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Grz for tokyo city univ guest lecture
This presentation discusses community-based ecological restoration to enhance resilience and transitions toward peace. It explores why humans turn to nature and restoring nature after conflict and disaster. The presentation examines how greening in vulnerable contexts can help manage social-ecological systems for resilience and peace. The speaker discusses definitions of "red zones" and "greening." Examples of greening in red zones are provided, such as restoring Iraq's wetlands and replanting Sarajevo's urban forest after war. Evidence is presented that greening can provide benefits in vulnerable contexts. The presentation then focuses on a case study of greening in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
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Grz for tokyo city univ guest lecture
- 1. Presentation given Nov30, 2012 Tokyo City University in the Faculty of Environmental and Information Studies Yokohama, Japan Community-based Ecological Restoration to Enhance Resilience and Transitions Toward Peace Keith G. Tidball, PhD [email protected] www.civicecology.org
- 2. What does this… …haveto do with this ?
- 3. Why do humansturn to nature, and restoring nature, in the wake of conflict and disaster? Of what use might greening in human vulnerability and security contexts be in managing social-ecological systems for resilience and transitions to peace?
- 4. HUMAN VULNERABILITY &SECURITY CONTEXTS …. + + Population growth Climate Change Resource scarcity
- 5. ROAD MAP FORTODAY • Definitions, Context, & Study Site • Research Question in the form of Retroductive Hypothesis/Model • Framing • Initial Models • Mining for Mechanisms (results) • What Does It All Mean? • Broader Context & Application
- 6. What is ared zone? “Red Zones” refer to multiple settings (spatial and temporal) that may be characterized as intense, potentially or recently hostile or dangerous, including those associated with terrorist attacks and war, as well as in post-disaster situations caused by natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes.
- 7. What is greening? •“Greening” is an active and integrated approach to the appreciation, stewardship and management of living elements of social-ecological systems. • Greening takes place in cities, towns, townships and informal settlements in urban and peri-urban areas, and in the battlefields of war and of disaster. • Greening sites vary -- from small woodlands, public and private urban parks and gardens, urban natural areas, street tree and city square plantings, botanical gardens and cemeteries, to watersheds, whole forests and national or international parks. • Greening involves active participation with nature and in human or civil society (Tidball and Krasny 2007)—and thus can be distinguished from notions of ‘nature contact’ (Ulrich 1993) that imply spending time in or viewing nature, but not necessarily active stewardship.
- 8. Some examples Restoration ofIraq’s wetlands, supported by community-based natural resources management among Iraq’s Marsh Arabs & partnerships with the scientific community Replanting of the Urban Forest of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina Living Memorials creation throughout NYC, Washington D.C. , and Shanksville, PA after 9/11 Establishment of Band-e- Amir National Park in the midst of conflict in Afghanistan Conservation efforts in demilitarized border lands in the Korean peninsula and between Greece and Cyprus
- 9. Evidence of theimportance of greening scientific journal articles scholarly books popular press and news media public initiatives websites blogs
- 10. RED ZONE-- HURRICANEKATRINA & THE NEW ORLEANS SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEM Image by NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite or GOES. Context - Study Site
- 11. Context - StudySite
- 12. A FOREST OFSYMBOLS Context - Study Site
- 13. LAND COVER &CANOPY IMPLICATIONS Wang & Qu, 2009. Assessment of post-hurricane forest damage using optical remote sensing. Spie. http://spie.org/x35463.xml Chambers, J. Q., J. I. Fisher, et al. (2007). "Hurricane Katrina‟s Carbon Footprint on U.S. Gulf Coast Forests." Science 318: 1107. Context - Study Site
- 14. NEW ORLEANS CANOPYLOSS AVG -1.8 Photo of New Orleans after Katrina - NOAA Nowak, D. J. and E. J. Greenfield (2012). "Tree and impervious cover change in U.S. cities." Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 11(1): 21-30. Context - Study Site
- 15. “A FAILURE OFRESILIENCE” AND OTHER (PREMATURE?) EPITAPHS “All Coherence Gone: New Orleans as a Resilience Failure” (R. Westrum, 2006) Context - Study Site
- 16. RETRODUCTIVE RESEARCH QUESTION •General- If greening is happening in red zones, what could the model and theory be that might explain greening‟s occurrence ? • Specific- If, despite the dominant discourse of a failed city, tree planting is spreading throughout the city of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, what models, built of mechanisms, can explain this phenomena? Research Question
- 17. WHAT FRAME? The purpose of scientific activity no longer stands out as a statistical putting together of surface phenomena in an observed reality. (Sayer) The important thing … becomes to conceive this reality as an expression for, or a sign of, (Bhaskar 1979) deeper-lying processes. (Harré & others) ) Alvesson (2000) Harré, 1986. Varieties of Realism: A rationale for the Natural Sciences. Oxford, Basil Blackwell Bhaskar, 1989. Reclaiming Reality. London and New York: Verso. Bausch, 2001. The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory. New York: Plenum. Bhaskar, 1979. The Possibility of Naturalism. Brighton, UK: Harvester. Framing
- 18. A LITTLE MOREON RETRODUCTIVE MODELS… • Models are built of mechanisms such that, if they were to exist and act in the postulated way, they would explain the phenomenon being examined . • Underlying mechanisms can only be known by constructing ideas (models) about them; and models reveal the underlying mechanisms of reality. • Emphasizes tendencies of things to occur, as opposed to regular patterns of events. Framing
- 19. METHODS – AMIXED MODELS APPROACH (Tashakkori and Teddlie 2003) Track 1 Track 2 Track 3 Greening Orgs Trees & Recovery Tree PLANTING & Recovery Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5 Exploratory Participant GIS Canopy and In-depth In-Depth Exploratory In-Depth GIS Mapping observation tree Focus group Surface area interviews (5) interviews (30) interviews (30) interviews (30) interviews (25) planting analysis Document Participant Photo Essay (5) Photo Essay (5) analysis Observation Retroductive modeling: via multiple literature and theory synthesis Iterative methods and data “mash-up” – difference between ”field data” & “experimental data” Ethnographic qualitative methods GIS quantitative methods What models, built of mechanisms, can explain Greening in Red Zones?
- 20. ROAD MAP FORTODAY Definitions, Context, & Study Site Research Question in the form of Retroductive Hypothesis/Model Framing • Initial Models • Mining for Mechanisms • Approaches & Findings • Broader Context & Application
- 21. Begin action toenhance, restore natural assets, which recovers symbols, rituals and Catalyzes ?? sense of place Recognize in natural assets (trees) a place to start anew, to move beyond loss, grief , helplessness Experience loss, grief, helplessness and turn to nature in form of trees for solace Initial models
- 22. SECOND MODEL… ASEARCH FOR MECHANISMS Tidball, KG & ME Krasny. 2008. “Raising Urban Resilience: Community Forestry and Greening in Urban Post-Disaster and Post-Conflict Contexts.” Paper presentation at meetings of the Resilience Alliance, “Resilience 2008,” Stockholm, Sweden: April. Initial models
- 23. MORE QUESTIONS THANANSWERS… What Initiates? Repeat & What kind? Expand? How much? Initial models
- 24. WHAT MIGHT INITIATEGREENING? Urgent Biophilia Tidball, KG. 2012. Urgent Biophilia: Human-Nature Interactions and Biological Attractions in Disaster Resilience. Ecology and Society, 17(2). PD* Restorative Topophilia Tidball, KG & RC Stedman. Positive Dependency and Virtuous Cycles: From Resource Dependence to Resilience in Urban Social-Ecological Systems. Ecological Economics. Doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.10.004 Memorialization Tidball, KG, ME Krasny, E Svendsen, L Campbell, & K Helphand. 2010. Mechanism Stewardship, Learning, and Memory in Disaster Resilience. “Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems: the Role of Learning and Education,” Special Issue of Environmental Education Research, 16(5): 341-357. Social-Ecological Tidball, KG (Accepted; expected 2013). Trees and Rebirth: Social-Ecological Symbols, Rituals and Resilience in Post-Katrina New Orleans. In: Tidball and Symbols and Rituals Krasny, Eds., Greening in the Red Zone: Disaster, Resilience, and Community Greening. Springer publishing. *Positive Dependency complex What Initiates? Mining for Mechanisms
- 25. MECHANISM 1 =URGENT BIOPHILIA URGENT BIOPHILIA • Attraction humans have for the rest of nature (and the rest of nature for us?) • Process of remembering that attraction • Urge to express it through creation of restorative environments • restore or increase ecological function • confer resilience across multiple scales Based on Biological Attraction Principle (Agnati et al. 2009) Analogous to Newton‟s Law of Gravitation Biological activities, processes, or patterns are all deemed to be mutually attractive Biological attractive force is intrinsic to living organisms and manifests itself through the propensity of any living organism to act (Holling and Gunderson 2002) Tidball, KG. 2012. Urgent Biophilia: Human-Nature Interactions and Biological Attractions in Disaster Resilience. Accepted at: Ecology and Society. Mining for Mechanisms
- 26. MECHANISM 2 =RESTORATIVE TOPOPHILIA • Topophilia = love of place (Tuan, 1974,1975,1977) • Emphasizes attachment to place and the symbolic meanings that underlie this attachment • Base for individual and collective action that repair and/or enhance valued attributes of place • Not only attachment, but also on meanings (Stedman, 2003,2008) • Urgent biophilia & restorative topophilia together comprise “positive dependency” • Positive dependency is resource dependence that enhances resilience, rather than eroding it Tidball, KG & RC Stedman. Positive Dependency and Virtuous Cycles: From Resource Dependence to Resilience in Urban Social-Ecological Systems. Submitted to: Ecological Economics. Mining for Mechanisms
- 27. MECHANISM 3 =MEMORIALIZATION • spontaneous and collective memorialization of lost ones through gardening and tree planting • community of practice emerges to act upon and apply these memories to social learning about greening practices • confers SES resilience, through contributing to psychological–social resistance and resilience and to ecosystem goods and services production Tidball, KG, ME Krasny, E Svendsen, L Campbell, & K Helphand. 2010. Stewardship, Learning, and Memory in Disaster Resilience. “Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems: the Role of Learning and Education,” Special Issue of Environmental Education Research, 16(5): 341-357. Mining for Mechanisms
- 28. MECHANISM 4 =SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYMBOLS & RITUALS http://candychang.com/sexy-trees-of-the-marigny-2011-calendar/ Tidball, KG (Accepted; expected 2012). Trees and Rebirth: Social-Ecological Symbols, Rituals and Resilience in Post-Katrina New Orleans. In: Tidball and Krasny, Eds., Greening in the Red Zone: Disaster, Resilience, and Community Greening. Springer publishing. Mining for Mechanisms
- 29. MECHANISM 4 =SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYMBOLS & RITUALS II N = 34 Mining for Mechanisms
- 30. MECHANISM 4 =SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYMBOLS & RITUALS III N = 36 Mining for Mechanisms
- 31. HOW DOES THECYCLE REPEAT & EXPAND? Desired system Virtuous cycle Undesired system Vicious cycle barriers to change (bifurcation zone or ridge) potential for action potential for actions perpetuating virtuous cycle perpetuating vicious cycles Repeat & Expand? Mining for Mechanisms
- 32. “GREENING” VIRTUOUS CYCLEMECHANISM 4. Ecosystem services 3. Natural capital “VIRTUOUS” Feedback “primes” virtuous cycle to repeat and expand 2. Individual & family well-being 1. Greening activities commence Repeat & Expand? Mining for Mechanisms
- 33. RED ZONE VICIOUSCYCLE Feedback “primes” cycle to repeat and expand 5. Depletion of social capital 4. Loss of 1. Red Zone community ecosystems services “VICIOUS” 2. Rioting, looting, etc. undermine individual and family well-being 3. Natural capital Repeat & eroded Expand? Mining for Mechanisms
- 34. QUANTIFYING TREE PLANTINGEFFORTS How much? Mining for Mechanisms
- 35. ROAD MAP FORTODAY Definitions, Context, & Study Site Research Question in the form of Retroductive Hypothesis/Model Framing Initial Models Mining for Mechanisms • What Does It All Mean? • Broader Context & Application
- 36. WHAT DOES ITALL MEAN? FINDING 1 -- There appears to be a “greening in the red zone process or cycle” that contains fundamental key sequential components, but that likely is nuanced on a case-by-case basis reflecting landscape, disturbance intensity, and other factors .
- 37. 1, Individuals gravitatetoward available green assets 2. Use available green assets 3. Clusters form- for therapeutic benefits- different paths/pace communities of practice 4. Restore and create new green assets 5. Larger greening movement emerges 7. New sites recruit new individuals; expand cycle 6. Greening activities Social-ecological system recover & restore sense of recovery & resilience processes place
- 38. WHAT DOES ITALL MEAN? FINDING 2 -- Within this “greening in the red zone process” there are at least five important mechanisms that explain how the system functions from one sequential frame to the next: • Urgent Biophilia Positive Dependency • Restorative Topophilia • Memorialization • Symbol & Ritualization • Expansive Virtuous Cycles
- 39. 2. Use availablegreen 1, Individuals gravitate toward available green assets assets; experience 3. Clusters form- for therapeutic benefits- different paths/pace therapeutic benefits communities of practice 4. Restore and create new green assets 5. Larger greening movement emerges Memorialization SES Symbols & Red zone commences Urgent Biophilia mechanism Rituals mechanism mechanism Virtuous Cycle Restorative Topophilia mechanism mechanism Social-ecological system 6. Greening activities recovery & resilience processes recover & restore sense of place
- 40. IMPLICATIONS & APPLICATIONS Are there examples of this besides the New Orleans case? Application for DNR? How do we go about “…maximizing biodiversity, enhancing and sustaining ecosystems, mitigating climate change, and managing natural resources in partnership Big picturegroups, state agencies, and national and international with local issues • environmental organizations...” in ephemeral,how can it be remembered and recovered ? Humans have lost their ecological identity; perturbed social- ecologicalOpotow, 2003;like red zones? (Clayton & systems Clayton 2003) • Are there clues about how we might recover our ecological identity in the way humans respond Thelarge scale disasters? zone model to greening in the red and mechanisms may be a beginning … • How should we value community-based ecological “…humans may be heavy hitters, but we must restoration in human vulnerability and security remember that nature bats last.” David Suzuki contexts?
- 41. CONCLUSIONS Things to walkaway with: • Possible utility of methodology that is pragmatic and well-suited for coupled biophysical/social research • A greening in the red zone process or cycle model • contains fundamental key sequential components • nuanced on a case-by-case basis reflecting landscape, disturbance intensity, and other factors • Five greening in the red zone mechanisms Thank you!
- 42.
- 45. Ontological Assumptions PartI A Realist orientation… 1. The world is 2. Things exist, act real, independent independently of of us. our descriptions. 3. Reality concept- 4. Descriptions = dependent, not world of ideas concept- (transitive). determined. 5. Objects = world of reality & nature (intransitive). Often, researchers conflate descriptions with objects. Ontology
- 46. The ultimate objectsof social scientific enquiry exist and act independently of social scientists and their activity. (Bhaskar 1989) Social reality is viewed as a socially constructed world, a result of: Empirical • social actors‟ cognitive resources (i.e., the social has to be interpreted and understood) • material but unobservable structures of relations Actual Real Epistemology – Critical realism
- 47. TRANSITIVE & INTRANSITIVE • We must distinguish between intransitive structures and mechanisms and transitive concepts, theories and laws that are designed to describe the former. Transitive = changing dimensions of scientific experience such as different historical conceptions of the world or Ptolemy‟s planetary motion Copernicus‟ planetary motion Epistemology – Critical realism
- 48. TRANSITIVE & INTRANSITIVECONT. Intransitive = causal mechanisms science seeks to discover and which exist in themselves regardless of whether or not humans exist. If the atomic model of oxygen is correct and oxygen does indeed have six electrons in its outer orbit and two electrons in its inner orbit, this is an ontological feature of oxygen atoms that is intransitive to our various theories and conceptions (the transitive) of oxygen. That is, according to Bhaskar, oxygen possesses these properties in itself, not merely for us, and these properties act and do their thing regardless of whether anyone knows it. Science is the search for these mechanisms, and requires a practice in order that they might be revealed or discovered. Epistemology – Critical realism
- 49. As adapted fromHolling and Gunderson (2002), a stylized depiction of the four ecosystem functions ( r, K, Ω, α) and the flow of events among them. Arrows show flow speed in the cycle; closely spaced arrows represent slow change and long arrows represent rapid change. The cycle reflects change in two properties (1) the Y axis is potential inherent in accumulated resources; (2) the X axis is the degree of connected among controlling variables. The transition from the K phase to the Ω phase is depicted here as „The Red Zone.‟ Expression of biophilia is also represented, corresponding to the Y axis and potential. Low connectedness is associated with loosely connected elements whose behavior is dominated by external relations and variability. High connectedness is associated with elements whose behavior is dominated by internal relations that control or mediate external variability. The „back loop,‟ in green, represents the stage during which urgent biophilia is likely expressed. The exit from the cycle at the left of the figure suggests the stage where the potential can leak away and where a „flip‟ into a less organized and desirable system is likely.
- 50. WHAT FRAME? (Sayer) (Bhaskar 1979)) (Harré & others) ) Harré, 1986. Varieties of Realism: A rationale for the Natural Sciences. Oxford, Basil Blackwell Bhaskar, 1989. Reclaiming Reality. London and New York: Verso. Bausch, 2001. The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory. New York: Plenum. Bhaskar, 1979. The Possibility of Naturalism. Brighton, UK: Harvester. Framing
- 51. WHAT FRAME? (Sayer) (Bhaskar 1979)) (Harré & others) ) Harré, 1986. Varieties of Realism: A rationale for the Natural Sciences. Oxford, Basil Blackwell Bhaskar, 1989. Reclaiming Reality. London and New York: Verso. Bausch, 2001. The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory. New York: Plenum. Bhaskar, 1979. The Possibility of Naturalism. Brighton, UK: Harvester. Framing
- 52. SO, WHY RETRODUCTIVE? Inductive Deductive Retroductive
- 53. WHAT‟S THIS ABOUT? Bigpicture issues • Humans have lost their ecological identity; how can it be remembered and recovered ? (Clayton & Opotow, 2003; Clayton 2003) • Are there clues about how we might recover our ecological identity in the way humans respond to large scale disasters? • How should we value community-based ecological restoration in human vulnerability and security “…humans may be heavy hitters, but we must remember that nature bats last.” David Suzuki contexts? http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/01-9 Context
- 54. INITIAL MODELS… IMAGININGMECHANISMS “…there will be social mechanisms behind management practices based on local ecological knowledge, as evidence of a co-evolutionary relationship between local institutions and the ecosystem in which they are located.” Berkes & Folke 1998
- 55. NOT GARDENS … Context - Study Site
- 56. CRITICAL REALIST NUANCESAMONG “NATURAL” & SOCIAL WORLDS 1. Social structures 2. Social products can‟t exist w/o less enduring than natural world natural structures Environmental Cosmic 3. Social structuresSocial Ecology Ecology 4. Social systems Ecology not independent of Personal Ecology more open than social actors physical systems conceptions 5. Yet, social actors able to act upon and & Gunderson transform physical 2002 Holling Wimberley 2009 systems Panarchies Nested Ecologies Framing
- 57. One Community Three points of of Practice analysis Trees Trees (Domain of Knowledge ) Tree Planting Tree Planters Tree Planting Tree Planters (Practice) (Community) Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E. (1998). "Communities of Practice: Learning as a Social System." Systems Thinker , June. Smith, M. K. (2003, 2009) 'Communities of practice', The Encyclopedia of Informal Education, www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm. Daniel, Schwier et al. (2003) “Social Capital in virtual learning communities and distributed communities of practice.” Canadian Journal of Learning & Technology 29(3):113-139.
- 58. QUANTIFYING TREE PLANTINGEFFORTS How much? Mining for Mechanisms
- 59. GIS ANALYSIS –CANOPY How much? Mining for Mechanisms
- 60. GIS ANALYSIS –SURFACE AREA How much? Mining for Mechanisms
Editor's Notes
- #3 Today just going to give an overview of the work we are doing in the civic ecology lab at Cornell University on how community based environmental management and ecological restoration can be useful in transitions towards peace after war, terrorist acts, civil unrest, and large scale natural disasters. I hope to simply introduce a few main concepts and recent findings, in order to pique interest in this activity within the realm of ecology and peace engaged scholarship.
- #4 I have spent a good deal of the past ten years, since 9/11, thinking about these two questions.
- #5 There won’t be less of these any time soon.
- #11 2005The hurricane damaged the components of thesocial-ecological system at a variety of spatial and temporal scales.More than 1800 people dead53 levee breaches125 billion in damagesMore than 200,000 homes destroyedEstimates of up to one-third of the population of the city moved away following the storm.
- #12 CRP- NOPI backgroundNeighborhood ecology group- looking for evidence re gardening
- #13 Rather than gardening showing up as a kind of recovery strategy, it was the trees.Trees themselves, tree planting, and tree planting communities of practice
- #14 So what happened to the trees?Left-The devastation of southern Gulf Coast forests by Hurricane Katrina was documented in before-and-after images from the Landsat 5 satellite. The Interstate 10 "twin-span" bridges that cross Lake Pontchartrain east of New Orleans is seen here pre- and post-Katrina. Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge is the large patch of forest (green) the lower left portion of the LEFT image, which suffered heavy tree mortality (seen in red in the RIGHT image after the storm)“Right- Severity of forest damage caused by hurricane Katrina. Each pixel represents 1km2.
- #15 9 other major cities there in the US, avg 1.8 % loss, compared to 9.6 % loss
- #16 All of the above. Commensurate with the damage to the urban forest, and all of the homes and neighborhoods, was the damage caused to the reputation of New Orleans, the morale of the city and of the people living in it, by the news media reporting of post-Katrina New Orleans.But despite media reports of “failure of resilience”, I was beginning to see a movement towards using trees as a way to both express resilience and to enhance it. Began to suspect tree planting was the beginning of a counter narrative regarding the failure of New Orleans, a REBIRTH narrative. This lead me to the logic that has driven this work-
- #17 This question, reflects an ontology, epistemology and methodology that are neither extremely positivist nor extremely constructivist, but rather highly pragmatic and “in the middle.”
- #18 I could spend the rest of the seminar on this slide, but I won’t. Quick run through- slides at end if needed.Important thing to focus on is retroductive approach of hypothetical modeling and resilience.Retroductive modelingRetroductive research strategy involves the building of hypothetical models as a way of uncovering the real structures and mechanisms which are assumed to produce empirical phenomena. In constructing these models of mechanisms that have usually never been observed or described, ideas, metaphors, heuristics may be borrowed from known structures and mechanisms in other fields. researcher does not start with a blank slate in the manner implied by inductive strategies. Involves making an hypothesis which appears to explain what has been observed; it is observing some phenomenon and then postulating what it was that gave rise to it. A creative activity involving disciplined scientific imagination and the use of analogies and metaphors. This mode has worked well in the biophysical sciences--- relatively new in social sciences.
- #19 These kinds of “models” reflect the framing of this study, not to be confused with population dynamics models, spatial statistical models, or other work done in this department.This kind of modeling requires a willingness to refine the model, or rework it, over and over again.
- #20 Mixed models – model uses a mix of qualitative & quantitative data, as well as a mix of field or raw data and experimental dataRETRODUCTIVE METHODS YIELD A UNIQUE KIND OF EXPERIMENTAL DATA – VIA SEARCHES ACROSS FIELDS AND DISCIPLINES FOR PLAUSIBLE MECHANISMS, THAT ARE THEN BROKE DOWN & REBUILT –THESE DATA AND INFORMATION WILL APPEAR AS “MECHANISMS”The research approach for track 1 draws from analysis methods used in understanding distributed communities of practice). The methods entailed interviews and document review and use of GIS .The approach for tracks 2 and 3 draws from research focused on people’s responses to trees, and includes qualitative interviews, photo-elicitation/ photo-essay, and focus group interviews, as well as GIS. Through integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches within two of the three tracks, and across the tracks and phases of the research process, this approach goes beyond mixed methods approaches that use a blend of quantitative and qualitative methods and can be described as a “mixed models” approach, consistent with the earlier discussion regarding a realist ontology, a critical realist and systems theory epistemology, and a retroductive, modeling, resilience thinking methodology. A mixed models study is a product of the pragmatist paradigm, combining qualitative and quantitative approaches within and across different phases of the research process, a research design representing a high degree of mixing of paradigms (Tashakkori and Teddlie 1998)
- #22 Once social-ecological symbols, rituals, and sense of place are being recovered through greening, really interesting things begin to happen in the systemobservation driven retroductive hypothetical model. This model was quickly replaced by a model that opened up questions about mechansims, but as a sequential process model, maintained its usefulness over the years of this study.
- #24 Consistent with the methodology employed, my model generated more questions than answers… so I began to go MINING FOR MECHANISMS.
- #25 Propose mechanisms and positioning (later repositioning)
- #26 URGENT BIOPHILIA IS: the affinity we humans have for the rest of nature, the process of remembering that attraction, and the urge to express it through creation of restorative environments, which may also restore or increase ecological function, may confer resilience across multiple scalesSo, whenfaced with a disaster, as individuals and as communities and populations, we seek engagement with nature to summon and demonstrate resilience in the face of a crisis, we are demonstrating an urgent biophilia.urgent biophilia represents an important set of human-nature interactions in SES characterized by hazard, disaster, or vulnerability, often appearing in the “backloop” of the adaptive cycle (Holling and Gunderson 2002).Builds upon contemporary work on principles of biological attraction as well as earlier work on biophilia while synthesizing literatures on restorative environments, community-based ecological restoration, and both community and social-ecological disaster resilienceSo this is one explanatory mechanism derived from the retroductive model and consequent inquiry.
- #27 This mechanism is yin to the yang of urgent biophilia. Here,drawing upon Tuan’s notion of topophilia (literally ‘love of place’), I am emphasizing a social actor’s attachment to place and the symbolic meanings that underlie this attachment. In contrast to urgent biophilia, restorative topophilia is conceived and operationalized as more experiential and ‘constructed’ rather than innate, and suggests that topophilia serves as a powerful base for individual and collective action that repair and/or enhance valued attributes of place. These restorative greening actions are based not only on attachment—people fight for the places they care about as Rich says—but also on meanings, which define the kinds of places people are fighting for.
- #28 REMIND OF RETRODUCTION– KEEP GOING BACK TO SYNTHESIZING LIT, CHECKING FIELD DATA REVIEWING OBSERVATIONS, ETCA memorialization mechanism begins right after a crisis, when spontaneous and collective memorialization of lost ones through gardening and tree planting happens. Then a community of practice emerges to act upon and apply these memories to social learning about greening practices. This, in turn, may lead to new kinds of learning, including about collective efficacy and ecosystem services production, through feedback between remembering, learning, and enhancing individual, social, and environmental well-being. Map of Living memorials project. 667 greening memorialization sites re 9-11. major spikes in September each year.
- #29 Tree symbols everywhere – THREE SLIDES
- #30 Graphic depiction of concepts, themes, connectivity, and relevance from initial interview data of Parkway Partners Tree Trooper class (n34). Note the closeness of concepts of trees and tree with New Orleans, homes, and neighborhood, indicating strong symbolic significance in trees and ideas of place.The Leximancer system is a relatively new method for transforming lexical co-occurrence informationfrom natural language into semantic patterns in an unsupervised manner. It employs two stages ofco-occurrence information extraction—semantic and relational—using a different algorithm for eachstage. The algorithms used are statistical, but they employ nonlinear dynamics and machine learning.
- #31 Refers back to meanings described in Restorative Topophilia and memorialization mechanismmultiple symbolic meanings of trees in different contexts. three broad families of symbolic meanings of trees: (A) trees themselves as symbols (their presence, their absence, their status); (B) tree planting as a kind of symbol or symbolic action; and (C) both trees and tree planting explicitly combined in the discourse. 20 general categories of symbolic meanings of trees and tree planting, representing more than 70 specific and nuanced types of symbolic instances. further separated into positive meaning and negative meaning groups based on textual analysis of interview data. The presence of tree symbols, the social-ecological memories that define them and that inform the rituals that perpetuate them, and the resulting social-ecological relationships between people and trees or forests, as expressed through symbols and rituals, reveals a possible mechanism within the greening in the red zone system, and a source of resilience in this kind of SES undergoing rapid change.
- #32 Another mechanism that began to take shape through this iterative modeling approach was the mechanism of feedbacks, which seems to appear at different points in the greening in the red zone cycle, depending on a number of factors. To understand this mechanism, I borrow from stability landscapes and basin of attraction models to create explanatory metaphors that can be thought of as descriptive of the feedback mechanisms at play in the greening in the red zone system
- #33 Rudimentary version of a greening virtuoys
- #35 I TRIED TO ACCOUNT FOR NUMBERS OF TREES IN THREE WAYS inventories of total trees palntedMapping distributionsGIS canopy and impervious surface anlaysisKNOW THAT THOUSANDS OF TREES HAVE BEEN PLANTED, REPLACING LOST TREES– BUT HAVEN’T YET CAPTURED THIS IN CANOPY ANALYSISConverted Parkway Partners’ Ten‐for‐the‐Hood address data from plantings between January 2006 and March 2010 to GIS coordinates. Addresses of locations where Parkway Partners “Ten for the Hood” trees were planted were converted to GIS coordinates using the University of Southern California’s (USC) web GIS Services laboratory’s free software service . Those coordinates were then plotted on maps
- #40 5 important mechanisms of the greening in the red zone system
- #41 GRZ book 35 chapters, mostly examples of this process and these mechanisms.Quote from DNR web page …
- #42 In this presentation I have shared with you the phenomena of greening in the red zone from social science perspectives (via symbols, rituals, and sense of place) and from social-ecological systems resilience perspectives (via identifying mechanisms and potential sources of social-ecological resilience, detecting virtuous cycles and resilience conferring feedback), with post-Katrina New Orleans as my primary case study and field site. I have also briefly presented an integrated systems theory and critical realist epistemology and methodology to pursue a retroductive logic which asked “if these were the observations, then what could the model and theory have been?” As such, I presented models that featured mechanisms in such a way that, if they were to exist and act in the postulated way, they would provide an explanation for the phenomena being examined. Of particular interest were tree symbols, tree planting rituals, and the relationship between these social-ecological symbols and rituals and the recovery or reinterpretation of sense of place, especially in terms of resilience conferring feedbacks and virtuous cycles.I have asked “Why do humans turn to greening in the wake of conflict and disaster?” This question invites us as humans to revisit our relationship with the rest of nature, and to ask ourselves what we may learn from ourselves, given our behaviors in urgent or dire circumstances. Second, I have asked “Of what use might greening in human vulnerability and security contexts be in managing social-ecological systems for resilience?” This question alludes to application, in planning and policy making fields, in natural resource management, and in fields of disaster preparedness, mitigation, and recovery. The answers to these questions seem to be timely given continuing worries about conflict over access to resources, climate change, and overpopulation and the red zones that will inevitably emerge. The ways in which we as humans reorganize, learn, recover and demonstrate resilience through remembering and operationalizing the value of our relationships with elements of our shared ecologies in the direst of circumstances such as disaster and war hold clues to how we might increase human resilience to new surprises, while contributing sources of social-ecological resilience to ecosystems.
- #47 Bhaskar 1989 Reclaiming Reality. London and New York: Verso, 1989The social reality is stratified into three domains: the empirical is made up of experiences and events through observations the actual includes events whether observed or not and the real consists of the processes, structures, powers and causal mechanisms that generate events
- #48 So with the social reality in mind, we must distinguish between intransitive structures and mechanisms (i.e., the real and objective dimensions that can occur independently of us) and transitive concepts, theories and laws that are designed to describe the former.
- #51 Critical RealismFor critical realists, the ultimate goal of research is not to identify generalizable laws (positivism) or to identify the lived experience or beliefs of social actors (interpretivism); it is to develop deeper levels of explanation and understanding. Basically, the goal is to find a theory that, if true, would explain what has been observed. it involves moving from the level of observations and lived experience to postulate about the underlying structures and mechanisms that account for the phenomena involved. What structural and mechanistic properties emerge and interact in greening in the red zone? What structural and mechanistic purpose would greening in red zones serve?Systems TheoryRefers specifically to self-regulating systems, i.e. that are self-correcting through feedback. Self-regulating systems are found in nature, including the physiological systems of our body, in local and global ecosystems, and in climate - and in human learning processes. (Bausch- also Odum, Capra, Holling, etc.) How might these greening in the red zone phenomena expand or spread? Feedbacks? Cycles? And how might they contribute to larger social-ecological system function and resilience?
- #52 Retroductive approachesAccording to Sayer (1992, p.107), retroduction is a "...mode of inference in which events are explained by postulating (and identifying) mechanisms which are capable of producing them...". Entails the idea of going back from, below, or behind observed patterns or regularities to discover what produces them. Ginzburg (1990) traces the emergence of retroductive reasoning back to the needs of hunters. To track down their prey, hunters needed the ability to look for clues such as broken branches, hoof marks, tufts of hair and odors, and then ask themselves, ‘What does it indicate?’ When they encountered unusual clues such as new scents they were then able to speculate what the cause of the scent might be Hypothetical modelingCritical realists builds theories by creating (iterative) models to describe the essence of causal mechanisms and structures. Models, in the critical realist’s viewpoint, are vehicles carrying pictures of generative and productive mechanisms and they play a key role in this kind of scientific inquiry. Models are built of mechanisms in such a way that, if the mechanisms were to exist and act in the postulated way, they would explain the phenomenon being examined. From the critical realist perspective, underlying mechanisms can only be known by constructing ideas about them; and models reveal the underlying mechanisms of reality. I am assuming most everyone here is familiar with Social-Ecological Systems dynamics and Resilience thinking a la Holling, Folke, Walker, Gunderson and many others. Methodological implications- scenarios, models, and so on.Cybernetics refers to efforts to understand and define the functions and processes of systems that have goals and that participate in circular, causal chains (feedback loops, cycles) that move from action to sensing to comparison with desired goal, and again to action. Studies in cybernetics provide a means for examining the design and function of any system, including social systems.By examining group behavior through the lens of cybernetics, social scientists can seek the reasons or mechanisms for such spontaneous events as such as so-called smart mobs, riots, and other social emergence.
- #53 Inductive- builds generalizations out of observations of specific events. It starts with singular or particular statements and ends up with general or universal propositions. essentially descriptive and does not really explain anything as it fails to uncover the causes of the generalized conjunctions; there is no purely logical inductive process for establishing the validity of universal statements.Deductive- reverse of inductive. begins explicitly with a tentative hypothesis or set of hypotheses that form a theory which could provide a possible answer or explanation for a particular problem, then proceeds to use observations to rigorously test the hypotheses. moves from premises, at least one of which is a general or universal statement, to a conclusion that is a singular statement. Deductive propositions form a hierarchy from theoretical to observational; from abstract to concrete. reluctant to deal with the process by which hypotheses come into being. claims that while the pursuit of truth is the goal of science, all scientific theories are tentative. Neither Induction or Deduction ALONE contribute a single new concept or new idea.Retroductive- Retroductive research strategy involves the building of hypothetical models as a way of uncovering the real structures and mechanisms which are assumed to produce empirical phenomena. In constructing these models of mechanisms that have usually never been observed or described, ideas may be borrowed from known structures and mechanisms in other fields. researcher does not start with a blank slate in the manner implied by Inductive. involves making an hypothesis which appears to explain what has been observed; it is observing some phenomenon and then claiming what it was that gave rise to it. A creative activity involving disciplined scientific imagination and the use of analogies and metaphors. This mode has worked well in the biophysical sciences--- relatively new in social sciences.
- #54 the way in which we define the environment, the degree of similarity we perceive between ourselves and other components of the natural world, and whether we consider nature and nonhuman natural entities to have standing as valued components of our social and moral community (Clayton & Opotow 2003). Much in common with Leopold’s thinking like a mountain and land ethic.one part of the way in which people form their self-concept: a sense of connection to some part of the of the nonhuman natural environment, based on history, emotional attachment, and/or similarity, that affects the ways in which we perceive and act toward the world; a belief that the environment is important to us and who we are (Clayton 2003).
- #55 So, I began to construct some very initial models of the events I was observing, the tree planting phenomena, that might be explained by postulating (and identifying) mechanisms which would be capable of producing them...
- #56 The dots are vacant or adjudicated lots– we saw as potential opportunities for greening activity given previous experience in NYC and elsewhere.
- #57 Work under these assumptions:Social structures can’t exist independent of the natural world.Social structures are social products that are less enduring than ‘natural’ structures .Social structures do not exist independently of the social actors’ ADD THE SINGLE QUOTE IN ACTORS IN SLIDE conceptions of what they are doing in their activities.Social systems are more open (i.e., less determined and predictable) than physical ones.At the same time, social actors are able to act upon, and transform, them.Thesecritical realist nuances facilitate thinking that escapes unnecessary dichotomous thinking of human systems and “natural” systems as separate. Instead, with the elements of this frame, we can explore greening in the red zone from a “nested ecologies” perspective, which then allows for thinking in terms of panarchies.
- #58 MOVE UP TRIANGLE- CONSIDER REMOVINGSo in essence, what came to define the community for my study was not a particular neighborhood or political boundary such as “the 9th Ward,” but rather a practice---i.e., the planting of and caring for trees. This practice has emerged through the work of my community partner organizations and of a diverse group of volunteers who have taken the initiative to go into City Park, their own neighborhoods, and other sites throughout the city to prune damaged trees, plant street trees, document losses of important symbolic trees and forests, and provide trees and information for residents.
- #59 The urban canopy analysis involved a two-map comparison of images from March 2006 and February 2009. The maps portray the urban canopy in Tremé neighborhood in downtown New Orleans. The map is divided into nine corridors running perpendicular to Esplanade Avenue and Saint Louis Street. The nine corridors allow comparison on a street by street basis.
- #60 I was hoping that this analysis would add some specific numbers to statements like “increases size of urban forest” or “increases tree canopy”… “by how much?” enter an answer.This aspect of the study was disappointing. I share it now, in the spirit of the methodology of retroduction and mechanism hunting, to concede shortcomings, and areas for further work.The 2006 analysis was based on the first available imagery after Hurricane Katrina, springtime imagery. Tree coverage was in bloom and evident to the viewer’s eye. The 2009 analysis, however, involved the only available imagery qualifying under our criteria of “most recent available,” imagery taken at the tail-end of winter just before spring. Roughly 80% of the tree cover at this time was clearly discernible. To depict the remainder of the canopy involved following shadows of branches and tree trunks to determine whether a tree in fact existed, and would eventually bloom a canopy. It is also worth noting that when trees are planted by neighborhood associations or other groups who are part of a tree planting community of practice, it may take years before saplings develop canopies that are discernible in aerial photographs. Though all trees were accounted for in this analysis within the Tremé boundary line, comparing data from similar seasons over a longer period of time would result in a more accurate depiction of the Tremé’s true tree canopy transformation.
- #61 The result? From March 2006 to February 2009, the tree canopy and surface area analysis in Tremé both showed a 1% increase. This in no way speaks to the efforts of local tree planting initiatives, but rather reflects a reality of limitations of available data (and less than ideal approaches for analysis of the data). It is worth pointing out though that as a result of discussions with Forest Service colleagues (especially at the Urban Field Station in NYC) where I expressed frustration with available imagery and tools for analysis, researchers have (since 2009) overcome those issues (hence the earlier paper on 10 cities and tree canopy loss)--- there are now great opportunities for understanding and quantifying tree planting and other greening efforts in red zones.