Seminar Series: Abstract

12.30
May 20 2009
Seminar Room A

Research Seminar - The functionalist heritage of the Social Ecological Systems concept: implications for research on nearshore fishery management in the Western Pacific.
Dr Simon Foale

The concept of 'Social Ecological Systems' (SES) together with 'Resilience Theory' is a way of framing human-environment relations that is acquiring a large following, particularly among natural scientists. The approach has been recently criticised for its lack of consideration of the processes of globalisation and modernisation. Indeed it has been observed that there is a tendency in SES writing to frame issues and questions in much the same manner as the structural functionalists who dominated anthropological thinking in the first half of the twentieth century. In this seminar, I will explore this argument in relation to attempts to determine the drivers of, and solutions to, coral reef fishery management challenges in the Melanesian corner of the Coral Triangle. In considering nearshore subsistence and artisanal fisheries as part of a SES, how and where do we delimit the boundaries of this system given the overwhelming number of variables that processes of globalisation require us to consider (and ideally measure) in order to accurately describe the system? Can 'traditional' serial closures (‘tambu’ or taboos) be considered as 'adaptive' management institutions that have supposedly evolved to allow people to survive within the limits of the system? Or are they as much (or more) a product of globalisation? What does this imply for contemporary management policy? Finally what is the scope for disciplines other than ecology and economics to constructively engage with Resilience Theory?

Image caption: Rano Raraku, Easter Island (photo by Simon Foale).