New this term, University of Waterloo graduate students will discuss their complex systems work during a monthly seminar. Join us for a 20 minute talk, followed by a 20-minute discussion and feedback opportunity. Afterwards, everyone who is able is welcome to meet at the Graduate House for food and socializing from 6 p.m. onward.
This month, Perin Ruttonsha will discuss 'Balancing Planetary, Socio-Ecological Systems Complexities: A (Re)generative Framework for Transition' on Thursday, July 18th from 4:30 - 5:30 in STC 1019. We hope to see you there!
Balancing Planetary, Socio-Ecological Systems Complexities: A (Re)generative Framework for Transition
Transition along sustainability and resilience pathways is a problem of nearly everything.In this way, the issues are slippery, diffuse, indistinct, unbounded. As we confront the urgent imperative to converge on and implement solutions for the most pressing global challenges, in the immediate term, there is also reason to diverge into a more expansive conception of the problem domain, which could break through conventional categories of analyses and action. This research develops a knowledge integration system intended to enable comprehensive, multi-modal, multi-level, systematic, phased, and networked approaches to problem solving for transition, amidst complexity. Through this, the work seeks to crystallize a nascent trajectory of discourse, which is developing as a macro-view intellectual project, operating with broad geographical (planetary boundaries, planetary health), deep temporal (big history), and extensive political (ecological economics, global governance, sustainable development) lenses; increasingly aiming to foster responsible, resilient, reciprocal relations among people and environments; meanwhile, acknowledging the global systems vulnerabilities that raise risks of cross-scale, cascading collapse. To follow, the research discusses linked sets of complex adaptive systems dynamics that remain seminal to transition challenges, such as the continual appearance of hybrid and novel systems conditions; the general intensification, over time, of the overall embodied footprint of human populations; as well as, the inevitability of super-exponential socioeconomic growth. This work extrapolates a framework for (re)generative research and innovation, by which we could analyse, adapt to, and evolve along with systems ranges, while also cultivating balance across the interconnected, socio-ecological, planetary web.
In the second part of this seminar, a team of WICI graduate students will report on the outcomes from (The) State(s) of Complexity interactive workshop, held recently at the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics (CANSEE) 12th Biennial Conference. In this conference workshop, the team (Perin Ruttonsha, Kirsten Wright, Truzaar Dordi, Jude Kurniawan, Katharine Zywert, Jonathan Hui) explored opportunities to tackle critical global challenges through the application of “big picture” complexity science, and will continue to facilitate this conversation, here, as it applies to your own research.