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Assignment for Tuesday, October 28So far, you are probably mystified by the lack of explicit attention to the "socio" side of socio-ecological systems so far; they have been lurking on the sidelines, but not addressed directly. This week and next, we will try to rectify that.So this week we will go after the explicit attempts to combine world-system thinking with ecosystem thinking, as illustrated in the reader on The World System and the Earth System. In particular, look at general frameworks in the Introduction by Hornberg, chapter 1 by Crumley, chapter 4 by Abel; and then at attempts at actual analysis of the world system as a socio-ecological system in four short chapters: chapter 15 by Moran, 16 by de Vries, 18 by Malm, and 19 by Crosby. Finally, I dare to ask you to read a seemingly unrelated article that brings up the possibility of true-cross disciplinary parallels, especially to the adaptive cycle. This is Alexei Yurchak's Everything was Forever, Until It Was No More, a study of the role of language in the fall of the Soviet Union. Don't worry, you will be astonished by the parallels when you actually read it. Then, for fun, you might want to look at the Regime Shifts Blog on the Resiliance Alliance website, for an analysis of the recent financial system meltdown. Links are fun to follow up on, too. In light of all this material, we will discuss how you, in your own projects, might apply resilience and adaptive cycle models to a wider variety of phenomena than you might originally have thought. You will each need to give a very brief idea of what you propose to do for your class project. |