Towards a participatory integrated assessment approach for planning and managing Natura 2000 network sites

Managing protected areas implies dealing with complex social-ecological systems where multiple dimensions (social, institutional, economic and ecological) interact over time for the delivery of ecosystem services. Uni-dimensional and top-down management approaches have been unable to capture this complexity. Instead, new integrated approaches that acknowledge the diversity of social actors in the decision making process are required. In this paper we put forward a novel participatory assessment approach which integrates multiple methodologies to reflect different value articulating institutions in the case of a Natura 2000 network site in the Basque Country. It integrates within a social multi-criteria evaluation framework, both the economic values of ecosystem services through a choice experiment model and ecological values by means of a spatial bio-geographic assessment. By capturing confronting social and institutional conflicts in protected areas the participatory integrated assessment approach presented here can help decision makers for better planning and managing Natura 2000 sites.

Evaluating governance and participatory processes in Natura 2000: lessons learned and guidance for future prospects

In recent years, participatory approaches have been incorporated in decision-making processes as a way to strengthen the bonds between diverse areas of knowledge and social actors in natural resources management and environmental governance. Despite the favourable context, this paradigm shift is still in an early stage within the development of the Natura 2000 in the European Union, the largest network of protected areas in the world. To enhance the full scope of participatory approaches in this context, this article: (i) briefly reviews the role of participatory approaches in environmental governance, (ii) develops a common framework to evaluate such participatory processes in protected area management, (iii) applies this framework to a real case study, and (iv) based on the lessons learned, provides guidance to improve the future governance of Natura 2000 sites.

Weighting social preferences in participatory multi-criteria evaluations: a case study on sustainable natural resource management

28 p.

Evaluating Governance and Participatory Processes in Natura 2000: Lessons Learned and Guidance for Future Prospects

23 p.

Towards a Participatory Integrated Assessment Approach for Planning and Managing Natura 2000 Network Sites

36 p.

La aventura de investigar. Una experiencia de investigación-acción participativa

[ES]El objetivo de este estudio consiste en desvelar las sensaciones, sentimientos y pensamientos que la aventura de implicarse en una investigación-acción participativa genera sobre los distintos grupos de personas implicadas en una experiencia de Deporte Escolar (DE)(docentes, escolares,coordinadores de DE, familias, monitores, equipos directivos,...). Al comienzo del trabajo se expone el marco teórico en el que se sustenta la investigación, que imbrica la perspectiva metodológica cualitativa y la orientación de pensamiento socio-crítica aplicada en el contexto del DE. A continuación, se describe el diseño de este estudio, que se desarrolló desde el curso escolar 2002/03 hasta el 2006/07, presentando a los participantes, los contextos de acción-formativa construidos, las técnicas de generación de datos utilizadas y, el procedimiento de análisis e interpretación de datos. Después, se pone especial interés en las voces de los participantes para ponerlas en discusión con lo que investigadores del campo han puesto de manifiesto con anterioridad sobre el poder formativo que ejerce la investigación-acción y, finalmente, se recogen las conclusiones principales obtenidas de este estudio.

The interactive brain hypothesis

Enactive approaches foreground the role of interpersonal interaction in explanations of social understanding. This motivates, in combination with a recent interest in neuroscientific studies involving actual interactions, the question of how interactive processes relate to neural mechanisms involved in social understanding. We introduce the Interactive Brain Hypothesis (IBH) in order to help map the spectrum of possible relations between social interaction and neural processes. The hypothesis states that interactive experience and skills play enabling roles in both the development and current function of social brain mechanisms, even in cases where social understanding happens in the absence of immediate interaction. We examine the plausibility of this hypothesis against developmental and neurobiological evidence and contrast it with the widespread assumption that mindreading is crucial to all social cognition. We describe the elements of social interaction that bear most directly on this hypothesis and discuss the empirical possibilities open to social neuroscience. We propose that the link between coordination dynamics and social understanding can be best grasped by studying transitions between states of coordination. These transitions form part of the self-organization of interaction processes that characterize the dynamics of social engagement. The patterns and synergies of this self-organization help explain how individuals understand each other. Various possibilities for role-taking emerge during interaction, determining a spectrum of participation. This view contrasts sharply with the observational stance that has guided research in social neuroscience until recently. We also introduce the concept of readiness to interact to describe the practices and dispositions that are summoned in situations of social significance (even if not interactive). This latter idea links interactive factors to more classical observational scenarios.

Análisis del tratamiento del medio físico en el planeamiento territorial de la Comunidad Autómoma del País Vasco (1940-2006).

851 p. : il.

Does training policy help to attract, retain and develop valuable human resources? Analysis from the Mondragon case

This is an electronic version of the accepted paper in the journal:Advances in the Economic Analysis of Participatory and Labor-Managed Firms. Volumen. 12

Gizarte-elkarrekintza eta harreman beharrizanak irakaste-ikaste prozesuetan Haur Hezkuntzan

LABURPENA: Lan hau esku-hartzearen alorrean kokatzen da: harreman beharrizanen inguruko diagnostiko bat aurkezten da. Honen helburua da Haur Hezkuntzako 3 urteko gelan edukiak irakasteko eta ikasteko antolatzen den gizarte-elkarrekintzan agertzen diren harreman beharrizan motak eta horiek noraino eta nola betetzen diren ikustea. Esku-hartzea oinarritzen da orientabide soziokulturalaren konstruktibismoak gizarte-elkarrekintzari buruz egin duen lanean eta baita Garapenaren Psikologiak eta beste diziplina batzuk atxikimenduaz eta harreman afektiboei buruz aztertutakoan ere. Diagnostikoa egiteko prozedura etnografikoak erabili dira, garrantzitsuena behaketa parte-hartzailea. Ondorioetan nabarmenena da eduki eskolarren presioak maiz harreman beharrizanei ez erantzutera eramaten duela eta baita autonomia isolamendu afektiboekin identifikatzen dela ziurtasunaren premiaren kalterako. Azkenik, lan egiteko orduan baliogarriak izan daitezkeen jarraitzeko ildo batzuk nabariak dira.

We can work it out: an enactive look at cooperation

The past years have seen an increasing debate on cooperation and its unique human character. Philosophers and psychologists have proposed that cooperative activities are characterized by shared goals to which participants are committed through the ability to understand each other’s intentions. Despite its popularity, some serious issues arise with this approach to cooperation. First, one may challenge the assumption that high-level mental processes are necessary for engaging in acting cooperatively. If they are, then how do agents that do not possess such ability (preverbal children, or children with autism who are often claimed to be mind-blind) engage in cooperative exchanges, as the evidence suggests? Secondly, to define cooperation as the result of two de-contextualized minds reading each other’s intentions may fail to fully acknowledge the complexity of situated, interactional dynamics and the interplay of variables such as the participants’ relational and personal history and experience. In this paper we challenge such accounts of cooperation, calling for an embodied approach that sees cooperation not only as an individual attitude toward the other, but also as a property of interaction processes. Taking an enactive perspective, we argue that cooperation is an intrinsic part of any interaction, and that there can be cooperative interaction before complex communicative abilities are achieved. The issue then is not whether one is able or not to read the other’s intentions, but what it takes to participate in joint action. From this basic account, it should be possible to build up more complex forms of cooperation as needed. Addressing the study of cooperation in these terms may enhance our understanding of human social development, and foster our knowledge of different ways of engaging with others, as in the case of autism.