Livelisystems: a conceptual framework integrating social, ecosystem, development and evolutionary theory

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Main author: Dorward, Andrew
Format: Journal Article           
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id eprints-14308
recordtype eprints
institution SOAS, University of London
collection SOAS Research Online
language English
language_search English
topic H Social Sciences (General)
QH301 Biology
description Human activity poses multiple environmental challenges for ecosystems that have intrinsic value and also support that activity. Our ability to address these challenges is constrained, inter alia, by weaknesses in cross disciplinary understandings of interactive processes of change in socio-ecological systems. This paper draws on complementary insights from social and biological sciences to propose a ‘livelisystems’ framework of multi-scale, dynamic change across social and biological systems. This describes how material, informational and relational assets, asset services and asset pathways interact in systems with embedded and emergent properties undergoing a variety of structural transformations. Related characteristics of ‘higher’ (notably human) livelisystems and change processes are identified as the greater relative importance of (a) informational, relational and extrinsic (as opposed to material and intrinsic) assets, (b) teleological (as opposed to natural) selection, and (c) innovational (as opposed to mutational) change. The framework provides valuable insights into social and environmental challenges posed by global and local change, globalization, poverty, modernization, and growth in the anthropocene. Its potential for improving inter-disciplinary and multi-scale understanding is discussed, notably by examination of human adaptation to bio-diversity and eco-system service change following the spread of Lantana camera in the Western Ghats, India.
format Journal Article
author Dorward, Andrew
author_facet Dorward, Andrew
authorStr Dorward, Andrew
author_letter Dorward, Andrew
title Livelisystems: a conceptual framework integrating social, ecosystem, development and evolutionary theory
publisher Resilience Alliance
publishDate 2014
url https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/14308/

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