- Title
- Motivation for landscape stewardship as a driver of change-Garden Route, South Africa
- Creator
- Heider, Lisa
- Subject
- Social ecology
- Subject
- Environmental psychology Conservation (Psychology)
- Date Issued
- 2018
- Date
- 2018
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Doctoral
- Type
- DPhil
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10948/30116
- Identifier
- vital:30826
- Description
- Stewardship, as portrayed in much of contemporary literature is considered as a key to the sustainability challenges of the biosphere. In disciplines which regard sustainability in the context of Social Ecological Systems (SES), stewardship is associated with the goal of building resilience through the informal governance structures that dictate how the landscape is utilized. These disciplines lack a better integration of individual roles and responsibilities as they relate to their daily interactions with the environment. Formally initiated stewardship can evoke maladaptation, in other words the attempts to conserve a specific natural assets in one particular locality can shift the problem of degradation or exploitation to another place or point in time. This is because the individual, as an inevitable driver of unsustainability, has not been addressed. What is needed is the knowledge of strategies which resolve human disconnection from nature and the biosphere, through a greater focus on the individual motivational scale. In Chapter 2, which consists of a literature review of recent stewardship discourses, I extract alternative theories which consider individual motivation and subjectivity as the underlying drivers of resilience. These include knowledge about Sense of Place, and theories from Conservation Psychology. Basic Human Value theory is also presented as a possible entry point for societal transformation through individual motivation. These ought to inform conservation interventions with mechanisms which truly grasp unsustainability at its roots. This is a place-based, qualitative study where the results assist in interrogating the question: How does individual motivation for stewardship mediate socialecological trajectories of change? The context of the study and the methods used to generate my research findings are presented in Chapter 3 and 4. The Garden Route provides the place-based context for this research and is situated in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The region is home to diverse cultures representative of Western and indigenous regions who meet and negotiate what it means to care for the environment. The area is biologically rich and ecologically highly sensitive to current trajectories of development, fragmentation and global change. Mixed methods and a qualitative approach was used to answer three sub-questions: (1) Which theories facilitate greater understanding of transformative stewardship pathways? (2) How can a transformative pathway be recognized? and (3) How can transformative pathways be pursued? One method used in this study is a photo-voice technique, which is coupled with self-directed journaling and in-depth interviews. Other sources of data include communication and engagement, observations iii and focus groups. I apply a content analysis to the transcribed qualitative data to resolve the research questions. Research results are presented in Chapter 5. In this empirical chapter I present three competing meanings of stewardship and visions for change held by individuals in the Garden Route. The three meanings are described as: protect nature from human influence (Nature despite People); work together and communicate (Nature for People/Nature and People); and be the change you want to see in this world (People in Nature). The variable which best describes the differences in visions is Critical Connectivity. Resilience in a SES is critically dependent on three levels of connectivity in stewardship. Firstly, individuals’ consciousness of being interrelated and interdependent within a community of life; Secondly, expressions in the physical landscape which promote the connectivity of ecological systems as well as the connectivity between people and nature. Thirdly, Connectedness with the Biosphere, which means that the boundaries of the planet and the functioning of the life-supporting earth system are considered in behaviours. I use Basic Human Value theory to test whether it can explain how the differences between and commonalities within the three groups arise. The results support the theory, suggesting that Basic Human Values underlie individual motivation for stewardship. However, inconsistencies and shortcomings of Basic Human Value theory became evident. I identified new values and value combinations which were not made explicit in the framework. These emerged due to my in-depth qualitative approach, as opposed to the common quantitative uses of the framework. The qualitative approach allows for values to emerge inductively and it elicits nuances of individual value interpretations that the definitions of Basic Human Values do not depict. In the second part of the empirical chapter, I present evidence of maladaptive and transformative stewardship pathways in the Garden Route. A maladaptive pathway is one in which individuals’ expression of care for the environment undermines Critical Connectivity and transfers vulnerabilities in the SES. A transformative pathway is one in which individuals pro-actively invest into Critical Connectivity and enhance resilience. The differences in these pathways are directly related to the differences in motivation. iv The findings of this research reveal that stewardship is the act of ‘place creation’ which is motivated by unique and nuanced differences in basic values and individual consciousness. Recognizable features of transformative and maladaptive stewardship pathways are discussed in Chapter 6. I present a conceptual model that critically evaluates stewardship. This model firstly assists researchers and practitioners to become alert to early warning signs of maladaptive pathways. Secondly, it informs them of potential leverage points for interventions which can induce sustainability transformations. I then apply this model to discuss transformative and maladaptive pathways against the backdrop of my findings and the literature. The elements which emerged as critical in this assessment are risk perceptions, stewardship meaning, connectivity with nature, connectedness with the biosphere, relationship with place, sustenance and identity. Different configurations of each indicator help explain the different pathways. Lastly, I discuss the role of Basic Human Values in each of the pathways. I compare how the motivational orientation towards self-enhancement and self-transcendence, or towards openness to change and conservation, play roles in SES resilience. This discussion brings to the surface the fact that transformative stewardship rests on a combination of these four value categories. In contrast, the absence of self-transcendent values and the presence of power, security and conformity underlie the motivation for maladaptation. I leave the reader with suggestions for interventions which have become relevant as a result of my study. Policy, media, conservation agencies and science shape meanings of stewardship, portray social norms and hence must motivate Critical Connectivity. Transformations can be achieved by targeting changes in values which must include autonomy, universalism, benevolence and spirituality. I discuss how policy and planning, communication, marketing and education can lever transformation through mechanisms identified in my research. Chapter 7 concludes this research with a reflective summary of the academic and practical contributions my study has made for stewardship discourses and for the management of SES resilience in local landscapes. I provide recommendations for further research, as they apply to socio-political change in Post-Apartheid South Africa. I end the concluding chapter by encapsulating my research finding in future scenarios for the Garden Route in the face of change, which namely relate to abrupt and uncertain environmental change, immigration, population growth and implications for spatial planning, and the Garden Route Biosphere Reserve. v In Chapter 8, I provide a reflection of this research. This entails foremost a reflection of how I have accounted for four quality criteria in social research, which are namely dependability, credibility, conformability and transferability. I end the chapter with the limitations and outline of scope of my study..
- Format
- xvi, 211 leaves
- Format
- Publisher
- Nelson Mandela University
- Publisher
- Faculty of Science
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Nelson Mandela University
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