ANTH 525A --- H A&S 397B

RESILIENCE IN SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS


T 1:30-4:20, MGH 211 (Honors Program Multi-Purpose Room)


Home Page
Requirements
Course Schedule
Discussion board
Email the Class
 Stevan Harrell
Professor of Anthropology
Director, UWWorldwide Sichuan University Exchange Program
Adjunct Professor of Chinese, Department of Asian Languages and Literature
Adjunct Curator of Asian Ethnology, Burke Museum
Faculty Associate, Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
Office: Denny 239 (rarely there; best to arrange appointment by email or in person)
Phone: 543-9608 (rarely there to answer)
Email: stevehar@u.washington.edu


In recent years, ecological scientists and social scientists have begun to examine several ways in which their theoretical models are similar at a meta-level, and also to look at ways in which new theoretical concepts and models can apply to both fields. In particular, the concept of resilience, and the associated model of the adaptive cycle, originally developed by C.S. (Buzz) Holling, have promised both theoretical and substantive integration of social and ecological systems.

This is thus an exciting time for scientists interested in cross-disciplinary interaction and in cross-fertilization between disciplines. It is also a time when it is becoming clearer and clearer that the [ecological] earth system and the [socio-political] world system (to borrow the title of one of our textbooks) are in danger of crossing a threshold of irreparable damage, and that the health and survival of one depends on the health and survival of the other. New concepts such as resilience theory are thus timely as well as intellectually exciting..

At the same time, we must be careful and critical. Is resilience theory a real contribution toward saving the world, or is just old wine in new bottles, new words for the same old things? Is it a valuable tool for action, or just a fuzzy-headed, ivory-tower set of slogans that we can't apply to real-world situations? The proof is in the application..

So I am inviting curious and open-minded ecologists, anthropologists, and others to join me in a rigorous but free-wheeling exploration of these concepts and their application. We will spend approximately the first five or six weeks of the quarter reading the classic and not-so-classic texts from the resilience tradition, and then take the last half of the quarter for each of us to try to apply these concepts to a particular case-study that involves the interaction of the ecosystem and the socio-political system. We hope to emerge from the quarter with a better sense of whether we should continue to explore and use resilience theory or whether we should laud it as a commendable attempt but then move on to the next thing.