Recording Plan: 

Curated Track: 

Julien Vastenaekels, 

Call For Participation
This session seeks proposals from interdisciplinary teams addressing these open questions by embracing complexity, engaging diverse stakeholders, synthesizing interdisciplinary mixed methods, and creating space for dialogue, reflection, and visioning. We are particularly interested in work that pioneers new methods to integrate “big” data with “deep” qualitative data to understand socio-environmental system transformation across multiple scales. Also of interest are examples of normative backcasting, futures thinking, prospective/foresight research, participatory action research, or exploratory modeling approaches to deepen understanding of and/or implement transformative pathways in socio-environmental systems.

Description:

The Anthropocene’s triple challenge of preventing biodiversity loss, mitigating the effects of climate change, and sustainably and equitably providing resources for a growing human population will make significant socioenvironmental transformation both necessary and inevitable. Around the world, researchers are scrambling to understand how to guide socioenvironmental systems towards futures that are more sustainable, just, and resilient, particularly in the context of a rapidly changing climate.

Many efforts are underway to leverage big, geospatial data, AI, and predictive modeling to anticipate socio-environmental shifts under future climate conditions, however significant methodological challenges remain for understanding complex socio-environmental transitions. How can we anticipate surprises and prepare for unknowns? Where are the leverage points for changing system dynamics? How do we map ambiguous, multi-dimensional transition pathways? How to solve the tension between prediction and exploration at the methodological and epistemological levels? What constitutes a “desirable” future, and how can plural visions be integrated? How might we encourage experimentation while avoiding technological lock-ins and rigidity?

This session seeks proposals from interdisciplinary teams addressing these open questions by embracing complexity, engaging diverse stakeholders, synthesizing interdisciplinary mixed methods, and creating space for dialogue, reflection, and visioning. We are particularly interested in work that pioneers new methods to integrate “big” data with “deep” qualitative data to understand socio-environmental system transformation across multiple scales. Also of interest are examples of normative backcasting, futures thinking, prospective/foresight research, participatory action research, or exploratory modeling approaches to deepen understanding of and/or implement transformative pathways in socio-environmental systems.

Non-Presenting Participants