Periodic Reporting for period 4 - MUSES (Towards middle-range theories of the co-evolutionary dynamics of multi-level social-ecological systems)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-08-01 al 2023-01-31
We developed a mathematical modelling framework for multi-level modeling of SES and applied it to a common pool resource use context. Results show that even weak social connectivity between communities can significantly increase long-time cooperativity and thus resource use sustainability. Modelling of cross-scale poverty traps showed that the location of the trapping mechanism (at one scale, at both or in the cross-scale interactions) and its properties influence how the effects spread throughout the system and how the trap can be broken. Our work on small-scale marine and agricultural food systems revealed the importance of trading as a cross-scale connectivity for responses of these systems to environmental or institutional variability. It also showed that small-scale trading is commonly embedded in other social relations that together influence how a fishery or actors in an agricultural supply chain can respond to changes. Finally, our work on agricultural innovation highlighted the social-ecological nature of innovation dynamics and that food security and income inequality patterns arise because of structural mechanisms through which innovations take place. We have published 11 papers on our cross-scale work.
Finally, we have worked on the conceptual and methodological foundations for developing middle-range theories of change in SES and published i) a framework for studying the emergence of SES phenomena from social-ecological interactions, ii) a methodology that combines case-based research with agent-based modeling, and iii) different modes of theorizing from the inside of the system.
We have analysed the ability of a different ontology, namely a process-relational one, to serve as a worldview that is more suited to the complex adaptive nature of SES and can help bridge the dichotomy between social and ecological that still underlies many conceptual frameworks, theories and methods.
Methodologically we are advancing agent-based modelling of social-ecological systems (as e.g. human and non-human agents in an action situation) as a method for integrative analysis of SES as complex adaptive systems. With one of the PhD students we are exploring the use of social-ecological networks in combination with agent-based modelling to capture structural and dynamic aspects of intertwinedness. We have developed models that take relevant real-world complexity regarding the behaviour of actors, the social structures they are embedded in and the non-linear dynamics of ecosystems into account.
We have synthesized the insights of our studies on marine and agricultural food systems and out theoretical work into a novel understanding of cross-scale interactions as capacities for responding to environmental change that builds on assemblages and a re-conceptualization of context. These are first steps towards a middle-range theory of small-scale food systems' responses to change.