Abstract
Complex systems are shaped by cross-scale interactions, nonlinear feedbacks, and uncertainty, among other factors. Transdisciplinary approaches that combine participatory and conventional methods and democratize knowledge to enable diverse inputs, including those from local, informal experts, are essential tools in understanding such systems. The metaphor of a bridge to overcome the divide between different disciplines and knowledge systems is often used to advocate for more inclusive approaches. However, there is a shortage of information and consensus on the process, methodologies, and techniques that are appropriate to achieve this. This paper compares two case studies from Peru and South Africa in which community-level assessments were conducted as part of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and explores the different conceptual models used to deal with scale and complexity, the methods adopted to deal with epistemology, and the different means of dealing with uncertainty in each assessment. The paper highlights the conceptual and practical challenges encountered by each assessment and discusses some of the conceptual and practical trade-offs involved in the selection of particular approaches. We argue that a boat navigating between unknown shores may be a more appropriate metaphor than a bridge, whose starting and end points are fixed and known.
Highlights
Understanding the relationship between people and the environment requires that researchers on the ground simultaneously navigate multiple world views (Gadgil et al 2003) and complex socialecological systems (Scheffer et al 2001, Berkes et al 2003) characterized by cross-scale interactions, nonlinear feedback, and uncertainty (Gunderson and Holling 2002)
This paper compares two case studies from Peru and South Africa in which community-level assessments were conducted as part of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and explores the different conceptual models used to deal with scale and complexity, the methods adopted to deal with epistemology, and the different means of dealing with uncertainty in each assessment
Community-level assessments were conducted as part of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), this paper explores the different conceptual models used to deal with scale and complexity, the different methods adopted to deal with epistemology, and the different means of dealing with uncertainty in each study
Summary
Understanding the relationship between people and the environment requires that researchers on the ground simultaneously navigate multiple world views (Gadgil et al 2003) and complex socialecological systems (Scheffer et al 2001, Berkes et al 2003) characterized by cross-scale interactions, nonlinear feedback, and uncertainty (Gunderson and Holling 2002). The MA framework alone does not do justice to the dynamism of the interactions between human and natural systems at the local level (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2003) To overcome this shortfall in the framework, the South African local-level assessments used the adaptive renewal or “panarchy” model (Holling 1986, Berkes and Folke 1998, Gunderson and Holling 2002) as a conceptual guide to deal with scale and complexity simultaneously and to address the shortcomings of the MA framework for locallevel purposes. Triangulation through: Review of existing literature Historical research Analysis and use of customary practices and norms Integration of traditional and occidental taxonomic systems for space and resources characterization Oral traditional registration of knowledge Combination of quantitative and qualitative information space, processes, and endogenous principles constituted the roots of the assessment strategy in Peru
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