Scott Bremer - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Scott Bremer

'jack of all trades, master of none.' Significantly, I see that my professional background, and t... more 'jack of all trades, master of none.' Significantly, I see that my professional background, and the focus on ICM as itself an interdisciplinary field, explains the way in which this research brought together a broad array of disciplines and bodies of thought, ranging from political science, to planning and resource management, to the philosophy of science. I see this as a strength, as it viii Chapter 1: Implications of a complex system-to-be-governed: framing the governing system as 'interactive governance.' .

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Sep 1, 2010

Re es se ea ar rc ch h i in n E Ec co ol lo og gi ic ca al l E Ec co on no om mi ic cs s, , E Ec ... more Re es se ea ar rc ch h i in n E Ec co ol lo og gi ic ca al l E Ec co on no om mi ic cs s, , E Ec co o-I In nn no ov va at ti io on n & & T To oo ol l D De ev ve el lo op pm me en nt t f fo or r S Su us st ta ai in na ab bi il li it ty y R Re ec ch he er rc ch he es s e en n E Ec co on no om mi ie e E Ec co ol lo og gi iq qu ue e, , E Ec co o-I In nn no ov va at ti io on n & & I In ng gé én ni ie er ri ie e d du u D Dé év ve el lo op pp pe em me en nt t S So ou ut te en na ab bl le e

Justice and food security in a changing climate Section 3. Adapting agriculture to sustain food s... more Justice and food security in a changing climate Section 3. Adapting agriculture to sustain food security Hanna Schübel and Ivo Wallimann-Helmer (eds.) Justice and food security in a changing climate EurSafe 2021

Transforming food systems: ethics, innovation and responsibility, Sep 1, 2022

Regional Environmental Change

Climate adaptation governance increasingly investigates the cultural capacities of communities to... more Climate adaptation governance increasingly investigates the cultural capacities of communities to cope with climate variability and change. This paper reports on research of the symbolic representations of summer rainfall in the cultural repertoires guiding diverse institutionalised fields of activity in Sylhet Division. The research conducted interviews and co-created ‘cognitive maps’ with communities, to critically reflect on their changing seasonal symbols. The study revealed a common stock of summer symbols in Sylhet communities, which individuals reconfigure for strategizing and justifying particular practices. Symbols are stable but not static. As people’s uses of knowledge systems change—moving toward scientific representations—so too does their use of symbols. Moreover, environmental and climatic changes, such as a drying summer, are undermining long-held semiotic templates. Many local and traditional signs no longer hold, leaving communities without cultural templates for t...

Climate Risk Management, 2017

There are numerous challenges to mobilising high quality knowledge in support of climate adaptati... more There are numerous challenges to mobilising high quality knowledge in support of climate adaptation. Urgent adaptive action often has to be taken on the basis of imperfect information, with the risk of maladaptive consequences. These issues of knowledge quality can be particularly acute in vulnerable developing countries like Bangladesh, where there can be less capacity for producing and using climate knowledge. This paper argues that climate change adaptation in places like Bangladesh would benefit from a more self-conscious critical review of the knowledge systems mobilised in support of action, and suggests that 'knowledge quality assessment' (KQA) tools can structure this review. It presents a desktop assessment of information used for climate change adaptation projects in Sylhet Division in Bangladesh, steered by the six themes of the 'Guidance for Uncertainty Assessment and Communication' KQA tool. The assessment found important differences in approaches to mobilising knowledge, particularly between governmental and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). It demonstrated that problem framing has an impact on project success; projects that adopt a narrow techno-scientific framing can lead to significant adverse side effects. Recognising this some projects are engaging stakeholders in framing adaptation. It found a lack of national policy Guidance on the use of indicators or appraisal of uncertainty, seeing government agencies fall back on their risk-based calculations, and NGOs attempt to identify indicators and uncertainties via community engagement, with mixed success. Moreover, the adaptation knowledge base is relatively disintegrated, despite tentative steps toward its consolidation and appraisal, potentially related to ongoing friction impeding vertical communication within government, and horizontal communication between government, NGOs and stakeholders. This all suggests that the Bangladeshi practices at the adaptation science-policy interface can benefit from reflection on KQA criteria; reflection that could concretely be encouraged through revision of the national policy framework.

This paper presents the lessons learnt by the climate scientists within an interdisciplinary rese... more This paper presents the lessons learnt by the climate scientists within an interdisciplinary research project called 'TRACKS': Transforming climate knowledge with and for society. The project uses the climate narratives of local people in northeast Bangladesh as a basis for mobilizing high quality climate knowledge for adaptation. To ensure this high quality climate information, the project demands an interdisciplinary approach. This project is therefore a broad, but tight collaboration between climate science and perspectives from social science and the humanities. For the climate scientists involved, the aim was to do research that would provide local people with climate information that would hopefully aid adaptation. The climate research design had to consider the perceptions of the local people in northeast Bangladesh, and what aspects of the local climate that they thought were important. For the climate scientists to gain an appropriate understanding, they were fully ...

Eos, 2018