Maria Mancilla Garcia

Université Libre de Bruxelles | ULB · Institute for Environmental Management and Land-use Planning (IGEAT)

A vast amount of literature has investigated the conflicts between different ways of conceiving development in Latin America. Particular attention has been paid to power differentials among knowledge systems when it comes to decision-making, values and practices over water resources. The Ecosystem Services framework or Integrated Water Resources Ma...

The global hydrological cycle is characterized by complex interdependencies and self-regulating feedbacks that keep water in an ever-evolving state of flux at local, regional, and global levels. Increasingly, the scale of human impacts in the Anthropocene is altering the dynamics of this cycle, which presents additional challenges for water governa...

Interest in causality is growing in sustainability science and it has been argued that a multiplicity of approaches is needed to account for the complexities of social-ecological dynamics. However, many of these approaches operate within perspectives that establish a separation between what has causal agency and all the rest, which is relegated to...

Stakeholder groups engage in ecosystem services coproduction as both coproducers and beneficiaries. Stakeholder group perceptions of their own and each other’s roles in ecosystem services coproduction therefore influence how ecosystem services are provided in a given landscape. However, only a few studies have investigated self-perceived and attrib...

Primero se constata la generalizada falta de operatividad de las experiencias de gobernanza participativa realmente existentes. Dada esta realidad, se defiende la importancia de monitorizar y aprender de los conflictos, de los disensos, entendidos como «indicadores vivientes» de las realidades que la academia, la política y la sociedad en su conjun...

In social-ecological systems (SES) research the conceptualization of social-ecological interactions has advanced from viewing SES as separate social and ecological systems where one system acts as an exogenous “driver” on the other, to conceptualizing them as coupled or linked ecological and social systems (Berkes and Folke 1998), as embedded syste...

Most if not all environmental problems entail conflicts of interest. Yet, different actors and opposing coalitions often but certainly not always cooperate in solving these problems. Hence, processes of conflict and cooperation often work in tandem, albeit much of the scholarly literature tends to focus on either of these phenomena in isolation. So...

La comunicación presenta algunos aspectos de la experiencia del mapa colaborativo de los conflictos del agua en Andalucía (Mapa-NCA), cuyo proyecto se presentó en el Congreso de Coimbra en 2018 y que ahora, tras un año y medio de funcionamiento, empieza a ofrecer resultados útiles para valorar sus potencialidades y debilidades. Como punto de partid...

With the aim to unravel the constitution and maintenance of interest and advocacy coalitions, the chapter studies how individual actors form relationships with others. Through a combination of network and qualitative analysis, the chapter contributes to the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) literature. The ACF hypothesizes that actors’ core or dee...

Research on social‐ecological systems (SES) has highlighted their complex and adaptive character and pointed to the importance of recognizing their intertwined nature. Yet, we often base our analysis and governance of SES on static and independent objects, such as actors and resources which are not well suited to address complexity and intertwinedn...

Despite many recent advances in sustainability science, researchers still struggle to address the key characteristics of social-ecological systems that underlie many of today's problems. Complex cross-scale dynamics and tightly interrelated social and ecological processes characterize social-ecological systems (SES). These features lead to constant...

Resumen: El presente artículo tiene por objetivo analizar los Laboratorios de transformación social con el fin de abordar problemas sociales complejos. Estos laboratorios se han convertido en espacios abiertos de diseño experimental que vincula diferentes actores (co-creación) y saberes (transdisciplinario y transectorial) a través de un proceso it...

Primero se constata la generalizada falta de operatividad de las experiencias de gobernanza participativa realmente existentes. Dada esta realidad, se defiende la importancia de monitorizar y aprender de los conflictos, de los disensos, entendidos como «indicadores vivientes» de las realidades que la academia, la política y la sociedad en su conjun...

Discussions about emergence have traditionally been structured around the dichotomy between strong (ontological) and weak (epistemological) emergence. Those focusing on emergence as an epistemological problem, understand it as metaphysically innocent, indicating an insufficient (perhaps temporarily so) knowledge of the world. Ontological emergence,...

Social-ecological network (SEN) concepts and tools are increasingly used in human-environment and sustainability sciences. We take stock of this budding research area to further show the strength of SEN analysis for complex human-environment settings, identify future synergies between SEN and wider human-environment research, and provide guidance a...

Achieving effective, sustainable environmental governance requires a better understanding of the causes and consequences of the complex patterns of interdependencies connecting people and ecosystems within and across scales. Network approaches for conceptualizing and analysing these interdependencies offer one promising solution. Here, we present t...

En el contexto teórico de la transdisciplinariedad, la ciencia posnormal y la ciencia ciudadana, en la Universidad de Sevilla se viene desarrollando un proyecto de construcción de un visor cartográfico web colaborativo sobre los debates, conflictos e iniciativas sociales en torno al agua en Andalucía, basado en la investigación cooperativa y la co-...

Local governments, or municipalities, play a key role in water governance around the world owing to the many administrative competencies they hold, ranging from water service delivery to urban planning. However, the ability of municipalities to carry out their competencies effectively depends in large part on the characteristics of the institutiona...

In the last twenty years, participatory forums have been increasingly used to manage water basins around the world. The implementation of participatory forums has sought to prevent and overcome conflicts by bringing together a multiplicity of stakeholders in joint efforts to deliberate, achieve mutually agreed upon decisions, and distribute limited...

This paper proposes an epistemological approach to analyse social-ecological systems from a process perspective in order to better tackle the co-constitution of the social and the ecological and the dynamism of these systems. It highlights the usefulness of rethinking our conceptual tools taking processes and relations as the main constituents of r...

en The Ecology of Games Framework (EGF) draws attention to the intertwined nature of different forums in a given policy setting and how this affects governance outcomes. In this article, we associate the EGF with the literature on power asymmetries, in order to investigate hypotheses of actors’ perceived level of influence in a forum. Focusing on t...

Resumen Durante la última década el proceso de construcción cartográfica ha sufrido una importante transformación, sobre todo en relación al paradigma sociotecnológico conocido como web 2.0, que implicando prácticas transdisciplinares entendidas en su sentido más profundo ha multiplicado las herramientas y estrategias útiles para la producción de c...

El mapa de los conflictos del agua en Andalucía es una herramienta que tiene como objetivo cartografiar y documentar de manera colaborativa los principales conflictos, debates e iniciativas sociales en torno al agua en Andalucía. El proyecto se inspira en el Atlas de la Justicia Ambiental (https://ejatlas.org/) y en el ideario del movimiento por un...

This project builds on previous studies, to construct a process of social and collaborative mapping that leads to the production of a map on water conflicts in Andalusia (Spain). This contributes to current debate in the field of Environmental and in particular Water Justice and the map is conceived as a knowledge tool to substantiate rights to a s...

This is the first time Alternautas devotes an entire issue to the theme of water, a natural resource which is at the core of the debates on the kind of development model Latin American countries engage into. Indeed, water resources are at the core of numerous conflicts in which antagonist visions of development are revealed. To name just a few amon...

This study investigates the effects of the absence of trust in shaping relationships between officers and managers in Copacabana, Bolivia, particularly regarding the construction of a sanitary landfill for the city. The article builds on an abductive thematic analysis of observation and interview data. The data suggest that prior negative experienc...

The bay of Cohana, on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca (between Bolivia and Peru), has suffered from eutrophication for the last 30 years. Heavy metals from mining activities in the basin have also entered the bay. While data on eutrophication are abundant, data on mining are scarce and public interventions have focused on the former. However, on...

In early 2015, the Alternautas family grew bigger. In order to make the most of the steady flow of contributions received—as well as to strengthen our capacity to develop improvements, new projects, and collaborations—we opened a call for editors to invite fellow young scholars to join us. Our team is now formed by an eight-member Editorial Board a...

Political ecology and cognate fields have highlighted the social constructedness of different water discourses, exposing them as the product of a particular view of nature with underpinning interests and political consequences. Integrated Water Resources Management, technical approaches, or the privatisation of drinking water services have enjoyed...