Browsing by Author "Westley, Frances"

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From Scientific Speculation to Effective Adaptive Management: A Case Study of the Role of Social Marketing
(2010) Westley, Frances; Holmgren, Milena; Scheffer, Marten
"This article focuses on the role of social marketing, in particular the analysis of the motivations and capabilities of stakeholder groups, in encouraging acceptance of an innovative experimental approach to semiarid shrub land restoration in Chile. Controlled scientific experiments involving herbivory control during El Niño events have proved promising, but have not yet been introduced into ecosystem management approaches. Social marketing, as a lens for focusing on and understanding stakeholders’ motivations, provides a valuable framework in which strategies may be developed for diffusing promising scientific experiments into regional management contexts."
Perspectives on Resilience to Disasters across Sectors and Cultures
(2011) Walker, Brian H.; Westley, Frances
"We present some insights on the use and interpretation of resilience ideas that arose in a conference on 'Societys Resilience in Withstanding Disaster.' Three points in particular have relevance for those interested in resilience in social-ecological systems: (1) Time as a threshold vs. avoiding quick fixes; (2) Trading risks: specified vs. general resilience; (3) Response origination: building local general resilience, and general resilience in central agencies. In the latter the need is to allow improvisation, and failure, during times of crisis."
The Research Journey: Travels Across the Idiomatic and Axiomatic Toward a Better Understanding of Complexity
(2014) McGowan, Katharine A.; Westley, Frances; Fraser, Evan D. G.; Loring, Philip A.; Weathers, Kathleen C.; Avelino, Flor; Sendzimir, Jan; Chowdhury, Rinku Roy; Moore, Michele-Lee
"In this paper, seven researchers reflect on the journeys their research projects have taken when they engage with and synthesize complex problems. These journeys embody an adaptive approach to tackling problems characterized by their interconnectedness and emergence, and that transcend traditional units of analysis such as ecosystems. In this paper we argue that making such a process deliberate and explicit will help researchers better combine different research paradigms such as expert-driven and participant-directed work, thus resulting in both broad explanations and specific phenomenon; research tensions traditionally defined as oppositional must be approached as complimentary. This paper includes researchers’ personal journeys as they dealt with the emergent properties of complex problems and participant involvement. This paper argues that that research journey should be more than accidental but is a methodological necessity and should guide the theoretical and practical approaches to complex problems."
Resilience: Accounting for the Noncomputable
(2009) Carpenter, Stephen; Folke, Carl; Scheffer, Marten; Westley, Frances
"Plans to solve complex environmental problems should always consider the role of surprise. Nevertheless, there is a tendency to emphasize known computable aspects of a problem while neglecting aspects that are unknown and failing to ask questions about them. The tendency to ignore the noncomputable can be countered by considering a wide range of perspectives, encouraging transparency with regard to conflicting viewpoints, stimulating a diversity of models, and managing for the emergence of new syntheses that reorganize fragmentary knowledge."
Surmountable Chasms: Networks and Social Innovation for Resilient Systems
(2011) Moore, Michele-Lee; Westley, Frances
"Complex challenges demand complex solutions. By their very nature, these problems are difficult to define and are often the result of rigid social structures that effectively act as 'traps'. However, resilience theory and the adaptive cycle can serve as a useful framework for understanding how humans may move beyond these traps and towards the social innovation that is required to address many complex problems. This paper explores the critical question of whether networks help facilitate innovations to bridge the seemingly insurmountable chasms of complex problems to create change across scales, thereby increasing resilience. The argument is made that research has not yet adequately articulated the strategic agency that must be present within the network in order for cross scale interactions to occur. By examining institutional entrepreneurship through case studies and examples, this paper proposes that agency within networks requires specific skills from entrepreneurs, including ones that enable pattern generation, relationship building and brokering, knowledge and resource brokering, and network recharging. Ultimately, this begins to build a more complete understanding of how networks may improve human capacity to respond to complex problems and heighten overall resilience."