People, perceptions, and process: Multisystemic resilience in social- ecological systems

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors refer to resilience as a process predicated on the ability to accurately sense, perceive, and/or evaluate change trajectories, frequency, and magnitude. As a social process, resilience is governed by perceptions-they determine awareness, or lack thereof, of social-ecological system states and guide responsive actions under chronic or catastrophic change. Successful adaptive response is determined by the accuracy of perceptions to actual change. When these are closely aligned, an individual or community is said to have a small delta, or difference between perceived and actual change, and is thus more likely to enact responses that are adaptive-this is known as P δ I. The extent to which modern conveniences and technology act as a barrier to the awareness of change in the state of landscape or resource conditions (e.g., change over time in water availability or fish abundance or political decision-making) is known as technology-induced environmental distancing and demonstrates how perceptions contribute to resilience as a process. This chapter emphasizes the crucial role of perceptions in multisystemic resilience.