nature” or “is this natural”,
the question we might ask is “what does this
conceptualisation of nature” produce? What these sets of concepts create? How do they
change? How do they encourage to behave in certain ways? Helps focusing on interlinks. We
can never assume a relation. Avoid naturalising concepts: do not make them deterministic.
You can recognise the specific relations existing in a place. Then you will be able to negotiate
and understand how stewardship is historically constituted through material interest, and how
conservation depends on that history. Naturalisation does not help to craft policies that are
inclusive of environmental and social excluded actors/dynamics.
Some of these terms are fixed in law. Babies are classified by sex because it’s an intrinsic
division. This organises society. There can be thick boundaries between concepts enforced by
law. We must revise those to understand the complexity of links. Presented as natural, but
always active choices.
“Denaturalise” nature, social nature. De-neutralise technology. Techno
managerial approaches are not neutral. We need to generalise that to
technology: to develop a complexity ethics, we cannot understand
technologies as simple devices. Should put them in the context of
complex systems: they craft numerous new interests. There are links
between links and social environmental dynamics. Technologies are
always more than an object that allows to do things. It transforms
identities. It is not just exterior to us. Our identities are crafted through
our interactions with technologies, there are expressions of ourselves.
Technological artifacts are parts of SES and promote certain visions.
Socio-technical environmental systems.
➔ What images do we see when thinking about climate change, and what do we link it
to? How do these visualisations structure the way we talk about climate change with
others? (Personally, negative, so apathic behaviour).
Intertwinedness
Recap of the different levels of interactions and integration:
- Drivers
- Coupled or linked systems
- Embedded systems
➔ Intertwined: idea of embedded systems, but goes a step forward, emphasising
connectivity and cross-scale interactions. In the embedded systems, the different
spheres seem contained within themselves. Here, introduction of connectivity, insists
on that. It goes beyond embeddedness. Comes from a necessity to capture dynamism,
constant change. Aims at emphasising the dependence of society (humans, economics)
on the biosphere. Co-evolution is a collateral concept: it puts forward that social and
ecological ‘levels’ evolve at the same time and mobilise complex systems. The
intertwinedness brings the complexity of the interplay between relations, feedbacks,
emergence, … across scales, to the front of the discussion. It is revolutionary in a way.
Collateral concept: Biocultural diversity: comes from the identification of an empirical
correlation between areas of high cultural diversity and high biological diversity. Originated
in linguistic studies but is now increasingly used in transdisciplinary studies. Used to get at
human-environment links and relations.
“Humans operate in a legacy of social-ecological interplay, directly or indirectly, consciously
or unconsciously, shaping the capacity of the biosphere and our options and opportunities for
development” (Folke et al 2016).
➔ Summarises the trend in research that tries to get the intertwinedness while focusing
on agency, the capacity to act within complex systems.
One of the key examples given to illustrate
intertwinedness = Sacred forest of Madagascar. If you
only focus on the ecosystem (forest and cultivated area)
you lack something. Neither cultural focus is enough.
Ecosystem services, same, it lacks something.
Understanding this landscape, getting at the services that
are present/created is the product of the interplay between
the social and the ecological. Clear example of
intertwinedness.
Dwelling: concept from philosophy, articulation of “being in the world”. Originated in
philosophy but used in anthropology as a tool to understand human-environment relations. It
brings to the forefront the importance of context, place, movement, and dynamism. Things are
not static, they are constituted through the movement by different socio/cultural/natural
elements. It brings forward the idea of care/stewardship as a situated, distributed
phenomenon, that goes beyond social collectivity.
We have observed that going beyond sustainability science with
complexity, complex adaptive systems, there is an emphasis on process-
relational philosophy. Ontology, about what exists. What is complexity,
what does it deal with? The process-relational perspective emphasises
that relations and processes are the main ontological unit. Process,
change, dynamism is the raw material of what exists. Those processes
are emergent through relations and create them. Two sides of the same
coin.
This position entails a rejection of the idea that the world is constituted
by predefined objects, which is still the most common ontological position in science. A PRP
is appropriate to capture intertwinedness. It fundamentally boils down to saying that
everything is co-constituted, by social and ecological process. To the extent that you cannot
separate the two. Two characteristics of PRP relevant to understand this intertwinedness:
- Endogenous processes mean that socio-environmental dynamics are dynamic,
constantly changing. Use dynamism instead of change (that conveys the idea that there
is something that is fixed and changes) or use the idea of constant change.
- Everything that we see in the SES is shaped by intra-actions.
o Example: “Iberian dehesa” = multifunctional agro-sylvo system and also a
cultural landscape. In this type of SED, humans are maintaining a system that
secures food provision (for them and livestock) but also produces a habitat for
wild species (like the Imperial Eagle). Illustrates of what is an intra-action.
It is a term originally invented by a physicist (Barad), in opposition to the term
interaction. Intra-action implies that, whatever is present in the dynamics exists in a
 distributed way, in the links, in the relations, and not in the entities. The entities are an
outcome that arises in the links.
o Barad 2012: The usual notion of interaction assumes that there are individual
independently existing entities or agents that pre-exist their acting upon one
another. By contrast, the notion of “intra-action” queers [challenges/goes
beyond separated categories/questions] the familiar sense of causality (where
one or more causal agents precede and produce an effect) [linear++], and
more generally unsettles the metaphysics of individualism (the belief that there
are individually constituted agents or entities, as well as times and places).
[Individuals come to be in intra-action]. According to my agential realist
ontology, “individuals” do not pre-exist as such but rather materialize in intra-
action.
This is what many researchers focus on practices rather than the people, as it gives
access to the processes. You can describe how people come to be through these
practices. Thus, agency is not distributed to humans, but resides in practices.
o Collective action situation, fisheries example. Take the community developing
a social norm, the entire practice brings together the community. They become
determinate in this intra-action. They do not exist in the same form prior to the
intra-action. Each individual is shaped by the relation with the fish stock, the
other fishermen, the technology used, the weather, …
Representing this is difficult. Entities exist
but become determinate at the moment of
analysis through the relations and processes.
This can be studied by observing practices
but also by the meanings given.
It is a conceptual take. But empirically speaking, it is
useful to say that SED are intertwined. Ontologically
speaking, SED are always intertwined (there is no
place where we are independent from ecosystems).
Empirically, when we study specific SED, we must ask what is useful for us to understand
this. Using a gradient of intertwinedness to see how directly people interact with their
biological environment. Urban setting, farm setting, fishermen village setting, … the SEDs
express themselves in a wide spectrum of intertwinedness.
Ontological and empirical aspects are linked to the analytical aspect: what is your focus
determines the way you address intertwinedness.
- If focus on cultural practices, SEDs is central to get at those cultural practices.
- Focus on the choice of tourists, you could put the biocultural landscape in the
background.
- Focus on ecological food webs? You can focus on the social.
There are multiple levels of intertwinedness, and it can be more or less central. You cannot
get at everything, but you are making the choices. You are influenced by your analytical
choices, and resources (temporal and spatial scale?). The effect of intertwinedness manifest
themselves at different temporal and spatial scales!
The helpfulness in using this process perspective, is that it provides a set of concepts that help
thinking about complexity.

We see the dynamism; they allow to leave aside the socio/ecological dichotomy. Urges for the
intertwinedness. It allows to abstract, work with concepts, that are fresher, that help us see
things that we could not see before. The interest is not only ontological, also helps to think in
novel ways, which changes management and policies options! By using these concepts, we
can think of webs of social environmental relations. It helps to imagining integrated and
intertwined systems that do not exist before they intra-act. We think with change. In the
process perspective, reality concepts consist of processes. By being in relation, the process
gives rise to events. Events are sets of processes that are experienced: you can delineate an
event from the overall flow of processes. The idea of experience does not entail a conscious
experience.
➔ Breathing = event. There is a set of processes that a human experiences when
breathing. Through breathing, many processes come to exist: the production of O2,
extraction of O2 by the lungs, … This is different than saying that breathing is a
property of the lungs of a human being, as that would limit it from a lungs’ property
(Animal-machine Descartes). This would not get at the relations that lead to the
production of oxygen.
Because of this dynamism, we need something to convey dynamic changes. This takes us to
the possibility space. There are the sets of possible processes “available”, an event can engage
into at any given moment. Linked with path-dependency: they shape the future of the event.
The history of the event is extremely important for understanding how the possibility process
emerges. There are processes that remain possible, but that are not actualised by the event.
➔ Example: a farmer puts a shed in his farm, covering part of its land to protect the crops
from something. People observe, learn and replicate, do the same at their place. Did it
have to happen? No. It could have been ignored. The learning could have “stayed
there” as a possibility that did not actualise.
Being is thus understood as a sequence of events. It is realised through the different processes,
with a specific history, in a specific possibility space, with their specific relations. The idea is
not to get rid of being but to re-conceptualise it. Do not see change as an exception, while
change is the rule. Systems in equilibrium are dead. Thinking in terms of fixed entities,
equilibrium, … is then very problematic and far away from the reality of SED.
 This idea of intertwinedness has been difficult to
articulate. The fundamental point to make is that we
need to challenge the separation between knowing
and being, between what exists and what we can
know, between epistemology and ontology (thus
follow Barad and anthropology). Barad argues that
we cannot obtain knowledge by looking at the
world from an outsider’s perspective. The
separation of epistemology/ontology does not work
well when thinking in intertwined terms. It means never excluding something by principle.
Intra-action puts at the same level all types of experiences and processes of evolutions.
➔ In gender and feminist studies, there is a lot of experimentation with concepts.
Harraway and concept of cyborg: allowed to think differently in feminist studies, that
was focused on identity within gender boundaries. Harraway came with the cyborg
concept to queer the boundaries and rethink subjectivity through the porous
boundaries. She argued that what is important is not to distinguish us from machines,
animals, … but thinking about the possibilities offered by the connexions.
Concept of Assemblage = a connexion of elements that come together to change, that has the
capacity something new, emergent, that would not have come up otherwise. It helps us
assemble elements that might surprise us. That links with the point of networks and
subjectivity: there is no relevant I that does not come to be through the processes. Assemblage
as hybrid networks. Complex assemblage could be the process of making wine. Agency in the
assemblage is distributed.
- Criticisms?
o Classical objection to agency as networked/distributed: this conceptualisation
is interesting, but there is the intention to act!
▪ But to what extent is that willingness, intention, so important? Don’t
we incorporate the expectations of other (non)humans when acting,
thus distributing agency? Is it really so concentrated in humans? The
idea is to identify links.
Concluding questions: What is the task of the researcher in sustainability? To be with the
systems or to represent them? Are we separated from the systems?