RSOC 543 Midterm

bowling ball

• the ability of a system to deal with disturbance (cope, adapt, mitigate with stress and external shocks, change)
• roots are ecological - descriptive definitions (positivist viewpoint)
• normative (vague and ambiguous - hard to generalize)

• most ecosystems and environmental problems are not simple to understand/manage
•  behave in non-linear ways
• "whole is more than the sum of the parts"
• multiple interactions and feedback loops between various attributes of the system

• unpredictability
• incomplete knowledge
• multiple knowledge forms

social-ecological systems are linked systems of humans and nature, emphasizing humans must be seen as a part of, not apart from, nature

• conceptual framework: accounts for the stability and change characteristics of complex systems
• interactions bw economic growth and human development depend on ecosystems and institutions, how they interact
• flows between systems, some fast, some slow
• different scales (ex. global forces vs local forces)
• how do the dynamics of one system affect the dynamics of another?

• 1. rural/poor/uneducated, will create a tragedy of the commons
• 2. ecological Indian

• Lake Racken in Sweden
• Hudson's Bay Bioregion in Canada
• People's Science Movement in India

• based on generations of oral tradition
• integrated (social, economic, cultural, ecological)
• strong spiritual foundation
• embedded in values of stewardship

• cumulative body of knowledge/practices/beliefs evolving by adaptive processes
• handed down through generations by cultural transmission about relationship of living beings (incl. humans) with one another and with their environment (Berkes)

• (outside)
• worldview (beliefs)
• institutions
• land and resource management systems
• local knowledge

• communities create conservation problems (poor = short-term maximizers, leads to environmental degradation)
• communities as victirms of poor management (closer to resource, bear greatest burden of unsustainable practices

• communities tend to catalyze conservation efforts under these conditions
• face environmental degradation of a threat
• possess/have strong sense of place, permanence 
• have strong social networks, engaged in civil society

• population dynamics(population-carrying capacity) (no malthus
• ecological impact (degradation/loss = relcamation
• risk (vulnerability - risk reclamation)
• resource dependency: (production, conception)
• resouce dependency (production, consumption

draw it

paradox that countries/communities with an abundance of natural resources (ex. fossil fuels, certain minerals) tend to have less economic growth, less democracy, worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources

• Human Exceptionalism Paradigm (anthropocentric sociology, study of human relationships)
• humans the central element of the universe
• progress = mastering/controlling the nature
• faith in technology
• nature = unlimited resources

• New Ecological Paradigm (Environmental Sociology, society/environment relationships)
• humans are a part of the ecobiosystem
• human actions upon nature produce many (un)intended consequences that shape social life
• nature has bio/physical limits that constrain and shape economic/social development

• 1. wealth/prospect of wealth generates political and social power that is used to promote unlimited exploitation of resources
• 2. scientific understanding/consensus hampered by the lack of controls + replicates, so each new problem involves learning about a new system
• 3. complexity of the underlying biological and physical systems prevents a reductionist approach to management (optimum levels of exploitation must be determined by trial and error)
• 4. large levels of natural variability mask the effects of overexploitation. initial overexploitation isn't detectable until it is severe, sometimes irreversible