Spatial Resilience and Fragmentation in Social Systems

Abstract

One of the dominant themes of this book has been the broader relevance of many ‘disciplinary’ concepts and approaches. Chapter 8 focused on the relevance of broad-scale ecological experiments and related ideas about fragmentation, for our understanding of the spatial aspects of ecological resilience. Experimental approaches are generally inappropriate in social systems, for obvious reasons, but there is a growing realization across many of the social sciences that spatial arrangement can have profound impacts on social systems. In this chapter I introduce a set of ideas from the social sciences that have strong parallels to ecological ideas about fragmentation (and indeed, are directly related to ecological fragmentation through their influences on land use). I then link these concepts to the ideas discussed in the previous chapter by suggesting a set of general principles for an interdisciplinary synthesis of social-ecological fragmentation and spatial resilience. Prior to entering the realm of the social sciences, however, a word about fragmentation is necessary.