MCC APPROACH
Adaptation through Diverse Knowledge Forms, Local Networks, and Collaborative Science
“Social inclusion will result in more socially sustainable processes, yielding collectively higher levels of societal well-being.” Dujon et al. 2013, p.2
Human Dimensions Resource Library
Click on the different sections below to expand them and explore useful resources representing a diversity of perspectives on each form of knowledge underpinning one’s identity or worldview. The bolded resources are the ones spotlighted in the figure above and represent cornerstone resources on those topics. As stated in the above figure caption, these knowledge forms are not exhaustive in that they center on capacities strongly influencing human behavior, yet not typically noted when considering knowledge or intellect (i.e., knowledge forms beyond conventions of reason or logic in isolation).
Holistic, sensory knowledge: a creative/innovative path
1) Sir Kenneth Robinson TED Talk (2007) : “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”; most viewed talk in the history of TED Talks
2) Sir Kenneth Robinson TED Talk (2010): “Changing Education Paradigms”
3) Sir Kenneth Robinson TED Talk (2015): “Bring on the learning revolution!”
Foundations of phenomenal ecology as a cornerstone of the emerging field of environmental anthropology (i.e., phenomenal ecology)
4) Abram D (1996) The spell of the sensuous: language and perception in a more than human world. Random House, Toronto
5) Abram D (2020) In the ground of our unknowing; COVID essay
6) Ingold T (2011) The Perception of the Environment: essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill, 2nd edn. Routledge, London.
More-than-human literacy: an avian biologist and Native Hawaiian practitioner talk story
8) Workshop led by Patrick Hart & Taupōuri Tangarō. April 28, 2022. Kani Manu & Oli Kānaka, Connecting the Language of Birds and Chant. Part of a 2-day symposium from the Tropical Conservation Biology and Environmental Science Graduate Program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo.
Experience preeminent over facts
A shift in worldview: Franz Boas extends beyond intellect and immerses experientially (ethnography) within arctic Inuit culture, pushing cultural anthropology forward through his influential notions of cultural relativism and the critical context of place
11. Podcast: Nov. 19, 2020. The Invention of Race. NPR Throughline
Daniel Kahneman, psychologist and Nobel Prize winner in behavioral economics, moves well beyond conventional understanding of human behavior when considering effective pathways of engaging intuition within decision making
1) Kahneman, D. (2012). Thinking, fast and slow. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
George Land presents NASA’s longitutdinal research on the power of dreamscapes (unconscious) across all age groups in driving imaginative thinking and innovation.
2) George Land (2011) “The Failure Of Success” TED Talk
3) Brene Brown (2010) “The Power of Vulnerability” TED Talk
5) Gabor Maté (2012) “The Power of Addiction and The Addiction of Power”. TED Talk
Human identity cannot be separated from our nonhuman kin. From forest ecology to the human microbiome, emerging research suggests that being human is a complicated journey made possible only by our more-than-human connections.
Scientific literacy as a polarizing force and the antidote of curiosity (i.e., limitations of reason, information exchange, and filling information gaps)
2) Dan Kahan (2018) “Are Smart People Ruining Democracy?” TED Talk
Knowledge systems 1&2; human behavior privileging experience over reason/analysis
Recognizing non-material benefits and intangible values within human well-being
The power of peers
3) Pōpolo Project June 9, 2020 Akiemi Glenn interview: “Blackness in the Pacific”
4) Jay Coen Gilbert (Cofounder, Global B Corporation Movement) interview, May 20, 2022: A New Model for Capitalism
The power of trust
The Speed of Trust videos (2017; a few minutes each):
Counterfeit Behaviors Destructive of Trust
The Role of Trust in Collaboration
The Role of Trust in Innovation
Leading at the Speed of Trust (2022, 14-min). The webcast outlines trust as the #1 competency needed in leaders today. Outlining trust as driven by credibility and behavior, the video presents four cores of credibility and 13 behaviors that disproportionately impact trust:
Post-heroic “Myth Makers” as universally adaptive and transformative entities across human cultures
A comparison of distinct group norms (relationality vs. linear notions of time)
Key words: Climate justice, Indigenous studies, environmental justice, climate crisis.
The dawn of American anthropology: cultural relativism, race as a human construct (not a biological reality), and retaining the context and continuity of place
9) Podcast: Nov. 19, 2020. The Invention of Race. NPR Throughline
Multiculturalism vs. melting pot: a global discussion of group norms as they relate to cultural resilience over time
Mental models (identity framework)
1) Abram D (1996) The spell of the sensuous: language and perception in a more than human world. Random House, Toronto
4) Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration: Daniels S, Piechowsky M, eds. (2009). Living with intensity: understanding the sensitivity, excitability, and the emotional development of gifted children, adolescents, and adults. Great Potential Press.
5) Implicit bias: Anne Gillies, Oregon State University, January 12, 2018 YouTube video
7) Otto Scharmer (MIT) presents Deep listening as derived from Emergence Theory
Unconscious explaining away of uncomfortable scenarios (theory of cognitive dissonance)
8) Tavris C and Aronson E (2007). Mistakes were made (but not by me): Why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acts. Harcourt.
Conscious recognition of hot and cold behaviors (knowledge systems 1&2)
“Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” Jung 1969, p.76
Science and Shifting to Sustainable Human Behavior: the quality of our relationships
Research in psychology and cognitive science has made clear that humans do not predominantly make decisions according to objective reason and logic. Rather, human behavior is more profoundly based upon deeply-rooted affect (emotion) and experiential capacities that are driven by person-to-person and person-to-nature interactions, group norms and values, individual values, perceptions, instincts, intuitions, and related visceral factors that collectively define one’s identity or worldview (Ingold 2011; Jones et al. 2011; Kahan et al. 2012; van der Linden et al. 2015; Jones et al. 2016, Amel et al. 2017, Laursen et al. 2018). Collectively these long-term human and more-than-human relationships (e.g., relationality) have guided adaptive human behavior since the dawn of our species (Tynan 2021). At our most basic level of existence (i.e., survival), it is the quality of our relationships that guides our capacity for adaptation and resilience through ancestral and evolutionary time (Kanae Kanahele Keali‘ikanaka‘oleoHaililani 2023).
To move beyond simply “actionable science” (the possibility of action) and engage action through science, our MCC program is designed to build upon long-term, place-based communities through the process of knowledge co-production. We feel that supporting person-to-person and person-to-nature relationships (i.e., situated or embodied knowledge) within local networks (e.g., community leaders, natural and cultural resource managers, policy professionals, etc.) harnesses multiple knowledge forms and provides a platform for recognizing and supporting a wide range of participants and worldviews through experience of place (Ingold 2011, Winter et al. 2020). In doing so, we can account for and directly engage the full breadth of influences that drive human behavior in our effort to build climate adaption capacity through unprecedented socio-ecological change.
Collaborative Research Output: building upon place-based adaptive capacity
The MCC seeks to empower place-based adaptation amid contemporary climate change impacts by building upon existing long-term networks and rooting research efforts within strong local community bonds that manifest trust (Winter et al. 2020). Employing knowledge co-production within enduring place-based networks, shifts applied research pathways toward an increased capacity for managers and policy professionals on the ground to utilize research output. This is due to the direct involvement of local resource stewards as co-leads throughout the scientific process and the resulting vested interest in the collaborative products. Toward this end, the MCC unites manager and researcher networks through highly collaborative research pathways and embeds the scientific process within specific biocultural land and seascapes.
Dive Deeper: 2018 publication in Environmental Management 2025, MCC poster, 2020 case study
Amel E, Manning C, Scott B, Koger S (2017) Beyond the roots of human inaction: fostering collective effort toward ecosystem conservation. Science, 356(6335), 275-279.
Dujon V, Dillard J, Brennan EM (2013) Social sustainability: a multilevel approach to social inclusion. Routledge
Ingold T (2011) The Perception of the Environment: essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill, 2nd edn. Routledge, London.
Jones N, Ross H, Lynam T, Perez P, Leitch A (2011) Mental models: an interdisciplinary synthesis of theory and methods. Ecology and Society 16:46. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss1/art46
Jones N, Shaw S, Ross H, Witt K, Pinner B (2016) The study of human values in understanding and managing social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society 21(1):15. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-07977-210115
Jung C (1969) Psychology and Religion: West and East, Collected Works of C.G. Jung Volume 11, 2nd edn., Princeton University Press.
Kahan DM, Peters E, Wittlin M, Slovic P, Ouellette LL, Braman D, Mandel G (2012) The polarizing impact of science literacy and numeracy on perceived climate change risks. Nat Climate Change 2:732-735
Kanae Kanahele Keali‘ikanaka‘oleoHaililani K (2023) The Charm of Ki‘i. In Moʻolelo – The Foundation of Hawaiian Knowledge. C M Kaliko Baker and T Haili‘ōpua Baker, eds. University of Hawaiʻi Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2xh53mc.
Tynan L (2021) What is relationality? Indigenous knowledges, practices and responsibilities with kin. Cultural Geographies. 28(4):597-610. doi:10.1177/14744740211029287
van der Linden S, Maibach E, Leiserowitz A (2015) Improving public engagement with climate change: five “best practice” insights from psychological science. Perspect Psychol Sci 10:758-763. doi: 10.1177/1745691615598516
Winter KB, Rii YM, Reppun FAWL, Hintzen KD, Alegado RA, Bowen BW, Bremer LL, Coffman M, Deenik JL, Donahue MJ, Falinski KA, Frank K, Franklin EC, Kurashima N, Kekuewa Lincoln N, Madin EMP, McManus MA, Nelson CE, Okano R, Olegario A, Pascua P, Oleson KLL, Price MR, Rivera MJ, Rodgers KS, Ticktin T, Sabine CL, Smith CM, Hewett A, Kaluhiwa R, Cypher M, Thomas B, Leong J-A, Kekuewa K, Tanimoto J, Kukea-Shultz K, Kawelo A, Kotubetey K, Neilson BJ, Lee TS, Toonen RJ (2020) Collaborative research to inform adaptive comanagement: a framework for the Heʻeia National Estuarine Research Reserve. Ecology and Society 25(4):15. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11895-250415
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CONTACT
Scott Laursen
Climate Adaptation Extension Specialist
slaursen@hawaii.edu