A BOLD VENTURE: Principles of Social Ecology Relevant to Solving Complex Problems in a Globalized World

Transcription

1 A BOLD VENTURE: Principles of Social Ecology Relevant to Solving Complex Problems in a Globalized World The 2018 book Social Ecology in the Digital Age by Daniel Stokols is a rich source for understanding the relevance to solving complex problems in a globalized world of the organizing principles and research traditions of Social Ecology. Representative highlights from the book are presented by way of four framing questions and their answers: 1. What are the core principles of Social Ecology? 2. How does the social ecological perspective enrich understanding of complex problems? 3. How can social ecological strategies help resolve complex community problems? 4. In what ways does the social ecological perspective reveal the contextual variability of resilient and sustainable communities and why is that important? Contained as a concluding section of A BOLD VENTURE are the visionary statements from the era by Founding Director Arnold Binder, and Professors Ray Catalano now from UC Berkeley, and Professor Stokols. In his iconic walk around a UC Irvine campus under construction in Birth of a Campus for NBC, founding Chancellor Daniel Aldrich, Jr. indicated that a major focus for UC Irvine would be interdisciplinarity. A BOLD VENTURE presents intellectual foundations for this major campus focus. I. What are the core principles of Social Ecology? This question is answered in terms of how environmental contexts at varying scales affect human health, behavior, and the sustainability of our surroundings. (p. 67) The contextual influences are from at least four environmental spheres: 1. the natural environment 2. the built environment 3. the socio-cultural environment... This point is quite comprehensive encompassing organizational and institutional entities, political and economic structure, social norms, legal codes, and the social activities that people perform as members of groups and communities; and 4. the virtual environment A focus for social ecological research, it is to identify from among myriad contextual variables those that are most crucial for understanding particular health, behavioral, and sustainability outcomes. (p. 67)

2 The core principles are succinctly stated in Table 3.1: Table 3.1 Core Principles of Social Ecology Human environments consists of multiple dimensions including natural, built, socio cultural, and virtual (cyber-based) features, some that are directly observable and others subjectively perceived People s transactions with their surroundings occur at multiple levels and are nested within bounded environmental contexts (such as, homes, workplaces, communities, regions, nations) that are interconnected across varying geographic, social and temporal scales Environments and their inhabitants are dynamic systems where individuals and groups react to changes in their surroundings and, in turn, actively modify the environment to better suite their needs Social ecology is inherently transdisciplinary in its approach to understanding people s relationships with their surroundings. It draws on concepts, theories, and methods from several fields and emphasizes an action research orientation by integrating academic and nonacademic perspectives to more effectively analyze and manage complex societal problems II. How can social ecological strategies help resolve complex community problems? The contribution of the social ecology perspective to enriching the understanding of complex problems is presented in frame that: The sheer complexity of social problems stymies our efforts to resolve them. Social problems stem from many interrelated causes embedded in social structures that are resistant to change. Humans have persevered from one generation to the next in trying to diminish if not completely resolve social dilemmas. (p. 290) The problems of environmental injustice and environmental racism were analyzed by presenting two lessons derived from the research of Robert Ballard, the prolific author of Dumping in Dixie. In 1979, Linda McKeever Bullard used the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 to challenge successfully the disproportionate siting of a hazardous waste dump in an African- American middle-class neighborhood in Houston, Texas. The important lessons from the Ballard research were two: how we describe and analyze social problems influences our decisions to focus on some rather than others, and the chances that our efforts to alleviate them will successful. (p. 190) achieving meaningful progress toward resolving social and environmental problems requires sustained dialogue and collaboration-often extending over several decades-among individuals and groups who hold different views of their shared dilemmas. (p. 191) Social problems are presented as very difficult to resolve when competing parties cling to divergent opinions about the root causes of their conflict and remain unwilling to consider

3 interpretations of their situation other than their own. (p. 191). A section on mapping the ecology of problems occurs on pp III. How can social ecological strategies help resolve complex community problems? The answer to this compelling question is developed between pp An important analysis is to identify the root causes of complex community problems. This can facilitate targeting problems for immediate rather than delayed attention (p. 206) and deciding which societal dilemmas to confront and how best to manage them, a key consideration is whether a complex problem can be broken into smaller pieces that are amenable to short-term improvements. (p. 207) Table 6.2 (p. 205) identified broad categories of social problems grouped by their predominant emphases: Table 6.2 Broad Categories of Social Problems Grouped by Their Predominant Emphases Economic Poverty Income inequality Hunger Homelessness Illiteracy Digital Divide and educational disparities Directly conflictual Racism, sexism, ageism Human trafficking Incarceration abuses, need for prison reform Crime (violent, nonviolent, cyber and place-based) War terrorism (e.g., threat of intentional and accidental nuclear war) Demographic trends Population aging Unwanted pregnancy Population growth in developing and developed regions Environment related Environmental injustice Environmental incivilities (social, physical) Climate change denial IV. What is the relevance of social ecological approaches to addressing the urgency of designing resilient and sustainable communities and why is that important in the face of the perfect storm humanity faces of existential threats from global climate change, pollution, cybercrime, poverty, food insecurity and the perils of nuclear war? The answer is organized around core principles of social ecology: 1. using ecological systems theory to understand recurring patterns of humanenvironment transaction; 2. addressing the multilevel and multidimensional structure of human environments; and 3. matching the contextual scope of social ecological analyses to the environmental scale and research questions targeted by a particular study. (p. 270)

4 This is the most important chapter in the book. Following the chapter on global environmental change, it makes the broad case for the contribution which the social ecology paradigm can make to resilience and sustainability on a global scale. It is, of course, clear that the challenges facing the Planet cannot be managed adequately from narrow disciplinary or political perspectives. There is no national anthem for a Planet bedeviled by failed and fragile national states, by destructive civil and proxy wars all exacerbated by disrupted agriculture and other challenges posed to the most vulnerable by global environmental change. The engagement of the social ecology paradigm to solving complex problems in a globalized world begins with identifying community resources for prompting resilience and sustainability with analysis of both material resources and human resources as presented in Table 8.1 (p. 279): Table 8.1 Community Resources for Promoting Resilience and Sustainability Material Resources Economic capital financial assets invested to generate subsequent wealth Natural capital environmental resources san services produced through nature-based rather than human-initiated processes Human made physical capital built environments and consumer goods produced by people such as homes, workplaces, vehicles, and tools Technological capital computing and communications infrastructure (human-made cyber capital) Human Resources Social capital changes in relations among persons that facilitate cooperation Human capital changes in persons, including acquisition of skills and information that enable them to act in new ways Moral capital investment of personal and collective resources toward the cultivation of virtue and justice The initial analytical phase focuses on such topics as: Strategies to lessen the harmful environmental impacts of existing human communities (p. 289); Strategies for prompting socially cohesive communities (p. 290); Strategies for creating healthy communities (p. 293); and Behavioral and educational strategies to promote community resilience and sustainability (p. 295). This transformational application of the social ecology paradigm is at its core very concrete in its approaches to problem conceptualization and scientific analysis. It also addresses change at the individual level on such determinants of behavior as social influence and how determinants of behavior are in turn are strongly influenced by underlying beliefs, attitudes and values (pp and p. 298).

5 This is a powerful role which education can exercise on behalf of humanity: As people become more aware of the severity of environmental problems and the effectiveness of their efforts to reduce them, they are more likely to adopt the recommended actions [which underlie this social ecological approach to complex problems] and to be responsive to educational initiatives to nurture ecological intelligence and sustainable values.