IFF Social Ecology e-Newsletter Nr. 39 – January 2018

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New Publication

Social Ecology. State of the Art and Future Prospects

Kramm, J., Zimmermann, M., Pichler, M. and Schaffartzik, A. (Eds.)

Social Ecology. State of the Art and Future Prospects” Special Issue in Sustainability
MDPI, 2017

Over the last decades, social ecology has made important contributions to interdisciplinary sustainability studies. Established in the late 1980s, social ecology was developed as a deliberate provocation to the more ‘disciplined’ natural and social science environmental research. With its focus on the specific interrelations between societies and their natural environment (consisting of social and biophysical processes), it has challenged disciplinary assumptions about environmental problems. The particular conceptualization of society-nature interrelations in social ecology yields strong arguments for the necessity of inter- and transdisciplinary analyses of and responses to the ecological crisis which integrate different knowledge types and stakeholder perspectives.While both the hybrid subject matter and the inter- and transdisciplinary approach were highly contested at the beginning, social ecology is now widely accepted within sustainability research and beyond. The contributions to this special issue should take stock of these developments and evaluate major conceptual and empirical achievements and current frontiers of social ecology.Inter- and transdisciplinarity are fundamentally integrated into the social ecology research framework. This integration rests on the development of concepts and methods for the specific purpose of this type of research. Through the transdisciplinary participation of societal actors, socio‑ecological research is faced with both the advantage and challenge of working with heterogeneous knowledge. The concept of regulation and transformation of societal relations to nature as well as the model of social-ecological provisioning systems (SEPS), for example, can be used to specify these interrelations and can be combined with analytical tools such as an ideal model of a transdisciplinary research process and social-ecological lifestyle analysis. A strong focus on the systemic framework within which these society-nature relations can be researched has led to the development of socio-economic metabolism research. The concepts of metabolism and of colonization help to characterize society-nature relations and are complemented by analytical tools such as material flow accounting and the human appropriation of net primary production.The aim of this special issue is not to present one monolithic approach to social ecology but to present the variety in the existing research, to discuss how mutual irritation can be productive and to reflect on how the different conceptual achievements must be understood in light of the current socio‑ecological challenges to which they respond.

Download all 11 chapters:

Gizicki-Neundlinger, M., Güldner, D. and, 2017. Surplus, Scarcity and Soil Fertility in Pre-Industrial Austrian Agriculture—The Sustainability Costs of Inequality. Sustainability 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9020265

Görg, C., Brand, U., Haberl, H., Hummel, D., Jahn, T., Liehr, S., 2017. Challenges for Social-Ecological Transformations: Contributions from Social and Political Ecology. Sustainability 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071045

Haas, W., Andarge, B.H., 2017. More Energy and Less Work, but New Crises: How the Societal Metabolism-Labour Nexus Changes from Agrarian to Industrial Societies. Sustainability 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071041

Haberl, H., Wiedenhofer, D., Erb, K.-H., Görg, C., Krausmann, F., 2017. The Material Stock–Flow–Service Nexus: A New Approach for Tackling the Decoupling Conundrum. Sustainability 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071049

Hummel, D., Jahn, T., Keil, F., Liehr, S., Stieß, I., 2017. Social Ecology as Critical, Transdisciplinary Science—Conceptualizing, Analyzing and Shaping Societal Relations to Nature. Sustainability 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071050

Kramm, J., Pichler, M., Schaffartzik, A., Zimmermann, M., 2017. Societal Relations to Nature in Times of Crisis—Social Ecology’s Contributions to Interdisciplinary Sustainability Studies. Sustainability 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071042

Liehr, S., Röhrig, J., Mehring, M., Kluge, T., 2017. How the Social-Ecological Systems Concept Can Guide Transdisciplinary Research and Implementation: Addressing Water Challenges in Central Northern Namibia. Sustainability 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071109

Mehring, M., Zajonz, U., Hummel, D., 2017. Social-Ecological Dynamics of Ecosystem Services: Livelihoods and the Functional Relation between Ecosystem Service Supply and Demand—Evidence from Socotra Archipelago, Yemen and the Sahel Region, West Africa. Sustainability 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071037

Schaffartzik, A., Pichler, M., 2017. Extractive Economies in Material and Political Terms: Broadening the Analytical Scope. Sustainability 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071047

Schleyer, C., Lux, A., Mehring, M., Görg, C., 2017. Ecosystem Services as a Boundary Concept: Arguments from Social Ecology. Sustainability 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071107

Völker, C., Kramm, J., Kerber, H., Schramm, E., Winker, M., Zimmermann, M., 2017. More Than a Potential Hazard—Approaching Risks from a Social-Ecological Perspective. Sustainability 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071039

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Institute of Social Ecology Vienna (SEC)
Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Wien, Graz (AAU)
A-1070 Vienna, Schottenfeldgasse 29, Austria
sec [dot] newsletter [at] aau [dot] at
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IFF Social Ecology e-Newsletter Nr. 38 – October 2017

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Call for application in ITN COUPLED network on „Operationalising Telecouplings for Solving Sustainability Challenges for Land Use”

Become part of a new generation of young scientists solving sustainability challenges in land-use – the call for 15 PhD positions is now open!

Deadline: 24 November 2017, 23:59 CETPhD at the Institute of Social Ecology:

Socio-ecological metabolism approaches to analyse telecoupling related to international trade

International trade of land-based products is one major process behind telecouplings. Trade is growing exponentially, much faster than aggregate global production and consumption of land-based resources, thereby resulting in growing challenges with managing telecouplings for sustainability.

However, the relation between traded products flows and impacts of land is all but straightforward. Land is a hugely heterogeneous resource due to its vastly differing quality (e.g. soil fertility, ruggedness, accessibility, precipitation or temperature) and land-use intensity. Empirically tracing telecouplings associated with flows of traded products needs to take these differences into account, while still generating indicators facilitating quantitative assessments.

This ESR will be focused on using and expanding the social metabolism framework to develop robust biophysical indicators to quantify the extent, magnitude, and dynamics of telecouplings due to biomass trade (e.g., embodied land demand, HANPP, nitrogen use, agricultural labor, changes in ecosystem carbon stocks, or biodiversity impacts.) These indicators will be used to quantify and analyze the global to regional effects of telecouplings on land-use efficiency, resource-use intensity and trade-offs for the period 2000-2015. One major task will be to establish consistent global databases allowing to trace and account for global trade flows on a high level of disaggregation using bilateral (country-by-country) trade matrices for all countries with a high product resolution (dozens to hundreds of products), including an assessment of uncertainties and variability of patterns over time. The developed framework will be applied to LUL’s trade-related cases, in order to explore analytical usefulness in the context of governance analysis at different scales.

Expected results are:

a global database on telecouplings resulting from biomass trade,
the development of indicators tracing how telecouplings affect resource efficiency and environmental impacts, and
insights into the trade-offs and synergies of different strategies to manage and govern telecouplings.

Find all details on: http://coupled-itn.eu/recruitment/available-position/

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Impressum
Institute of Social Ecology Vienna (SEC)
Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Wien, Graz (AAU)
A-1070 Vienna, Schottenfeldgasse 29, Austria
sec [dot] newsletter [at] aau [dot] at
www.aau.at/sec

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IFF Social Ecology e-Newsletter No. 36 – September 2016

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New Book – Out Now!

Fairness and Justice in Natural Resource Politics

Fairness and Justice in Natural Resource Politics
Pichler, M., Staritz, C., Kublbock, K., Plank, C., Raza, W., Ruiz Peyre, F. (Eds.)
Routledge, 2016

book launch with editors and authors: 12 December 2016, 6 pm,
C3 – Library for International Development (Sensengasse 3, 1090 Vienna)

Buy this book

As demand for natural resources increases due to the rise in world population and living standards, conflicts over their access and control are becoming more prevalent. This book critically assesses different approaches to and conceptualizations of resource fairness and justice and applies them to the analysis of resource conflicts.

Approaches addressed include cosmopolitan liberalism, political economy and political ecology. These are applied at various scales (local, national, international) and to initiatives and instruments in public and private resource governance, such as corporate social responsibility instruments, certification schemes, international law and commodity markets. In doing so, the contributions contrast existing approaches to fairness and justice and extend them by taking into account the interplay between political scales, regions, resources, and power structures in “glocalized” resource politics.
Various case studies are included concerning agriculture, agrofuels, land grabbing, water resources, mining and biodiversity. The volume adds to the academic and policy debate by bringing together a variety of disciplines and perspectives in order to advance both a research and policy agenda that puts notions of resource fairness and justice center-stage.

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Impressum
Institute of Social Ecology Vienna (SEC)
Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Wien, Graz (AAU)
A-1070 Vienna, Schottenfeldgasse 29, Austria
sec [dot] newsletter [at] aau [dot] at
www.aau.at/sec

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IFF Social Ecology e-Newsletter No. 35 – August 2016

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New Book – Out Now!

Land Use Competition. Ecological, Economic and Social Perspectives

J. Niewöhner, A. Bruns, P. Hostert, T. Krueger, J.Ø. Nielsen, H. Haberl, C. Lauk, J. Lutz, D. Müller (Eds.)
Land Use Competition. Ecological, Economic and Social Perspectives
Series: Human-Environment Interactions, Vol. 6
Springer, 2016

Contributors from the Institute of Social Ecology:
L. Bartels, H. Haberl, C. Lauk, J. Lutz, A. Mayer, M. Pichler, G. Pollack, A. Schaffartzik, C. Spitzbart-Glasl, M. Theurl

Buy this book

Provides new conceptual frames for analyzing land use competition
Offers a diverse range of case studies, reflecting the global context of research
Bridges various disciplines to encourage and enable interdisciplinary collaboration?

This book contributes to broadening the interdisciplinary knowledge basis for the description, analysis and assessment of land use practices. It presents conceptual advances grounded in empirical case studies on four main themes: distal drivers, competing demands on different scales, changing food regimes and land-water competition.
Competition over land ownership and use is one of the key contexts in which the effects of global change on social-ecological systems unfold. As such, understanding these rapidly changing dynamics is one of the most pressing challenges of global change research in the 21st century. This book contributes to a deeper understanding of the manifold interactions between land systems, the economics of resource production, distribution and use, as well as the logics of local livelihoods and cultural contexts. It addresses a broad readership in the geosciences, land and environmental sciences, offering them an essential reference guide to land use competition.

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Impressum
Institute of Social Ecology Vienna (SEC)
Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Wien, Graz (AAU)
A-1070 Vienna, Schottenfeldgasse 29, Austria
sec [dot] newsletter [at] aau [dot] at
www.aau.at/sec

To unsubscribe simply reply to this email with “unsubscribe” in the subject line.