scholarly journals Governing a Collective Bad: Social Learning in the Management of Crop Diseases

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elias Damtew ◽  
Barbara van Mierlo ◽  
Rico Lie ◽  
Paul Struik ◽  
Cees Leeuwis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Late Blight ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Learning Space ◽  
Units Of Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Collective Action Problems ◽  
Crop Disease ◽  
Late Blight Management

AbstractThere has been strong research interest in designing and testing learning approaches for enhancing and sustaining the capacity of communities to manage collective action problems. Broadening the perspective from well-known social learning approaches in natural resource management, this study explores how social learning as a communicative process influences collective action in contagious crop disease management. A series of facilitated discussion and reflection sessions about late blight management created the social learning space for potato farmers in Ethiopia. Communicative utterances of participants in the sessions served as the units of analysis. The study demonstrates how and to what extent social learning, in the form of aligned new knowledge, relations and actions occurred and formed the basis for collective action in the management of late blight.

scholarly journals Social Language Learning Spaces: Globalization Glocalized

2017 ◽  
pp. 235-246
Author(s):  
Garold Murray ◽  
Mariko Uzuka ◽  
Naomi Fujishima
Keyword(s):  
International Students ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Japanese Society ◽  
Theoretical Orientation ◽  
Learning Spaces ◽  
Learning Space ◽  
The Social ◽  
National University ◽  
Local Students

In this era of globalization, Japanese universities will have to accommodate an increasing number of local students wishing to learn foreign languages and they will also have to welcome more international students to their campuses. While universities will undoubtedly take steps to ensure that both groups have positive educational and intercultural experiences, we contend that it is also incumbent upon them to implement measures designed to facilitate the adaptation of international students to Japanese society. In this article, we examine the role social learning spaces can play in helping universities respond to these challenges. We argue that these facilities can make an invaluable contribution by supporting language learning and cross-cultural acclimatization for both international and Japanese students. The term social learning spaces refers to places where students can come together in an informal or quasi-formal environment in order to learn from and with each other. To illustrate our points, we draw on the data from a five-year ethnographic inquiry carried out at one such facility on the campus of a large national university. After describing the social learning space, outlining the study, and tracing the theoretical orientation guiding the interpretation of the data, we focus on the benefits social learning spaces can afford international students wishing to improve their language skills and adapt to Japanese society. To conclude, we reflect on how social learning spaces can support the process of glocalization by making local universities more globalized places.

Motivating a “Thinkable Politics”

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-181
Author(s):  
Tim Christion ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Cultural Barriers ◽  
Class Consciousness ◽  
Climate Response ◽  
The Social ◽  
Collective Action Problems ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Dialectical Phenomenology

Climate change is one of the greatest collective action problems ever faced. The social and cultural barriers to intersubjectively motivating concern and agency are sweeping. It seems all but impossible to imagine politically viable solutions commensurate with the realities of the problem, and likewise find visionary ways of framing this problem to inspire meaningful solutions. One therefore perceives an abyss between ‘problem’ and ‘solution,’ as expressed in irreconcilable debates between problem-driven and solution-driven strategies for motivating climate action. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s dialectical phenomenology of motivation and class consciousness in particular, I argue that his call for a “thinkable politics” can help activists bring problem-driven and solution-driven motives for climate response into productive relation.

scholarly journals Combining experiential and social learning approaches for crop disease management in a smallholder context: a complex socio-ecological problem

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-282
Author(s):  
Shiferaw Tafesse ◽  
B. van Mierlo ◽  
C. Leeuwis ◽  
R. Lie ◽  
B. Lemaga ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Disease Management ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Disease Incidence ◽  
Disease Diagnosis ◽  
Ecological Problem ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Crop Diseases ◽  
Crop Disease

Abstract Effective management of crop diseases is a key precondition for sustainable crop production and to improve food security globally. However, learning approaches that improve smallholder farmers’ knowledge, perceptions, and practices to deal with crop diseases by fostering social and technical innovations are seldom studied. A study was conducted to examine: (1) how a combination of experiential and social learning approaches influences potato farmers’ knowledge, perceptions, and practices in bacterial wilt and its management in Ethiopia and (2) the implications of combining the two approaches for complex crop disease management in smallholder context. Data were derived from face-to-face in-depth interviews, reflective workshops, and participant observations. The findings showed that farmers’ knowledge and perceptions about disease incidence, the pathogen that causes the disease, its spreading mechanisms, host plants, and disease diagnosis were changed. Farmers’ practices in management of the disease were also improved. Learning about the cause of the disease stimulated the identification of locally relevant spreading mechanisms and the feasibility of a range of recommended disease management methods. Moreover, farmers recognized their interdependency, role, and responsibility to cooperate to reduce the disease pressure in their community. We conclude that learning interventions aiming to improve smallholder farmers’ knowledge, perceptions, and practices to deal with complex crop diseases need to combine experiential and social learning approaches and consider farmers’ local knowledge.

scholarly journals Better Than Rational: A Naturalistic View of Economic Governance

2017 ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
J.W. Stoelhorst
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Economic Governance ◽  
Human Organization ◽  
Naturalistic Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
Collective Action Problems ◽  
The Face ◽  
Better Than

The purpose of this paper is to present a recently emerging evolutionary approach to the study of human organization that I will refer to as ‘naturalistic’, and to highlight its integrative potential for the social and administrative sciences. This naturalistic approach considers the various forms of human cooperation as products of gene-culture co-evolutionary processes, and in doing so goes to the heart of the collective action problems that are central to explaining the human condition. Moreover, in building empirically grounded explanations of human behavior and organization, it also offers an alternative to the traditional view of governance in economic theory, with its emphasis on decentralized exchange and rational self-interested choice. The naturalistic approach both explains why human nature has evolved to the point where we often can do ‘better than rational’ in the face of the social dilemmas underlying collective action problems, and why modern forms of social, economic, and political organization are nevertheless always prone to being undermined by these same dilemmas.

scholarly journals Empirisk analyse af kollektiv handling: Nobelprisen i økonomi 2009 til Elinor Ostrom

Politik ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mogens K. Justesen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Nobel Prize ◽  
The Social ◽  
Collective Action Problems

This article provides an introduction to the work of Elinor Ostrom, focusing on those parts of her research for which she awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009. Ostrom received the Nobel Prize mainly for her analyses of how groups of individuals organize and develop institutions to handle collective action problems. Ostrom also identifies a set of conditions that affect the likelihood that individuals successfully solve collective action problems. In this way, Ostrom provides a major contribution to the study of collective action in the social sciences. 

Network

2020 ◽  
pp. 37-57
Author(s):  
Ray Brescia
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Geographic Area ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Social ◽  
Collective Action Problems

This chapter examines the role of trust in solving collective action problems and the ways in which translocal networks harness this trust to advance broad social change. Such trust is present in the social relationships one forms with others, what is often referred to as one's social capital. From the Sons of Liberty to the civil rights movement, different social movements have utilized different means of communications to form, identify individuals who shared common beliefs, bind people together, and animate collective action. They often did this in networks, and networks of a particular kind. As the name implies, the translocal network is one that may span a wide geographic area and can harness the power of a large group of committed individuals but is also made up of smaller cells where face-to-face communication between individual members can occur. The chapter then looks at examples of the social movements that have emerged in social innovation moments to show how they have generally tended to organize themselves into translocal networks, at least until a means of communication emerged that allowed organizers to form different types of organizations.

scholarly journals Beyond Indicators and Success Stories: An Emerging Method to Assess Social Learning in Large-Scale Transdisciplinary Research Programs

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying-Syuan Huang ◽  
Blane Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Program Implementation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Research Programs ◽  
Success Stories ◽  
The Social ◽  
Learning And Change

Facilitated learning approaches are increasingly being used as a means to enhance climate and sustainability collaborations working across disciplines, regions, and scales. With investments into promoting and supporting inter- and transdisciplinary learning in major programs on complex global challenges like climate change on the rise, scholars and practitioners are calling for a more grounded and empirical understanding of learning processes and their outcomes. Yet, methodologies for studying the interplay between learning and change in these initiatives remain scarce, owing to both the “hard to measure” nature of learning and the complexity of large-scale program implementation and evaluation. This paper proposes a new method for studying social learning in the context of large research programs. It aims to analyze the social learning of researchers and practitioners engaged in these programs and assess the contributions of this learning to the resilience of the natural and social systems that these programs seek to influence. We detail the theoretical basis for this new approach and set out six steps for developing multi-layered contribution pathways and contribution stories with stakeholders to document both the process and outcomes of social learning. The proposed method, we argue, can strengthen our analytical capacity to uncover the structural drivers and barriers to social learning that are often masked by the complexity of large-scale programs. An illustrative example, drawn from a large-scale climate adaptation research program, provides evidence on how this method might advance our methodological strategies for studying learning in these programs. We conclude by highlighting two key methodological contributions brought about through this approach, and by reflecting on opportunities for further methodological development. Enriching our understanding of learning and change processes, we argue, is an important avenue for understanding how we can pursue transformations for sustainability.

scholarly journals Norm-Based Governance for Severe Collective Action Problems: Lessons from Climate Change and COVID-19

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Leigh Raymond ◽  
Daniel Kelly ◽  
Erin P. Hennes
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Behavior Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Individual Behavior ◽  
The Social ◽  
Collective Action Problems ◽  
Norm Internalization ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Political Governance

The world has surpassed three million deaths from COVID-19, and faces potentially catastrophic tipping points in the global climate system. Despite the urgency, governments have struggled to address either problem. In this paper, we argue that COVID-19 and anthropogenic climate change (ACC) are critical examples of an emerging type of governance challenge: severe collective action problems that require significant individual behavior change under conditions of hyper-partisanship and scientific misinformation. Building on foundational political science work demonstrating the potential for norms (or informal rules of behavior) to solve collective action problems, we analyze more recent work on norms from neighboring disciplines to offer novel recommendations for more difficult challenges like COVID-19 and ACC. Key insights include more attention to 1) norm-based messaging strategies that appeal to individuals across the ideological spectrum or that reframe collective action as consistent with resistant subgroups’ pre-existing values, 2) messages that emphasize both the prevalence and the social desirability of individual behaviors required to address these challenges, 3) careful use of public policies and incentives that make individual behavior change easier without threatening norm internalization, and 4) greater attention to epistemic norms governing trust in different information sources. We conclude by pointing out that COVID-19 and climate change are likely harbingers of other polarized collective action problems that governments will face in the future. By connecting work on norms and political governance with a broader, interdisciplinary literature on norm psychology, motivation, and behavior change, we aim to improve the ability of political scientists and policymakers to respond to these and future collective action challenges.

scholarly journals Self-Access Environments as Self-Enriching Complex Dynamic Ecosocial Systems

2018 ◽  
pp. 102-115
Author(s):  
Garold Murray
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Complex Dynamic ◽  
Learning Space ◽  
Complex Dynamic Systems ◽  
The Social ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Data Informed

The central argument of this paper is that self-access centres transformed into social learning spaces have the potential to become self-enriching complex dynamic ecosocial systems. As such, they can support the emergence of a wide variety of affordances for language learning. While complex dynamic systems cannot be created and the process of emergence cannot be engineered, research suggests that both can be facilitated. To illustrate these points, I draw on the findings of three studies carried out in a social learning space at Okayama University in Japan: a five-year ethnography, a multiple-case study, and a narrative inquiry. I begin by describing the social learning space, outlining the studies and providing an overview of the theoretical orientations which guided the interpretation of the data. Informed by these bodies of theory and results from the studies, I then discuss why it is important to have a social learning space with the potential to become a complex dynamic ecosocial system. The paper concludes with an exploration of how educators might go about facilitating the emergence of self-enriching complex dynamic ecosocial systems.

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