Systemic-analytical relationalities

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In Western scientific traditions, an emerging body of research and action has brought social-ecological systems research together with various relational approaches to develop ‘systemic-analytical’ accounts of relationality in sustainability transformations (Hertz et al. 2020, Preiser et al. 2021a). Systemic-analytical relationalities suggest that sustainability challenges have been generated by, among others, Newtonian approaches to science emerging in the 16th and 17th centuries embedded within “policies, processes and institutions that […] supported the mechanisation, industrialisation and formalisation of processes of production and modes of organising societal norms” (Preiser et al. 2021b:31). Newtonian approaches are premised on the separation of human and natural systems and the assumption that both operate mechanistically in “orderly, deterministic and predictable” ways, thus enabling extractive resource use as well as ‘command-and-control’ approaches to environmental management (Preiser et al. 2021b:31; Holling & Meffe 1996). Systems approaches argue that the recognition of humanity as an earth system force in the Anthropocene necessitates a shift in mindsets towards recognising social and ecological systems as inextricably intertwined, co-evolving, and characterised by nonlinear, self-organising and emergent dynamics (Bodin et al. 2011; Folke et al. 2021; Haider et al. 2021). Systems scholars have drawn on relational sociology and process-relational philosophy to highlight that the interactions and relations between system components are more important than the components themselves (Preiser et al. 2018; Tábara 2023). Systems-analytical approaches to transformation have emphasised more flexible and adaptive governance approaches (Ernstson 2011), ethics of care and stewardship (Enqvist et al. 2018), and the development of open-ended ‘transformative spaces’ capable of fostering novel social-ecological innovations and processes of “relational reconfiguration” (Preiser et al. 2021a:630).

Human-nature interconnectedness

While social-ecological systems research has long argued that social and ecological systems are inextricably interwoven and co-constituted, there have been different ways of conceiving of this interconnectedness. The predominant approach has been to conceive of systems of co-evolving social and ecological entities connected through relationships (e.g. Moore et al. 2014). As Tábara (2023:2) writes, drawing on Simmelian sociology, “we live in the natural environment as much as the natural environment lives in each of us.” This is also reflected in Bodin et al.’s (2011:11) social relational approach drawing on the relational sociology of Emirbayer (1997) and rooted in quantitative social network analysis, which conceptualises social systems as “a collection of nodes (representing individuals, firms, organizations, nations) connected (fully or partially) by lines (social relations).” Here, relations are essentially treated as links between social or ecological nodes/entities with their own ontological status and causal powers. In Preiser et al.’s (2021:33-35) approach, informed by critical realist philosophy, “relations and the emergent causal organisational interactions are acknowledged to have real effects on a systemic level of the whole, and we can therefore say that the relations are ontological (i.e. something real)” and that consequently “complex behaviour and structures emerge as a result of the recursive and aggregate patterns of relations that exist between the component parts of systems.” Taking this further, Hertz et al. (2020) draw on the process-relational philosophy of Whitehead, Deleuze and Guattari, Stengers, and others, to develop an account of relationality in complex systems where relations and processes (the unfolding of relations through time) are primary and are understood to give rise to or produce entities, nodes, or components in the first place. This processual understanding is proposed to overcome the methodological separation of social and ecological entities in social-ecological systems research (Hertz et al. 2020; Folke et al. 2021).

Agency and leadership

Early social-ecological systems research examined the role of individual (human) leaders and the networks they created – in concert with existing institutions and structures – to catalyse transformative change (Olsson et al. 2004). In the years since, concepts of agency have been broadened into notions of ‘systems entrepreneurship’ to more explicitly recognise the distributed nature of agency (Moore & Westley 2011; Westley et al. 2013). For example, Ernstson (2011:258) uses social network analysis to explore transformation in the Stockholm Urban Park, Sweden, presenting agency as “a relational property that is a function of individual skills, the relations among various actors, and on network structures they create.” Meanwhile, Charli-Joseph et al. (2023:1215) examine practices that nurture collective agency in the Xochimilco wetlands in Mexico City, describing a three-step process of “1) questioning dominant narratives about a situation, (2) building capacities to reframe the situation, and (3) enacting new compelling narratives that support the group’s transformative agency.” Kok et al. (2021:1) combine complex adaptive systems, relational sociology, new materialism, and actor network theory, to extend agency beyond the human into collectives of humans, material infrastructures, and ecological assemblages, presenting agency as an “embedded and temporal capacity for reorientation.” Tábara (2023:4) extends the role and relations of the human and non-human even further, describing agency, and in particular, the regenerative capacities needed for sustainability transformations, as “emergent properties derived from positive synergistic interactions of agents both human and non-human able to influence the multiple social-ecological conditions and processes in which they live and that live within them.” Drawing these threads together, O’Brien et al. (2023) develop a fractal approach to agency, informed by systems, Indigenous, and posthumanist perspectives, in which agency is framed “as both a quality and a capacity to generate patterns that are context specific yet aligned to strategically transform inequitable and unsustainable relationships.”

Scale and scaling

Systemic-analytical relationalities view transformations as multi- and cross-scale phenomena (Moore et al. 2014). In earlier work on transformations scales were understood in terms of nested hierarchies, with “smaller and faster systems […] contained within larger and slower systems” (Grandin & Haarstad 2021:293). Conceptions of scale and scaling have become more fluid and non-hierarchical since, with network studies situating actors and organisations within shifting and heterogeneous networks across scales (Bodin et al. 2011; Ernstson 2011). Moore et al. (2015:74) argue that social-ecological transformations require complex understandings of scale and scaling, and propose a typology of scaling transformative innovations in terms of scaling out (impacting greater numbers of people and ecosystems), scaling up (changing laws and policies), and scaling deep, which “relate[s] to the notion that durable change has been achieved only when people’s hearts and minds, their values and cultural practices, and the quality of the social relationships they have, are transformed.” O’Brien et al. (2023) build on Moore et al.’s (2015) notion of scaling deep to develop a fractal approach to scaling as a way of addressing “how human agency can transcend scales to connect individual change, collective change, and systems change.” Fractal approaches “shift the focus from scaling through “things” (e.g. technologies, behaviours, projects) to scaling through a quality of agency based on values that apply to all, such as oneness and integrity […] that recursively repeat at all scales” (O’Brien et al. 2023).

Time and change

Systems-analytical approaches emerged out of non-equilibrium and non-linear thinking, focusing on potentially rapid and unpredictable movement between multiple stable states. This has given rise to frameworks for deliberate transformation presenting phases of movement from one state to another, including “triggers/pretransformation,” “preparing for change,” “navigating the transition,” and “institutionalising the new trajectory” (Moore et al. 2014; Olsson & Moore 2024). Hertz et al. (2020) draw on the process-relational philosophy of Whitehead to highlight that these system states are themselves constituted of continually unfolding processes, thus helping to bring to life the call by van der Leeuw et al. (2000) for systems thinkers to assume change and explain relative stability, and Folke et al.’s (2011) notion of “dynamic stability.” Preiser et al. (2021a:627) write that instead of assuming a world of static objects or states to which change happens, “we are prompted to realise that the world is continuously producing newness […] a relational theory of change suggests that transformation comes about by reconfiguring the relational structure of systems and by creating opportunity contexts that allow new relations to grow.” In addition, systems scholars have increasingly engaged in imaginative processes of narrative and scenario-building in order to generate visions of transformed futures, leading to greater recognition of the multiple ways in which time is experienced across cultures and disciplines, and the need for spaces and heuristics in which diverse temporalities can unfold (Moore & Milkoreit 2020; Terry et al. 2024).

Knowledge and action

Systemic-analytical relationalities have long highlighted the importance of devising “flexible institutions and adaptive governance structures that […] are able to respond to complex dynamics and cope with unpredictabilities” (Bodin et al. 2011:4). Increasingly, there has been a focus on open-ended ‘transformative spaces’ as spaces for actors to test concepts and develop innovations (Pereira et al. 2020), described by Preiser et al. (2021a:630) as “spaces in which new relational configurations can be nurtured or strengthened so as to create new forms of agency and transformative potential – that is, they are holding places for relational reconfiguration.” One example of a potential transformative space is the Transformation Lab (T-Lab) trialled in places across the Global South and North (Pathways Network 2018). Charli-Joseph et al. (2023:1229) describe a T-Lab in the Xochimilco wetlands, Mexico City, highlighting that “the T-Lab space-process was not only about discussion and verbalisation, but also about experiencing, doing, and affectively relating in new ways.” This focus on experience, affect, and embodiment resonates with Kok et al.’s (2021:9) call for transformations research to work more closely with the agency of materiality and non-human participants in complex systems. Prieser et al. (2021a:627-630) argue that a relational emphasis on continually unfolding processes leads to a reconfiguration of the role of the researcher in transformations, away from designing interventions to “bring about change or mark some abrupt new point of departure,” towards roles for researchers as “process facilitators” or “curators” of relations already unfolding in particular contexts.

References

Charli-Joseph, L., Siqueiros-García, J.M., Eakin, H., Manuel-Navarrete, D., Mazari-Hiriart, M., Shelton, R., Pérez-Belmont, P., Ruizpalacios, B. 2023. Enabling collective agency for sustainability transformations through reframing in the Xochimilco social-ecological system. Sustainability Science 18:1215-1233. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01224-w

Hertz, T., Mancilla Garcia, M. & Schluter, M. 2020. From nouns to verbs: How process ontologies enhance our understanding of social-ecological systems understood as complex adaptive systems. People and Nature 2:328-338. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10079

Holling, C.S. & Meffe, G.K. 1996. Command and control and the pathology of natural resource management. Conservation Biology 10(2):328–337. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1523-1739.1996.10020328.x

Bodin, Ö., Ramirez-Sanchez, S., Ernstson, H., Prell, C., 2011. A social relational approach to natural resource governance, in: Bodin, Ö., Prell, C. (Eds.), Social Networks and Natural Resource Management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3–28. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511894985.002