Social-ecological systems in emerging democracies are often in an untenable state. Under such conditions, building resilience is not appropriate and transformation is the way forward. In this presentation I briefly explain the theoretical underpinnings of resilience and transformation and provide examples of transformative strategies from communal areas in South Africa and Tajikistan to explain.

1. Resilience and adaptive capacity in
social-ecological systems:
the good, the bad and the trendy
Christo Fabricius
Resilience
Alliance

2. Here it is…

3. Social-ecological systems
from Ostrom 2009. Science 235: 420

4. resilience
• The ability to absorb disturbances
• Capacity of the system to be changed
– and then to re-organise
– and still retain the same basic structure and ways of
functioning
• Declining resilience -> declining magnitude of shocks
from which system cannot recover

5. Resilience
Time

6. The Resilience of the Earth System

7. The slippery slope of resilience loss
Cundill & Fabricius 2009 in Exploring Sustainability Science: a Southern
African perspective, pp. 537-568.

8. Adaptive renewal cycle
• Several possible states
• Crucial role of disturbance
• Irregular cycles of ‘capital’
accumulation, release and
re-organization
• Feedbacks between and
within scales

9. Lock-in traps
• An undesirable state from
which ‘escape’ is difficult
• The system has become locked
in
• Characterized by
• low potential for change
• rigidity
• high resistance to change
• Sources of novelty and
innovation have been
eliminated
Allison, H. E. and R. J. Hobbs. 2004. Ecology and
Society 9(1): 3.

10. Thresholds and regime shifts

11. The problem with resilience..

12. • What if the system is not in a good place?
– would adapting and ‘bouncing back’ be enough?
• Some untenable situations can be very
resilient

13. • Elements of adaptive capacity, e.g.
– traditions, sense of place, identity
• might inhibit meaningful change
• Response: reduce resilience?

14. A ‘resilience’ approach to
development..

15. Transfer of vulnerability
Building resilience in one context
sometimes creates vulnerabilities
in another

17. Transformation
• Transformability: “The capacity to create a
fundamentally new system when ecological, economic,
or social (including political) conditions make the
existing system untenable”
www.resalliance.org
Walker et al. 2004. Ecology and Society 9(2): 5.

18. “can we innovate sufficiently rapidly and with
sufficient intelligence to transform our system
out of a destructive pathway….”
Westley et al. 2011. Ambio 40: 762-789

19. Processes of transformation
• Institutional • Bridging agents • Earth stewardship
entrepreneurs • Connectors • Incentives
• Behind the scenes’ • Communities of • Monitoring
innovations practice • Adaptive management
• Shadow networks • Repair & restoration
www.stockholmresilience.su.se

20. Transformation through knowledge sharing &
interrogating conventional beliefs

21. Transformation through
creating new awareness

22. Transformation through
learning
Forming alliances and
knowledge networks

23. Transformation through institutional renewal
Leadership:
the importance of ‘key individuals’
or ‘stewards’

24. Transformation through linkages and
alliances

25. Transformation through repair of ecosystem
services

26. A few research questions
• What can we learn from existing self-organizing
transformations?
– the role of citizen’s science
• Which social-ecological processes promote and
inhibit transformation?
• What are the long term impacts of adaptation vs.
transformation?
• Challenges:
– hold our frameworks loosely
– embrace multiple epistemologies
– be prepared to tread ‘where angels fear to go’