scholarly journals Community Self-Organisation from a Social-Ecological Perspective: ‘Burlang Yatra’ and Revival of Millets in Odisha (India)

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 1867
Author(s):  
Lopamudra Patnaik Saxena
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Indigenous Community ◽  
Ecological Perspective ◽  
Ecological Relationships ◽  
Ecological Memory ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge System ◽  
The Social

In this paper, I focus on the revival of an Indigenous community seed festival known locally as Burlang Yatra (‘Indigenous Biodiversity Festival’) in the district of Kandhamal in Odisha (India). This annual event brings together millet farmers to share knowledge and practices, including exchange of Indigenous heirloom seeds. Such community seed festivals remain largely underappreciated (and underexplored). Investigating Burlang Yatra through a social-ecological lens allowed for a greater understanding of its capacity to build and strengthen relationships, adaptation, and responsibility, three key principles that together link the social and the ecological in a dynamic sense. These principles, driven by intergenerational participation and interaction as well as social learning, can be seen as fostering ‘social-ecological memory’ of millet-based biodiverse farming. The festival’s persistence and revival illustrate a form of grassroots self-organising that draws on values of an Indigenous knowledge system. Within a restorative context, it has the capacity to repair and restore cultural and ecological relationships that the community has with their own foods and practices. This paper offers a new understanding of community self-organising from a social-ecological perspective and particularly in a marginalised context as supporting the revitalisation of Indigenous food systems.

scholarly journals Achieving Social and Ecological Outcomes in Collaborative Environmental Governance: Good Examples from Swedish Moose Management

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2329
Author(s):  
Sabrina Dressel ◽  
Annelie Sjölander-Lindqvist ◽  
Maria Johansson ◽  
Göran Ericsson ◽  
Camilla Sandström
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Collaborative Governance ◽  
Theory Of Change ◽  
Ecological Context ◽  
Discretionary Power ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
The Social

Collaborative governance approaches have been suggested as strategies to handle wicked environmental problems. Evaluations have found promising examples of effective natural resource governance, but also highlighted the importance of social-ecological context and institutional design. The aim of this study was to identify factors that contribute to the achievement of social and ecological sustainability within Swedish moose (Alces alces) management. In 2012, a multi-level collaborative governance regime was implemented to decrease conflicts among stakeholders. We carried out semi-structured interviews with six ‘good examples’ (i.e., Moose Management Groups that showed positive social and ecological outcomes). We found that ‘good examples’ collectively identified existing knowledge gaps and management challenges and used their discretionary power to develop procedural arrangements that are adapted to the social-ecological context, their theory of change, and attributes of local actors. This contributed to the creation of bridging social capital and principled engagement across governance levels. Thus, our results indicate the existence of higher-order social learning as well as a positive feedback from within-level collaboration dynamics to between-level collaboration. Furthermore, our study illustrates the importance of institutional flexibility to utilize the existing knowledge across stakeholder groups and to allow for adaptations based on the social learning process.

scholarly journals Social Learning for Facilitating Dialogue and Understanding of the Ecosystem Services Approach: Lessons from a Cross-Border Experience in the Alboran Marine Basin

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (19) ◽  
pp. 5239 ◽  
Author(s):  
María D. López-Rodríguez ◽  
Javier Cabello ◽  
Hermelindo Castro ◽  
Jaime Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Ecological System ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
The Social ◽  
Governance Practice ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Marine Basin

Social learning (SL) appears to have considerable potential to enhance the impact of the ecosystem services approach (ESA) discourse on policy and society. However, empirical research to better understand the processes that support SL, the effects it generates, and the conditions that enable such learning is limited. This study assesses the ability of SL to enhance dialogue and understanding of the ESA to support transformative social change in governance practice in the Alboran Marine Basin. To do so, we conducted a specifically designed SL process oriented towards the ESA as a governance approach in this marine region. The SL process was developed through three interlinked workshops involving scientists, decision-makers and local users from Spain and Morocco, the two countries that share the governance of this social-ecological system. The results revealed that the SL process progressively facilitated (i) a more inclusive and constructive ecosystem services dialogue, (ii) a better understanding of the social-ecological system in which the actors were embedded, (iii) an enhanced recognition of science-policy-society complementarities to address sustainability issues, and (iv) a gradual social transformation towards more sustainable and equitable governance. Via the SL process, a variety of factors were identified as contributing to the creation of four relevant conditions that facilitated its successful operationalisation. These conditions included (i) the generation of trust and shared understanding, (ii) the facilitation of knowledge exchanges between actor groups across frontiers, (iii) the promotion of more democratic participation, and (iv) the co-production of practical outcomes. These contextual insights provided empirical evidence of the prominent role SL can play to enhance dialogue and understanding of the ESA for supporting its adoption as governance practice. On this basis, it is argued that operationalising SL in those processes focused on making the ESA relevant to policy and society is pivotal to its implementation in governance practice.

scholarly journals An education approach for the Anthropocene epoch

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. e448101119780
Author(s):  
Cristiane Mansur de Moraes Souza
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Ecological Resilience ◽  
Considerable Uncertainty ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
The Social

It is now well established in the literature that there is a need to incorporate the concept of sustainability into education at all study levels. However, there is considerable uncertainty expressed concerning how it could best be achieved and how the resilience concept would enhance this idea. This article aims to address this gap. The objective is to explore aspects of socio-ecological resilience, that underlies a university case study. The methodology is exploratory, descriptive, and explanatory. Results demonstrate that civil engagement university activities are an education approach that provides students with experiences that build skills necessary for addressing the challenges of the Anthropocene Epoch. The conclusion of the article emphasizes that the education for the Anthropocene epoch should consider the enhancement of ecosystem services by demonstrating that humans are part of the social-ecological systems; considering interdisciplinarity as a methodological approach; demonstrating the variety of potentials on participation of stakeholders by civil engagement as developing autonomy both on students and stakeholders and developing the ability for proactive attitudes. Is also enhance learning and social learning by civil engagement and participation.

scholarly journals From the other side of the knowledge frontier: Indigenous knowledge, social–ecological relationships and new perspectives

2010 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cameron Muir ◽  
Deborah Rose ◽  
Phillip Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Adaptive Management ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Ecological Resilience ◽  
Ecological Relationships ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Resource Managers ◽  
Natural Resource Managers

A river is like a mirror: it reflects the care given by people whose lives depend upon it. A scald on red ground or the slow death of a river reveals more than troubled ecological relationships – they are signs of broken social relationships. How people take care of social relationships and how they take care of ecological relationships are the same question. In this paper we emphasise the importance that Aboriginal people place on social relationships for good ecological relationships. In the past few decades natural resource managers have sought Indigenous knowledge relevant to Western ideas of environment, and in doing so, created distinctions between ‘ecological’ and ‘social’ knowledge – this is an artificial ‘white-fella’ separation. Additionally, Indigenous knowledge has been treated as if it were a static archive that need only be extracted and applied to resource development and planning. Instead it is dynamic, adaptive and contextual. As a consequence of compartmentalisation and the assumption of timelessness, the importance of social relationships in ecological relationships has been overlooked. Some research has explored similarities between Indigenous knowledge and the Western concept of adaptive management, and raised the possibility of synergy between them. We agree there are possible connections and opportunities for exchange and further learning between Indigenous knowledge and ecological resilience and adaptive management. However, Indigenous knowledge and Western science belong to different world views. An important task is to explore ways of grappling with this ontological challenge. We suggest a conceptual turn around that we believe could assist in opening a dialogue as well as creating a set of foundational principles for robust ecological and social relationships.

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