1. Keith G. Tidball & Richard Stedman
Cornell University
Positive resource dependency in urban
systems: applying urgent biophilia and
restorative topophilia
20 May 2013
Linné Hall, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Stockholm, Sweden
2. First, some history…
Elmqvist visiting
scholar and 1st SU/SRC
& Cornell/CALS MOU
workshop Fall 2011
2nd SU/SRC &
Cornell/CALS MOU
workshop and meeting
Fall 2012 Visiting Researchers
PhD Course 2013
3. Background and Framing… Big
Picture
Humans have lost their ecological identity, which we argue
may be related to loss of resilience and adaptive capacity
among humans in social-ecological systems.
How can ecological identity be remembered and recovered?
(Clayton & Opotow, 2003; Clayton 2003)
Are there clues about how we might recover
our ecological identity in the way humans respond
to large scale disasters?
How should we value community-based ecological
restoration in human vulnerability and security
contexts?
4. Background and Framing… Big
Picture
“…there will be social mechanisms behind
management practices based on local ecological
knowledge, as evidence of a co-evolutionary relationship
between local institutions and the ecosystem in which
they are located…”
“…mechanisms by which information from the
environment can be received, processed, and
interpreted…”
“„tangible evidence of social mechanisms behind
social‐ecological practices that deal with disturbance and
maintain system resilience…”
Berkes & Folke 1998
5. Main Messages for Today
Deficit-based perspectives on urban systems are
barriers to movement from undesirable to more
sustainable system states.
Issues such as ecological identity, human
exemptionalism, anthropocentrism, and resource
dependence contribute to barriers.
Urgent biophilia and restorative topophilia may
enhance ecological identity and beneficial positive
dependency.
Positive dependency may start, re-start, or expand
virtuous cycles that confer desired resilience.
6. Roadmap
Key Terms
• Dependency
• Urban Systems
• Ecological Identity
• Biophilia
• Topophilia
Introducing Positive Dependence
• Origins and Assumptions
• Critiques
• Positive dependence
Restorative Topophilia
• Core definition and principles
• A basis for action
• Key caveats
Urgent Biophilia
• Description
• Origins
• Research to date
• Further implications
Implications, Caveats and Conclusions
8. “What is largely still missing in social-ecological resilience theory is a treatment of
cities and urban areas. This includes the historical lessons that can be drawn from
distant urban pasts in regard to sustaining ecosystem services during times of
hardship and crisis” ( Stephan Barthel, 2011).
“…given its origins in ecology, it is not surprising that most resilience scholars have
historically been interested in empirical analyses of non-urban areas (e.g., shallow
lakes, production forests, and small-scale agriculture, see Berkes and Folke 1998;
Gunderson and Holling 2002; Berkes et al. 2003), and have devoted less attention
to the specifically human and social elements of human-dominated systems,
such as cities” (Ernstson et al., 2010 Ambio ).
Urban Systems
9. Ecological Identity
“…one part of the way in which people form their self-concept: a sense of
connection to some part of the nonhuman natural environment, based on
history, emotional attachment, and/or similarity, that affects the ways in
which we perceive and act toward the world; a belief that the environment
is important to us and who we are…” Clayton 2003
12. Topophilia
Topohilia (Tuan 1974) “love of place”
A place is a center of meaning or
field of care (Tuan, 1977) based on
human experience, social
relationships, emotions, and
thoughts.
Through human experience,
“abstract space, lacking
significance other than
strangeness, becomes concrete
place, filled with meaning” (Tuan
1977, p. 199).
13. Introducing Positive Dependence
“Ecological and social resilience may be linked through the dependence on
ecosystems of communities and their economic activities. “
“The question is, then, whether societies dependent on resources and
ecosystems are themselves less resilient.” Adger, 2000
14. Resource Dependence:
The Traditional View
Rural sociological origins
Strong historical rural
legacy of resource
dependence
Dependence defined by
employment in
extraction, processing of
raw materials (forestry,
fisheries, mining, energy)
Resource dependence
linked with community
well being
Rural development
practitioners
Researchers (early on)
15. A quick history…
Traditional “booster” view:
Rural jobs = resource jobs
These jobs are “better:” higher paying, more stable
Inputs of new wealth
Linkages to subsequent development
A great deal of indicator-based work:
W US energy boomtowns (1970s)
The sustainability of resource-dependent communities
(1990s)
Dominated by analysis of secondary data (US Census,
NAICS, StatsCan, etc.)
16. However…
Booster view largely wrong:
research shows
Few jobs: rural is not resource
dependent
Poor outcomes for dependent
places
Higher rates of poverty,
unemployment, education,
etc.
Linkages don‟t come: uneven
development
Language of “the resource
curse”
Summary…resource dependence
is the past, not the future, of rural
systems (the new truism)
17. Gentle Critique of this view…
Narrow use of
secondary data
mostly employment and
income based
narrow view of
employment: extraction
and processing
Problems of scale—
measured at large
(irrelevant?) geography
Great diversity of
outcomes
Lack of subjective
indicators
foranyeyes.blogspot.com
18. This Needs to be Challenged
1. Conceptualizing too narrowly
2. What about urban systems?
19. Recent expansions
Employment is more
than extraction (e.g.
natural resource
tourism)
Dependence is more
than employment:
e.g. community
symbols/identity
/basis for (in)action
We need to take this
line of critique
further
Mynatour.org
Vn-tourism.com
20. Need to examine actions and
psychologies at multiple scales
.
21. Two key conceptual and
methodological issues…
Dependence as “psychological state” conflated
with ~ “behavioral” indicators
Scale: Who depends? Communities? Or
people?
22. A conceptual typology of dependence
Individual Community/Aggregate
Psychological
Attitude, personal identity
(An individual feels dependent)
Social representations,
Cultural cognition
Community identity
Behavioral
Individual actions that
Express or create dependence
Secondary data: indicators of
community well being
Community level actions
23. Enter positive dependence?
Transition from deficit-based to asset-based
perspectives
Terms: “addiction, reliance, craving” imply vulnerability
or weakness
So do most findings, as conventionally measured
Another class of synonyms for psychological
dependence: trust, confidence, belief, faith that imply
something positive: dependence versus
dependability?
Held by individuals or larger social aggregates
Can this base of confidence—provide a basis for
action: stronger sense of agency, resilience,
And thus foster virtuous cycles?
24. cycles
(Tidball and Stedman, 2012).
Individual Community/Aggregate
Psychological
(pos / neg)
Attitudes:
Negative: Risk aversion,
unwillingness to change
Positive: attachment, biophilia
Social representations, community
identity:
Negative: “we are” backward, with
few other options, stuck.
Positive: shared vision, collective
identity, community as special
place
Behavioral
(pos / neg)
Individual actions:
Negative: disinvestments in human
capital based on faith in industry
or lack of awareness of options
Positive: use “faith” in the resource
as a launching pad for creativity,
entrepreneurship, etc.
Secondary data: indicators of
community action
Negative: disinvestments in alt
development strategies
Positive: community-driven
initiatives: resource based
development strategies, CBRM
25. The question becomes under what
circumstances can dependence lead to
virtuous cycles? (positive dependency)
26. Road map Check -in
Key Terms
Dependency
Urban Systems
Biophilia
Topophilia
Introducing Positive Dependence
Origins and Assumptions
Critiques
Positive dependence
• Restorative Topophilia
• Core definition and principles
• A basis for action
• Key caveats
• Urgent Biophilia
• Description
• Origins
• Research to date
• Further implications
• Broad Positive Dependency &
Resilience Implications
• Caveats and Conclusions
28. Topophilia
Empirical expression
in place attachment --
research
Concerns whole
“place” rather than
“environment”
Experiential
(“constructed” rather
than innate)
Based on attributed
symbols/meanings
29. Restorative Topophila
When love of place fosters individual and
collective action that repair and/or enhance valued
attributes of place
Requires strong attachment and important
meanings under threat.
30. Some caveats: what accounts for
virtuous versus vicious tips?
Mostly meanings, rather than attachment
Diversity is a double edged sword
Magnitude of variation
How is variation distributed
Change fostering vs change inhibiting
“reflexive or resistant”
31. Road map Check -in
Key Terms
Dependency
Urban Systems
Biophilia
Topophilia
Introducing Positive Dependence
Origins and Assumptions
Critiques
Positive dependence
Restorative Topophilia
Core definition and principles
A basis for action
Key caveats
• Urgent Biophilia
• Description
• Origins
• Research to date
• Further implications
• Broad Positive Dependency &
Resilience Implications
• Caveats and Conclusions
…back to Keith
34. Urgent Biophilia- Roots in Hort Therapy
There are many examples of people, stunned by a
crisis, benefitting from the therapeutic qualities of
nature contact to ease trauma and to aid the process
of recovery. (Miavitz 1998; Hewson 2001)
Benefits of horticulture therapy (Markee and Janick 1979;
PeoplePlantCouncil 1993; Relf and Dorn 1995; Relf 2005)
among returning war veterans (Brdanovic 2009)
in refugee contexts
and in prisons
35. Restorative Environments
Frumkin (2001) and Hartig (2007) traced human-nature relationships
contributing to human health to the ancient Greeks, to the New England
transcendentalists, and through the American landscape designers Andrew
Jackson Downing (1869) and Frederick Law Olmsted (1865) (Nash 1982;
McLuhan 1994; Murphy, Gifford et al. 1998; Mazel 2000).
To see or actively experience plants and green spaces can: reduce domestic
violence, quicken healing times, reduce stress, improve physical health, and
bring about cognitive and psychological benefits in individuals and populations
as a whole (Ulrich 1984; Kaplan and Kaplan 1989; Hartig, Mang et al. 1991;
Sullivan and Kuo 1996; Taylor, Wiley et al. 1998; Wells 2000; Hartig, Mang et
al. 1991).
The study of restorative environments complements research on the conditions
in which our functional resources and capabilities diminish, such as red zones.
36. Systemic Therapies
What might gardening, tree planting, or other greening
activities contribute to severely disturbed urban SES
resilience?
Moving toward an „ecological‟ approach, the field of
systemic therapies contributes alternative
approaches to healing.
Address the environment not merely as a setting but
as a partner in the process (Berger and McLeod
2006).
37. Systems Within Systems Facilitate
Human Resilience
Communication
Transportation
Manufacturing
• Hydrological Cycle
• Carbon Cycle
• Nitrogen Cycle
38. What IS Urgent Biophilia then?
Attraction humans have for the rest of nature (and the
rest of nature for us?)
Process of remembering that attraction
Urge to express it through creation of restorative
environments
restore or increase ecological function
confer resilience across multiple scales
Based on Biological Attraction Principle
(Agnati et al. 2009)
Analogous to Newton‟s Law of Gravitation
Biological activities, processes, or patterns are all deemed to be mutually
attractive
Biological attractive force is intrinsic to living organisms and manifests itself
through the propensity of any living organism to act
44. How to analyze?
LOCATION RED ZONE TYPE
Afghanistan Ongoing wars in the Middle East
Berlin, Germany Post-Cold War divisions
Charleston, South Carolina 1989 Hurricane Hugo
Cameroon and Chad Mid 2000’s civil unrest in Central Africa
Cyprus Demarcation between Greek and Turkish Cyprus
Europe 1940’s WW II Nazi internment camps
Guatemala Ongoing post-conflict insecurity
Iraq Ongoing wars in the Middle East
Johannesburg, South Africa Early 2000’s Soweto, Post-Apartheid violence
Kenya Early 2000’s Resource scarcity conflict
Liberia 1989- 2003 civil war
Madagascar Costal vulnerability
New Orleans, USA 2005 Hurricane Katrina
New York City, USA 2001 September 11th terrorist attacks
Rotterdam, Netherlands Ongoing urban insecurity
Port-au-Prince, Haiti 2010 earthquake
Russia Post-Soviet Cold War urban insecurity
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992-1996 conflict
South Korea Demilitarized Zone
South Korea 2002 Typhoon and coastal vulnerability
Stockholm, Sweden Urban insecurity in times of war
Tokyo and Hiroshima, Japan WW II bombings
United States WW II involvement
United States Violence and prison populations
45. Ok… so what?
In the context of SES, move towards linking
individuals with groups of people, neighborhoods
and communities
Contact with nature, a kind of self administered
therapy, as a means to cope with crisis
Contribute to the literature connecting individual
resilience to the adaptive functioning of larger social
systems and networks
47. In Conclusion
• Need to move away from deficit
perspectives
• Circumstances under which positive
dependence is likely to emerge
• What may be “lost in translation” within a
perspective born in rural sociology as it is
applied to urban systems
• Need for transdisciplinary qualitative and
quantitative methods and approaches that
document and interpret linkages between
individual ecological identity and community
ecological sense of place, and their
relationships to collective action for
sustainable urban systems.
Introductions– Keith & RichIt is a great privilege to be here with some old friends, and some new ones, in such a storied and historically significant venue. I’d like to start by thanking Thomas and Maria especially for making it possible for us to be here today. We will be presenting jointly today, as part of a week long set of activities focused on mechanisms and sources of resilience in peopled landscapes, especially, but not exclusively, urban peopled landscapes. This is part of collaborative work led by a partnership between Stockholm University and the Stockholm Resilience Center and Cornell University’s Civic Ecology Lab.
This collaboration led by Stockholm SRC Urban themeand Cornell Civic Ecology Lab has built upon a long history of collaboration on the dynamics and stewardship of social-ecological systems with a special emphasis on the need for a sound scientific basis for sustainable development policy. These are in my mind “highlights” and historical milestones where we worked together to build this strong collaboration, and to build on our institutional and individual strengths and capacities to address pressing global issues. There were many other meetings and interactions, and large projects, where we worked hard together on building towards the MOU and then populating it with funding and activities. I am very proud of this work and collaboration, and it is especially gratifying to be here today, bringing to fruition another part of what was only dreams and ideas a few years ago.
When I gave my talk at Resilience 2008, I was exploring for sources of resilience. I was intrigued by what Folke had said about social mechanisms and was “nibbling around the edges” of these ideas while doing my PhD work in post-Katrina New Orleans.My work is generally focused on social-ecological resilience in highly disturbed contexts- namely disaster and war. Fundamental to this work is the argument put forward by Berkes and Folke (1998) that systems that demonstrate resilience appear to have learned to recognize feedback, and therefore possess ‘mechanisms by which information from the environment can be received, processed, and interpreted’. In this sense, these scholars go further than simply recognizing that people are part of ecological systems, but attempt to explore the means, or social mechanisms, that bring about the conditions needed for adaptation in the face of disturbance and other processes fundamental to SES resilience. One such social mechanism extensively documented by Berkes and colleagues is traditional ecological knowledge. In our work together Dr. Stedman and I are asking “What other social mechanisms might exist and how does one identify and describe these mechanisms in urban and even systems experiencing extreme disruption?We propose that urgent biophilia and restorative topophilia, and combined the notion of positive dependence, can be viewed as ‘tangible evidence of social mechanisms behind social‐ecological practices that deal with disturbance and maintain system resilience’ (Berkes and Folke 1998, 21–2).
How will we spend the next few minutes exploring Positive resource dependency in urban systems: applying urgent biophilia and restorative topophilia?
origins in the field of rural sociology, as exemplified most strongly in (Freudenburg and Gramling, 1994 and Humphrey et al., 1993) and is strongly tied to the extraction and processing of raw materials such as forest products, oil and gas, hard rock mining, and fishery resources. Studies of resource dependency deploy the term “resource” to encompass a host of environmental attributes, so long as they represent instrumental utility to humans, usually based in employment and/or income, and often link extraction to poverty (Elo and Beale, 1985, Freudenburg and Gramling, 1994, Humphrey et al., 1993 and Stedman et al., 2004, and others). Some even describe humans as resources, referring to their labor, creativity, and innovation (cf. Schied, 1995). However, a more general notion of resource dependency can be understood to be a description of the unique relationship between the users of environmental attributes and the environmental attribute itself (Bailey and Pomeroy, 1996, Force et al., 1993 and Krannich and Zollinger, 1997). Examples of communities dependent upon one or more environmental attributes are typically communities that are predominately farming, mining, fishing, or logging communities (Bailey and Pomeroy, 1996). Some more recent scholarship now considers natural resource tourism and recreation as a type of resource dependency (e.g., Mattarrita-Cascante et al., 2010). Others focus on the role of availability of natural resources in fueling armed conflict and vulnerability (LeBillon, 2001), adding additional nuance to the extraction criterion for understanding resource dependency. Thus, in broad terms, according to some scholars, a change in the nature of the relationship between users and a resource has the potential to inadvertently jeopardize or compromise societal prosperity and affect the ability of social and ecological systems to be resilient
Researchers from many disciplines are engaged in studies of aspects of ecological identity, such as philosophy (Merchant, 1992), psychology biology (Wilson, 1984 and Wilson, 1993), social, deep ecology (Naess, 1988), ecospsychology (Roszak, 1992, Thomashow, 1995, Thomashow, 1998 and Winter, 1996), environmental justice (Clayton and Opotow, 2003), and ecological anthropology (Tidball, 2012a). In its most extreme conclusion, this research claims that our loss of an ecological identity, or the “… failure of many humans to locate themselves ecologically has contributed directly to the current ecological crisis” (Kretz, 2009, p. 116). Although a clear and rigorous definition of ecological identity has yet to emerge, Clayton and Opotow bring us close in stating that environmental identity includes “the way in which we define the environment, the degree of similarity we perceive between ourselves and other components of the natural world, and whether we consider nature and nonhuman natural entities to have standing as valued components of our social and moral community (Clayton and Opotow, 2003, p. 8). Clayton goes a step further when she proposes that environmental identity is “one part of the way in which people form their self-concept: a sense of connection to some part of the nonhuman natural environment, based on history, emotional attachment, and/or similarity, that affects the ways in which we perceive and act toward the world; a belief that the environment is important to us and who we are” (Clayton, 2003, pp. 45–46).
The term "biophilia" literally means "love of life or living systems." It was first used by Erich Fromm to describe a psychological orientation of being attracted to all that is alive and vital.[3] Wilson uses the term in the same sense when he suggests that biophilia describes "the connections that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life.” He proposed the possibility that the deep affiliations humans have with nature are rooted in our biology. Unlike phobias, which are the aversions and fears that people have of things in the natural world, philias are the attractions and positive feelings that people have toward certain habitats, activities, and objects in their natural surroundings.The biophilia hypothesis suggests that there is an instinctive bond between human beings and other living systems. Edward O. Wilson introduced and popularized the hypothesis in his book, Biophilia (1984).[1] He defines biophilia as "the urge to affiliate with other forms of life".[2]
Pedigree of the conceptKellert worked with EO Wilson to expand biophilia as conceptFrumkin is the Director National Center for Environmental Health / Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
NeilAdger raised an important questions about whether communities and institutions that are directly dependent on natural resources are themselves linked to the resilience of the ecosystem and whether there are direct linkages between ecological and social resilience (Adger, 2000). Though the literature on resource dependent communities which we will hear more about in a momentsuggests that when social systems depend on a single resource, they tend to be more likely impoverished and less resilient to sudden changes, given that this statement is highly contingent upon the meaning of the word “depend,” might there be examples of communities that are highly dependent upon environmental attributes being highly resilient? As discussed earlier, if the word “depend” is operationalized in the narrowly circumscribed domains of livelihood, income, and over-exploitation, often in purely pejorative terms, then it is difficult to contest. Yet, if the word “depend” is allowed to also encompass its more positive meanings and domains, the conclusion that resource dependency must lead to depleted social-ecological system resilience might be more more difficult to defend.I presented this as a hypothesis to Dr. Stedman one morning while he and I were recreating on Cayuga Lake. I knew that, compared to my background in anthropology, Rich (trained as a rural sociologist) was much more well-versed in resource dependence than I. After overcoming some initial skepticism (grounded in the traditional meanings of resource dependence), the idea took hold. I will now turn the podium over to my good friend and colleague Dr. Stedman to discuss with you his take on resource dependence and the antipodal notion of positive dependence.
Pedigree of the conceptKellert worked with EO Wilson to expand biophilia as conceptFrumkin is the Director National Center for Environmental Health / Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Now seeing HUMAN SECURITY on that last slide might give you pause. Given the hardships and urgent safety issues faced by civilians, soldiers, and first-responders after a disaster or during war, it seems counter-intuitive that they would engage in the simple act of gardening, tree planting, or other greening activities. Yet, intriguing and compelling examples exist of people, stunned by a crisis, benefitting from the therapeutic qualities of nature contact to ease trauma and to aid the process of recovery. A large literature exists on the benefits of horticulture therapy more generally, as well as in more specific contexts such as among returning war veterans, in refugee contexts, and in prisons to name a few.
Beyond the therapeutic value of plants themselves, others have researched the value of green places, or restorative environments to ease trauma or discomfort. Studies have shown that the ability to see or actively experience plants and green spaces can reduce domestic violence, quicken healing times, reduce stress, improve physical health, and bring about cognitive and psychological benefits in individuals and populations as a whole.The study of restorative environments complements research on the conditions in which our functional resources and capabilities diminish, such as red zones.
But the question still remains, in your minds and probably still in mine, what might gardening, tree planting, or other greening activities contribute to post-catastrophe individual or SES resilience? In much of the research and practice conducted under the rubric of horticultural therapy, the individual person in need of an intervention is considered a kind of patient who is prescribed horticultural interventions by a professional practitioner. Moving toward an ‘ecological’ approach, researchers in the field of systemic therapies have proposed alternative approaches to healing, conducted in creative ways in nature, that address the environment not merely as a setting but as a partner in the process.
Scientists acknowledge that larger, and I would add perhaps also smaller, systems facilitate human resilience, especially in post-catastrophe contexts, but agree that those systems are unlikely to be directly available during an unfolding disaster. Their description of these systems includes primarily manufactured ones, such as communication, transportation, manufacturing, and others, and not ecological ones. But what if we included in this list of systems that facilitate resilience, especially after a disaster, locally available biological and ecological systems, subsystems and components, from the smallest to the largest, from the most simple to the most complex? After all, at least according to Kurakin (2009), ‘the structures and dynamics of all living organizations, from proteins and cells to societies and ecologies, embody their evolutionary histories [and] memories.’ And what if, in terms of human resilience, we focused on the nearly scale-free property of life itself, of the compulsion to live, of living (Kurakin 2007)?
I define Urgent biophilia like this: when humans faced with a disaster, as individuals and as communities and populations, seek out doses of contact and engagement with nature to further their efforts to summon and demonstrate resilience in the face of a crisis, they exemplify an urgent biophilia. This urgent biophilia represents an important set of human-nature interactions in SES perturbed by a catastrophe. The relationships those human-nature interactions have to other components within interdependent systems at many different scales, may be one critical source of resilience after a catastrophe. So, when faced with a disaster, as individuals and as communities and populations, we seek engagement with nature to summon and demonstrate resilience in the face of a crisis, we are demonstrating an urgent biophilia.Builds upon contemporary work on principles of biological attraction as well as earlier work on biophilia while synthesizing literatures on restorative environments, community-based ecological restoration, and both community and social-ecological disaster resilience
I have proposed the following explanation for an urgent biophilia. During more stable periods, humans exhibit varying degrees of affinity for nature at what Wilson and others argue is a mostly sub-conscious level. We often use gardening and other forms of nature stewardship to recover from personal hardship. However, in post-disaster contexts, plant-people interactions and the positive emotions they elicit may compellingly and suddenly come to the fore in heretofore unexpected ways, and be manifested in immediate and conscious actions, often beyond merely individuals to include neighborhoods, communities, and whole societies. Further, such manifestations of affinity for nature may play a critical role in the ability of humans and larger social-ecological systems to recover after disaster. This switch from base-line sub-conscious biophilia during times of growth and stability, to conscious urgent biophilia during times of collapse followed by reorganization reflects cyclic changes described as the adaptive cycle in SES resilience writings (c.f.Gunderson and Holling 2002). Once war, hurricanes, or another disaster ‘flips’ a SES into a less desirable state, humans may respond to feeling threatened or a sense of loss by seeking physical and emotional affiliation with other living organisms, and in so doing, may aid themselves, as well as other parts of the system, in recovery. So, the idea is that this urgent biophilia lives in the back loop of the adaptive cycle.
Around 550 Residents and Other Participants Plant Almost 3,400 TreesUrban Satoyama (integrated social-ecological landscapes with higher biodiversity and ecosystem service production than many pristine natural areas that exclude humans)
So far, we ‘ve documented the existence of the phenomena convicncingly, but haven’t fully explained its origins, or ways to predict its emergence or its intensity from case to case, from scale to scale.
In the context of SES resilience with its focus on emergent or self-organized processes, I move one step further towards linking consideration of individuals with consideration of groups of people, neighborhoods and communities, who find contact with nature of their own volition, a kind of self administered therapy, as a means to cope with the aftermath of a disaster, crisis, or conflict. In so doing, I hope to contribute to the scant literature connecting individual resilience to the adaptive functioning of larger social systems and networks, such as neighborhoods or socio-cultural systems.
In times of surprise and rapid change, human and nature interactions and the positive emotions they elicit may compellingly and suddenly come to the fore in unexpected ways, and be manifested in immediate and conscious actions, often beyond merely individuals, to include neighborhoods, communities, and whole societies. Further, affinity for nature after surprise and rapid change, urgent biophilia, may play a critical role in the ability of humans and larger social-ecological systems to demonstrate resilience. This switch from base-line sub-conscious classic biophilia during times of growth and stability, to conscious urgent biophilia during times of collapse followed by reorganization reflects cyclic changes described as the adaptive cycle in social-ecological system resilience. Once surprise and change threaten to ‘flip’ an urban social-ecological system into a less desirable state (e.g. post-Katrina New Orleans), humans may respond to feeling threatened or a sense of loss by seeking physical and emotional affiliation with other living organisms, and in so doing, may aid themselves, as well as other parts of the system, in recovery.Restorative topophilia represents an opportunity for positive dependence that underpins the emergence of virtuous cycles. Here we emphasize a social actor's attachment to place and the symbolic meanings that underlie this attachment. Restorative topophilia is, clearly, a form of positive dependence, manifesting hope and faith in the connection between people and environment. It contributes to virtuous cycles in several ways: first, by the direct effects of the actions in which people engage to enhance their place. The biophysical environment can be improved through civic ecology practices parks and gardens created, streams cleaned, and trees planted. Second, and perhaps even more crucial, through restorative topophilia, attachment is facilitated by the individual and collective action itself, through the building of networks.
