5 Social Mechanisms of Resilience

During my dissertation work, I took up the challenge presented by Berkes and Folke to identify additional social mechanisms that contribute to social-ecological system resilience. In that and subsequent work, I have identified at least 5 mechanisms that contribute to resilience, especially in times of crisis like disaster or war, or what I have called Red Zones. These mechanisms were discussed in depth during a lecture I gave for the Civic Ecology MOOC. Below is a video of that lecture.

What Is Civic Ecology? 25 Definitions

Forthcoming book

Civic Ecology | The MIT Press

Civic Ecology

Adaptation and Transformation from the Ground Up

By Marianne Krasny and Keith Tidball

Overview

In communities across the country and around the world, people are coming together to rebuild and restore local environments that have been affected by crisis or disaster. In New Orleans after Katrina, in New York after Sandy, in Soweto after apartheid, and in any number of postindustrial, depopulated cities, people work together to restore nature, renew communities, and heal themselves. In Civic Ecology, Marianne Krasny and Keith Tidball offer stories of this emerging grassroots environmental stewardship, along with an interdisciplinary framework for understanding and studying it as a growing international phenomenon.

Krasny and Tidball draw on research in social capital and collective efficacy, ecosystem services, social learning, governance, social-ecological systems, and other findings in the social and ecological sciences to investigate how people, practices, and communities interact. Along the way, they chronicle local environmental stewards who have undertaken such tasks as beautifying blocks in the Bronx, clearing trash from the Iranian countryside, and working with traumatized veterans to conserve nature and recreate community. Krasny and Tidball argue that humans’ innate love of nature and attachment to place compels them to restore nature and places that are threatened, destroyed, or lost. At the same time, they report, nature and community exert a healing and restorative power on their stewards.

About the Authors

Marianne Krasny is Professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Director of the Civic Ecology Lab at Cornell University.

Keith Tidball is Senior Extension Associate in the Department of Natural Resources and Associate Director of the Civic Ecology Lab at Cornell University and State Coordinator for the New York Extension Disaster Education Network.

How does the creation and Care of Green Spaces Affect Resilience in Times of Crisis?

CCE Helps Soldiers and Families Navigate the Deployment Cycle

A recent CCE "Feature Story"... click on the photo.

Conceptual Framework for Civic Ecology Education

My latest article "Urban Environmental Education From a Social-Ecological Perspective: Conceptual Framework for Civic Ecology Education" has been published in Cities and the Environment (CATE).

http://escholarship.bc.edu/cate/vol3/iss1/11/

Ecology of Environmental Education Presented at ESA

New article published in the Journal of Extension

Civic Ecology: Linking Social and Ecological Approaches in Extension

Marianne E. Krasny, Cornell University

Keith G. Tidball, Cornell University

Civic ecology refers to the philosophy and science of community forestry, community gardening, watershed enhancement, and other volunteer-driven restoration practices in cities and elsewhere. Such practices, although often viewed as initiatives to improve a degraded environment, also foster social attributes of resilient social-ecological systems, including volunteer engagement and social connectedness. Civic ecology education refers to the learning, as well as the social and ecosystem outcomes, that occur when young people and other novices engage alongside experienced adults in civic ecology practice. As Extension considers its role in civic ecology education, there will be opportunities for both participation and leadership.

Click here for the full article.

New Article Published in the journal Cities and the Environment

Community Gardens as Contexts for Science, Stewardship,and Civic Action Learning

Marianne E. Krasny, Cornell University
Keith G. Tidball, Cornell University

Community gardens are heterogeneous environments that integrate environmental restoration, community activism, social interactions, cultural expression, and food security. As such, they provide a context for learning that addresses multiple societal goals, including a populace that is scientifically literate, practices environmental stewardship, and participates in civic life. Several theories are useful in describing the learning that occurs in community gardens, including those focusing on learning as acquisition of content by individuals, learning as interaction with other individuals and the environment and as increasingly skilled levels of participation in a community of practice, and social learning among groups of stakeholders leading to concerted action to enhance natural resources. In this paper, we use preliminary evidence from the Garden Mosaics intergenerational education program to suggest the potential for community gardens to foster multiple types of learning.

Click HERE for the full article.

Civic Engagement in Achieving Greener Communities

I recently presented "Civic Ecology for Greener Communities," an invited presentation at the Achieving Greener Communities Through Civic, Private, and Government Sector Innovations conference, a one-day conference of the Rural Learning Network of Central and Western New York. Mt. Morris, NY October 2008.


























For my presentation, click Here.