Call for Papers – AAG Annual Conference, New York, February 24-28, 2012

 

Session organizers: Ioanna Tantanasi (The University of Manchester) and Laura Pereira (The University of Oxford)

 

Adaptive Governance of Socio-Ecological Systems: From Theory to Practice

The world is facing a 'perfect storm' of socio-ecological crises: adverse climate change, natural resource depletion, water conflict, food insecurity and deforestation to name but a few. With many of these future stresses imminent, there is a necessity to learn how to adapt to a changing world whilst meeting development and sustainability goals at the same time. This is a sphere of research and practice on the boundary of social, ecological and policy sciences where institutional and societal complexities coalesce. Therefore, the challenge of such collaborations and policy development call for navigating through complex issues with high levels of uncertainty in physical and ecological processes, but also accounting for the diversity of potential human choices and decisions of multiple stakeholders. This calls for a new form of governance that takes into account the complexity of the socio-ecological systems in which we find ourselves and on which we depend. Adaptive governance is an approach from institutional theory that combines ecological systems theory, natural resource management and the study of self-governing institutions to manage common pool resources. This session responds to the growing influence of this approach among academics, policy makers and practitioners alike, calling for case studies exploring how adaptive governance has been put into practice to enhance socio-ecological systems resilience.

 

Potential topics may include:

- Theoretical perspectives
e.g. Resilience, adaptive capacity, ecosystem services

- The geographical implications of adaptive governance

- Case study example
i) potential drawbacks and successes
ii) developing/developed world

- Potential conflicts
land tenure, property rights, power dynamics

 

 

If you are interested in participating in this session, please submit a 250 word abstract to Joanna Tantanasi at [log in to unmask] and/or Laura Pereira at [log in to unmask] no later than 9^th of October.  Please provide us with the names of all authors and the AAG PIN for the corresponding author.

 

 

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Ioanna Tantanasi

PhD Candidate

Human Geography

School of Environment and Development

The University of Manchester