Numbers vs. Narratives: the importance of integrating social science perspectives in ocean sustainability research

Author(s):  
Helen Packer ◽  
Mirjam Held

<p>Many disciplines study the ocean and its uses from different perspectives. Recently, there has been a growing awareness about the inseparability of the social and ecological systems and that achieving sustainable use of ocean resources will require the integration of different types of knowledge and disciplines. In this presentation, we will draw from the experience of two early career interdisciplinary scientists to present examples of the role social sciences can play in achieving sustainable oceans management, how and why it should be integrated with other ocean disciplines. More specifically, we will present how a qualitative research approaches to understanding seafood sustainability governance and community/rights-based management makes an important contribution to sustainable ocean management. We conclude that to achieve ocean sustainability, which is a societal problem, we not only need numbers but also the social sciences and their narratives.</p>

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 9813 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuta Uchiyama ◽  
Eduardo Blanco ◽  
Ryo Kohsaka

Application of biomimetics has expanded progressively to other fields in recent years, including urban and architectural design, scaling up from materials to a larger scale. Besides its contribution to design and functionality through a long evolutionary process, the philosophy of biomimetics contributes to a sustainable society at the conceptual level. The aim of this review is to shed light on trends in the application of biomimetics to architectural and urban design, in order to identify potential issues and successes resulting from implementation. In the application of biomimetics to architectural design, parts of individual “organisms”, including their form and surface structure, are frequently mimicked, whereas in urban design, on a larger scale, biomimetics is applied to mimic whole ecosystems. The overall trends of the reviewed research indicate future research necessity in the field of on biomimetic application in architectural and urban design, including Biophilia and Material. As for the scale of the applications, the urban-scale research is limited and it is a promising research which can facilitate the social implementation of biomimetics. As for facilitating methods of applications, it is instrumental to utilize different types of knowledge, such as traditional knowledge, and providing scientific clarification of functions and systems based on reviews. Thus, interdisciplinary research is required additionally to reach such goals.


2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 71-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sune Qvotrup Jensen ◽  
Ann-Dorte Christensen

Intersektionalitetsbegrebet indebærer, at sociale differentieringsformer som køn, klasse, etnicitet og ”race” er gensidigt konstituerende både på et identitetsmæssigt og strukturelt niveau. Begrebet har haft stor gennemslagskraft og bidraget positivt til fornyelse af dansk og international kønsforskning. Da begrebet rummer potentialer til analyser af komplekse sociale differentieringer, er det imidlertid også relevant for en bredere sociologi. Nutidige højt differentierede samfund fordrer således begreber og metodologier, som er egnede til at gribe kompleksitet. Intersektionalitetstænkningen har teorihistoriske rødder i amerikansk sort standpunktsfeminisme. I Danmark blev begrebet først anvendt af poststrukturalistiske socialpsykologer, som gentænkte det og gjorde det velegnet til at analysere, hvordan komplekse identiteter skabes i hverdagslivet. Senere er begrebet blevet anvendt af kønsforskere med andre faglige og videnskabsteoretiske udgangspunkter. I artiklen fremhæves det, at intersektionalitetsbegrebet kan anvendes til at producere forskellige typer sociologisk viden. I den forbindelse præsenteres en typologi over forskellige tilgange til intersektionalitetsanalyser, som bruges som afsæt til at skitsere tre eksempler på analyser af social ulighed og eksklusion. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Sune Qvotrup Jensen and Ann-Dorte Christensen: Inter-sectionality as a Sociological Concept Contemporary highly differentiated societies require concepts and methodologies which are suited for grasping complexity. Intersectionality is a fruitful approach to analyze this complexity because social forms of differentiation such as gender, class, ethnicity and “race” are understood as mutually co-constructing at the level of individual identities and at the level of social structures. Intersectionality is a travelling concept which is theoretically rooted in black American feminism. In Denmark, the concept was first used by post-structuralist social psychologists, who adapted it to analyzing how complex identities were created in everyday life. Later on the concept was later taken up by gender researchers within the social sciences. This article analyses how the concept of intersectionality can be used to produce different types of sociological knowledge. It introduces a typology of approaches to intersectionality analyses, which serves as the backdrop for three examples of analyses of social inequality and exclusion. Key words: Intersectionality, complexity, social differentiation, gender, class, ethnicity.


2014 ◽  
Vol 106 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Radder

The article consists of three main sections, in which I successively discuss the nature and role of realization, interpretation and abstraction in experimental and observational processes. In this way, these sections address several fundamental problems in philosophy of science, ontology and epistemology, and philosophy of language. Section 1 introduces the notion of realization processes, and argues that successful realization requires causal judgments. The second section discusses the role of conceptual interpretation in experiments and observations, explains how realization and interpretation can be distinguished, and emphasizes the significance of different types and ranges of experimental and observational reproducibility. It also includes a subsection on the issue of reproducibility in contemporary social sciences and psychology. Section 3 explains how concepts are abstracted from existing realization processes, and concludes that abstraction bestows a nonlocal meaning on these extensible concepts. In addition, I discuss and criticize some rival views of abstraction and concept meaning (to wit, mentalism and localism). The article concludes with some observations on the notion of a (cognitive) trinity.In my reply, I respond to the points raised in the six commentary papers. The following issues are addressed: the place of causality in physics (Steffen Ducheyne), perception in ordinary life (Monica Meijsing), the role of reproducibility in psychology and the social sciences (Daniël Lakens, Ruud Abma), the significance and implications of conceptual innovation (Lieven Decock), and the relationship between meaning, communication and ontology (Martin Stokhof and Michiel van Lambalgen).


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin J. Mullinix ◽  
Thomas J. Leeper ◽  
James N. Druckman ◽  
Jeremy Freese

AbstractSurvey experiments have become a central methodology across the social sciences. Researchers can combine experiments’ causal power with the generalizability of population-based samples. Yet, due to the expense of population-based samples, much research relies on convenience samples (e.g. students, online opt-in samples). The emergence of affordable, but non-representative online samples has reinvigorated debates about the external validity of experiments. We conduct two studies of how experimental treatment effects obtained from convenience samples compare to effects produced by population samples. In Study 1, we compare effect estimates from four different types of convenience samples and a population-based sample. In Study 2, we analyze treatment effects obtained from 20 experiments implemented on a population-based sample and Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The results reveal considerable similarity between many treatment effects obtained from convenience and nationally representative population-based samples. While the results thus bolster confidence in the utility of convenience samples, we conclude with guidance for the use of a multitude of samples for advancing scientific knowledge.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 367-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janice Nadler

Our social norms and moral values shape our beliefs about the propriety of different types of market exchanges. This review considers social and moral influences on beliefs about property and the consequences of these beliefs for the legal regulation of property. The focus is mainly on empirical evidence from social psychology, with additions from related areas like cognitive psychology, behavioral economics, and other social sciences. After briefly reviewing empirical findings on perceptions of property at the level of the individual person, I examine how social relationships shape perceptions about ownership and exchange of property, as well as the boundaries of the broad category of property. Finally, I explore one important type of socially embedded property—the home—and how social psychological conceptions of property as embedded in social relationships have clashed with the development of the legal doctrine of eminent domain.


Author(s):  
Gunilla Holm

This chapter discusses the development of photography as a research method in the social sciences. It describes the different types of photographs used, such as archival photographs and photographs taken by the researcher, and it focuses especially on photographs taken by participants. The uses of different approaches to obtain photographs and issues of interest concerning each approach are presented. The most common approaches to analyze photographs, such as content analysis, discourse analysis, and ethnographic analysis, are described. Interesting and challenging questions about the interpretation and presentation of photographs are raised, such as the impact of the researcher’s and participants’ habitus on the interpretation of photographs. Finally, ethical issues in research using photographs are considered, especially the meaning of informed consent, and confidentiality in photographic research is emphasized.


2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 705-722
Author(s):  
Leandro Rodriguez Medina

The study of the internationalization of science seems to be focused on the natural and formal sciences and on networks of the Global North. A shift towards the social sciences and a peripheral region (Mexico) is proposed here and shows that two different types of networks are enacted to face the challenges of internationalized research. On the one hand, there are strategic networks which internalize the pressure of incentives brought to bear on academics and tend to reproduce an over-professionalized idea of the academia. On the other, there are engaged networks that try to strengthen international bonds according to certain politico-ethical imperatives. In this article, relying on current research on internationalization of the Mexican social sciences, the author explores the usefulness of these ideal-types of networks and discusses their implications.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Robette

Parametric regression models became the dominant tool of quantitative sociology. This dominance is not without its challenges and many criticisms have been expressed, both statistically and epistemologically. Still, the development of data mining, and then of machine learning, has led to the emergence of methodological approaches that make it possible to overcome most of the limitations of parametric regression models, for the various types of use that are of interest to the social sciences. We argue that recursive partitioning in particular may be highly vauable for social sciences. Indeed, this approach has a number of technical advantages over parametric regression and, above all, it is consistent with a conception of social determinations in terms of configurations of interdependent factors (and not of additions of independent factors). In a second step, we review a range of tools for interpreting the results obtained from recursive partitioning algorithms. Together, they form a very complete toolbox for the social sciences and show that recursive partitioning is no longer a black box as soon as the appropriate interpretative tools are mobilized. Finally, we illustrate the methods presented using sociological examples from the world of cinema. In doing so, we will show that these methods make it possible to deal with the different types of problems that arise in the social sciences when parametric regressions are usually used, in this case the study of structure effects and the ranking of explanatory factors.


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