I’m excited to share that I am co-editing the next ‘state of knowledge’ book project for the field of natural resource social science with Gladman Thondhlana (Rhodes) and Douglas Jackson-Smith (Ohio State), with the support of the International Association of Society and Natural Resources (IASNR) as part of its Society and Natural Resources Book Series.  Our working title is Opening Windows: Emerging Perspectives, Practices and Opportunities in Natural Resource Social Sciences, and it will be published  with the Utah State University/University Press of Colorado in 2024 in line with the history of past decadal volumes of this type (Manfredo, 2004; Manfredo et al., 2014). Believe it or not, that means we need to start now, and so we’ve just launched the call for chapter proposals, due February 28th. We are inviting two different chapter types, Commentaries (1500-2000 words) and Reviews (5000-7000 words), but the review section invites some very particular threads, the first of which we are particularly excited about.

  • Global Insights. This chapter type is for reviews (written in English) predominantly of academic scholarship published in specific non-English languages.
  • Advances in Theory and Methods. This chapter type will explore how we are innovating in how we do our research, including in terms of:
    • Theoretical and conceptual issues: What are the contemporary theoretical tensions and emerging ideas guiding scholarship in society and natural resources?
    • New methods/methodologies: How do we operationalize key theoretical concepts?
  • Progress in Core and Emerging Problems. This chapter type summarizes the literature on classic problem domains for the field, as well as emerging ones.
  • Trends in Action and Application. This chapter type describes examples of how natural resource social science scholarship has (and has not) been used or translated into on-ground outcomes, by influencing how resource challenges are conceived of or tackled and with whom.

The idea for the Global Insights paper type came out of the ‘Standing on the Shoulders of Sameness‘ session on bias in publishing run at ISSRM 2019 in Oshkosh. We really want to open the doors in this volume to new voices and perspectives, consistent with the name of the volume, so hope that people help us spread the word widely about the call.