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This toolkit is the output of the Storytelling for Resilience knowledge exchange project, funded by the Scottish Universities Insight Institute in 2018-19... more
This toolkit is the output of the Storytelling for Resilience knowledge exchange project, funded by the Scottish Universities Insight Institute in 2018-19 (https://www.scottishinsight.ac.uk/Programmes/OpenCall201819/StorytellingforResilience.aspx). Each of the stages found in this toolkit represents a stage from the workshop 'Using Narratives for Change', developed by Esther Carmen and Melissa Bedinger in collaboration with Scottish Communities Climate Action Network (SCCAN) working to support social change. This workshop was developed using knowledge from research and action spaces to help equip practitioners and researchers with skills to improve their narrative capacity: the ability to understand and work with narratives. This involved drawing on existing knowledge, for example from the Center for Story-based Strategy.<br>Along the way we learnt that narratives are messy and complex but also very powerful. At the same time, limiting our imagination may mean we overl...
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Multiple factors are involved in community change processes, yet understanding how factors interact to shape these complex social processed is limited. This has important implications for both research and sustainability practice. This... more
Multiple factors are involved in community change processes, yet understanding how factors interact to shape these complex social processed is limited. This has important implications for both research and sustainability practice. This study examines key social dynamics in establishing complex community change initiatives using an in-depth action-oriented transdisciplinary approach with a case study of the development of a community fridge. Four critical social dynamics were identified: reinforcing interpretations, reinforcing interconnections, re-alignment of identities, and quality social relations involving multiple normative facets converging and diverging in different ways as the process unfolded. Initially, this led to a degenerative dynamic that heightened tensions between actors; however, re-alignment with wider social identities and expressions of the underlying normative dimensions involved in the initiative, a regenerative dynamic was created. This strengthened the condit...
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If we want to learn how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, we have to embrace the complexity of this global phenomenon and capture interdependencies across scales and contexts. Yet, we still lack systematic approaches that we can use to... more
If we want to learn how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, we have to embrace the complexity of this global phenomenon and capture interdependencies across scales and contexts. Yet, we still lack systematic approaches that we can use to deal holistically with the pandemic and its effects. In this Discussion, we first introduce a framework that highlights the systemic nature of the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of the total environment as a self-regulating and evolving system comprising of three spheres, the Geosphere, the Biosphere, and the Anthroposphere. Then, we use this framework to explore and organize information from the rapidly growing number of scientific papers, preprints, preliminary scientific reports, and journalistic pieces that give insights into the pandemic crisis. With this work, we point out that the pandemic should be understood as the result of preconditions that led to depletion of human, biological, and geochemical diversity as well as of feedback th...
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This report provides a synthesis of argumentation analysis in real-world cases in “multi-level biodiversity governance”, investigated within the BESAFE project. The following broad research questions guided the synthesis of argumentation... more
This report provides a synthesis of argumentation analysis in real-world cases in “multi-level biodiversity governance”, investigated within the BESAFE project. The following broad research questions guided the synthesis of argumentation analysis in the case studies: • Which (different types of) arguments can be identified at different levels and units of biodiversity governance? • How are these arguments exchanged and put to work in multi-level and networked interactions (i.e. within and across different levels and units of biodiversity governance)? • How are these arguments rooted in and how do they feed into different perspectives, worldviews and functioning of social groups or institutions at the different levels and units of biodiversity governance? The study’s approach to answering these questions is guided by a three layer analytical framework. This framework comprises three different perspectives to argument-making practice. Together these enable a comprehensive understandin...
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This note offers key learning and questions arising from a number of research projects and initiatives focusing on community resilience in the context of climate change, in urban and rural contexts in Scotland and internationally (see... more
This note offers key learning and questions arising from a number of research projects and initiatives focusing on community resilience in the context of climate change, in urban and rural contexts in Scotland and internationally (see page 4). In this note we have not sought to define resilience as we understand this term as having many interpretations. Similarly we have not attempted to document the implications of climate change on communities or social justice. Implicit in our learning is that a changing climate, and responses, presents major challenges and opportunities for communities, policy makers and those working across the two. The note highlights key learning which gives rise to critical questions that need to be addressed for that learning to be implemented in practice.
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Based on the idea to make science more relevant to the solution of real-world problems, transdisciplinarity (TD) was established as a reflexive, integrative, method driven scientific principle aiming at the solution or transition of... more
Based on the idea to make science more relevant to the solution of real-world problems, transdisciplinarity (TD) was established as a reflexive, integrative, method driven scientific principle aiming at the solution or transition of societal problems and concurrently of related scientific problems by differentiating and integrating knowledge from various scientific and societal bodies of knowledge (Lang et al., 2012). A key motivation for TD is to address the complexity inherent in many of these problems: as we cannot fully grasp all relevant complexity, we have to reduce complexity and to make choices; these choices are only to a (often very) limited extent purely technical of scientific, thus involvement of societal reflections and actors and arguments is legitimate (Keune et al., 2015). Similar to related approaches such as post-normal science citizens science, participatory approaches (for definitions please see the OpenNESS glossary), TD goes beyond multiand interdisciplinary r...
Aims and Objectives: This report presents findings from an action research project conducted in the Scottish Borders between May 2015 and September 2016. The project aimed to:1) Support a local process of community change through building... more
Aims and Objectives: This report presents findings from an action research project conducted in the Scottish Borders between May 2015 and September 2016. The project aimed to:1) Support a local process of community change through building partnerships, learning and capacity building; and2) Understand the critical factors involved in facilitating the development of community resilience to climate change to draw out key levers for change nationally.The project was a collaboration between the University of Dundee, the Scottish Borders Council, Tweed Forum, Southern Uplands Partnership, International Futures Forum and the Scottish Association of Marine Sciences. It worked with three communities that had experience of flooding in the Borders council area and involved bringing together diverse organisations and community members in workshops and other activities.
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Social capital is considered important for resilience across social levels, including communities, yet insights are scattered across disciplines. This meta-synthesis of 187 studies examines conceptual and empirical understandings of how... more
Social capital is considered important for resilience across social levels, including communities, yet insights are scattered across disciplines. This meta-synthesis of 187 studies examines conceptual and empirical understandings of how social capital relates to resilience, identifying implications for community resilience and climate change practice. Different conceptualisations are highlighted, yet also limited focus on underlying dimensions of social capital and proactive types of resilience for engaging with the complex climate change challenge. Empirical insights show that structural and socio-cultural aspects of social capital, multiple other factors and formal actors are all important for shaping the role of social capital for guiding resilience outcomes. Thus, finding ways to work with these different elements is important. Greater attention on how and why outcomes emerge, interactions between factors, approaches of formal actors and different socio-cultural dimensions will ...