Studying social-ecological systems from the perspective of social sciences in Latin America

CATHERINE ROULIER; MARÍA PEREVOCHTCHIKOVA; RICARDO CASTRO-DÍAZ; CHRISTOPHER B. ANDERSON

Socio-Ecological Systems in Latin America

Springer

Lugar: Cham; Año: 2019; p. 73 - 94

It is common to talk about systems in many natural and physical sciences, such as ecology, geology or physics, but systems theory and models also are useful concepts to explain social phenomena. In this chapter, we consider why social science disciplines should include, or are already including, the spatial and temporal scales required to understand complex human-nature relationships that recognize territorial processes as part of integrated social-ecological systems (SES). Indeed, such an assessment is necessary because the issues and problems that were traditionally categorized as ?environmental? and approached from the perspective of the biophysical sciences (e.g., climate models of global warming) increasingly are recognized as possessing both social causes and consequences (e.g., energy policy, socio-economic impacts of desertification) (IPCC 2018). In turn, traditional ?social? concerns (e.g., territorial planning, immigration policies, social justice) are increasingly understood as being affected by the degradation of biodiversity and ecosystems (e.g., emergent diseases in fragmented landscapes, loss of traditional resource-based livelihoods) (Lira-Noriega and Soberón 2015, IPBES 2018a).