Navigating Multiple Tensions for Engaged Praxis in a Complex Social-Ecological System

Jessica Cockburn,Carolyn Palmer,Harry Biggs,Eureta Rosenberg

doi:10.3390/land7040129

Abstract

Innovative, pragmatic approaches are needed to support sustainable livelihoods and landscape management in complex social-ecological systems (CSES) such as river catchments. In the Tsitsa River Catchment, South Africa, researchers and natural resource managers have come together to apply such innovative approaches. Since CSES are characterised by uncertainty and surprise, understanding and managing them requires a commitment to reflexive praxis and transdisciplinarity. Accordingly, we facilitated a collective reflection and learning process in the project team to deepen our understanding of praxis in CSES. Our findings indicate that CSES thinking created an enabling framing. However, building new linkages among diverse actors to put CSES thinking into practice is challenging, since it requires the development of novel working relationships. Existing institutional structures, power dynamics, and ways of working impose significant constraints. A deeper critical realist analysis of our findings revealed a metaphor which explains why this work is challenging. In this metaphor, the Tsitsa Project team is navigating a bumpy terrain of dialectic tensions. These are tensions for example between natural science and social science, and between science and indigenous knowledge. Based on this metaphor, we suggest an expanding role for scientists and managers, and recommend transformative social learning processes to support teams navigating such bumpy terrains.

Highlights

How do we manage natural resources sustainably when we recognise that they are embedded in complex social ecological systems? This question has been posed by researchers, managers, and policy-makers worldwide since the notions of complexity and social-ecological systems began to influence research, management, and governance of natural resources [1,2]
We expand our discussion of these three insights alongside existing theory (Section 5), where we present an explanatory metaphor to deepen our understanding of engaged research praxis in complex social-ecological system (CSES)
We developed a set of five inter-connected principles to guide our praxis for integrated sustainability research, management, and governance in a complex social-ecological system (Figure 4) [48]

Summary

Introduction

How do we manage natural resources sustainably when we recognise that they are embedded in complex social ecological systems? This question has been posed by researchers, managers, and policy-makers worldwide since the notions of complexity and social-ecological systems began to influence research, management, and governance of natural resources [1,2]. New questions have emerged, such as: How do we manage natural resources sustainably in areas with eroded governance systems, a history of disempowered resource users, and high rates of poverty and degradation of natural resources? We investigate them through reflexive, engaged research praxis in an on-going landscape management initiative in the Tsitsa River Catchment in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. We consider the landscape of the Tsitsa catchment a place-based, complex social-ecological system (CSES).

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion