Well, the website is finally coming together, as is my microryza crowdfunding project. So, time to make a first blog post!
So, social scientist and musician? That might seem like an unlikely pair, but in my mind, the go together perfectly. How? Because I enjoy things that are complicated. I am happiest when I am at the edge and not quite sure what it is coming next. And what is more complex than social systems and music?
Some time I may write more about my music, but today it is about my research. As you may have guessed, I am interested in how social systems and ecosystems are intertwined. Being trained in psychology and social work, I am firmly rooted in the social sciences, especially from a practical approach. My basic assumption is that social systems are complex adaptive systems that react to their environment and attempt to continue on, much like a person, an animal, or a plant. However, these human systems are dependent upon ecosystems. I propose that this dependence is core to how social systems self-organize, and that therefore social and ecological systems must be studied in tandem.
I originally started picking up on this when reading Marx and Lenin. I think it was in Lenin's "What's to Be Done?" that I really started to grasp this link when he discusses how politics and economy cannot be treated as separate spheres. If economy is about the exchange of goods and services, that means material resources have a direct effect on political and economic systems. Thus, there is a link between ecosystems and social systems. I eventually moved on from the Marxist conception of political economy, but that is where I got started. And why did I move on? Because they had something wrong. The incessant claims of collapse and revolution did not occur. Of course, the issues they point to and underline so emphatically still exist, but their solution has so far failed to materialize.
After more reading, thinking, studying, and starting my doctoral studies, I began to feel that treating society as a complex adaptive system had good possibilities. Working from there, I eventually discovered the Resilience Alliance and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. My dissertation is thus based on looking at how a the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake caused a forced transformation in an agricultural community on the coast of Japan. I am examining how that community is adapting to displacement and resettlement, looking specifically at how that is related to changes in their ecosystem. I am using one of the major tools for examining changes in complex systems -- social network analysis (SNA). SNA is one of three methodologies (the other two being agent-based modeling and systems modeling) that are particularly useful for exploring changes in systems. The knowledge from this study will help us approach disaster risk reduction in new ways. This is especially important in the context of climate change, which many believe will increase the number of environmental migrants (also know as climate refugees or ecomigrants).
So that is a little bit to get you started. If you would like to learn more about resilience and social ecological systems take a look at http://www.resalliance.org and http://www.stockholmresilience.org.
So, social scientist and musician? That might seem like an unlikely pair, but in my mind, the go together perfectly. How? Because I enjoy things that are complicated. I am happiest when I am at the edge and not quite sure what it is coming next. And what is more complex than social systems and music?
Some time I may write more about my music, but today it is about my research. As you may have guessed, I am interested in how social systems and ecosystems are intertwined. Being trained in psychology and social work, I am firmly rooted in the social sciences, especially from a practical approach. My basic assumption is that social systems are complex adaptive systems that react to their environment and attempt to continue on, much like a person, an animal, or a plant. However, these human systems are dependent upon ecosystems. I propose that this dependence is core to how social systems self-organize, and that therefore social and ecological systems must be studied in tandem.
I originally started picking up on this when reading Marx and Lenin. I think it was in Lenin's "What's to Be Done?" that I really started to grasp this link when he discusses how politics and economy cannot be treated as separate spheres. If economy is about the exchange of goods and services, that means material resources have a direct effect on political and economic systems. Thus, there is a link between ecosystems and social systems. I eventually moved on from the Marxist conception of political economy, but that is where I got started. And why did I move on? Because they had something wrong. The incessant claims of collapse and revolution did not occur. Of course, the issues they point to and underline so emphatically still exist, but their solution has so far failed to materialize.
After more reading, thinking, studying, and starting my doctoral studies, I began to feel that treating society as a complex adaptive system had good possibilities. Working from there, I eventually discovered the Resilience Alliance and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. My dissertation is thus based on looking at how a the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake caused a forced transformation in an agricultural community on the coast of Japan. I am examining how that community is adapting to displacement and resettlement, looking specifically at how that is related to changes in their ecosystem. I am using one of the major tools for examining changes in complex systems -- social network analysis (SNA). SNA is one of three methodologies (the other two being agent-based modeling and systems modeling) that are particularly useful for exploring changes in systems. The knowledge from this study will help us approach disaster risk reduction in new ways. This is especially important in the context of climate change, which many believe will increase the number of environmental migrants (also know as climate refugees or ecomigrants).
So that is a little bit to get you started. If you would like to learn more about resilience and social ecological systems take a look at http://www.resalliance.org and http://www.stockholmresilience.org.
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