Abstract
Dwiartama, A., and C. Rosin. 2014. Exploring agency beyond humans: the compatibility of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and resilience thinking. Ecology and Society 19(3):28. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06805-190328
Highlights
Resilience thinking provides a valuable means to assess and act on the capacity of a social-ecological system (SES) to retain functions and support its components
Having established the distinct implications of different conceptualizations of agency, we present an application of the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) perspective to the assessment of two contrasting agricultural systems: Indonesia’s rice agriculture and the New Zealand kiwifruit industry
The context provided for the two cases shows that resilience can operate either as a system property or in the agency of individuals and society to adapt to shocks
Summary
Resilience thinking provides a valuable means to assess and act on the capacity of a social-ecological system (SES) to retain functions and support its components. To some extent, addressed the interactions between social and ecological components of an SES in terms of system dynamics, the understanding of these dynamics is still constrained by the assumption that patterned trajectories emerge from the structure (as a form of self-organization) and the influence of humans, as sole agents, on the system. Having established the distinct implications of different conceptualizations of agency, we present an application of the ANT perspective to the assessment of two contrasting agricultural systems: Indonesia’s rice agriculture and the New Zealand kiwifruit industry This assessment is based on data collected from primary (semi-structured interviews with diverse participants within the respective SESs) and secondary sources (government reports and academic publications) during doctoral research conducted by one of the authors between January and July 2012. Resilience is influenced by the fluidity of rice within the society by which adaptive capacity is strengthened; resilience manifests as fast-adaptation at multiple levels Resilience is influenced (enhanced/ hampered) by the durability of kiwifruit which builds into the robustness of the industry; resilience is performed through long-term management planning
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