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Tag: IASNR

Opening Windows book done!

The final cover design.

It is exciting to be able to report that the edited volume that I’ve been working on since late 2020 with colleagues Glad Thondhlana and Doug Jackson-Smith will be coming out in a few months, part of the SNR Book Series published by Utah State University Press/University Press of Colorado. The book is the third in a series of decadal reviews of the field of natural resource social sciences (NRSS) (after this one in 2004, and this one in 2014) undertaken with the leadership of the International Association for Society and Natural Resources (IASNR). It is called Opening Windows: Embracing New Perspectives and Practices in Natural Resource Social Sciences, and features 15 chapters from dozens of authors around the world, including a number from Dalhousie (MES alum Bryanne Lamoureux, PhD candidate Yan Chen, MREM alum Polly Nguyen and my SRES colleague Melanie Zurba). The Dal team wrote a very cool synthesis of visual and arts-based methods for NRSS that included a typology and analysis of which methods were most associated with outcomes of empowerment. It was an honour to be asked to take the lead in developing this book, and I’m very excited to see it all come to a successful and on-time completion. There will be a book launch at the IASNR conference this June in Cairns, Australia, at which all registrants will receive e-book versions. I’ll be the one with a very big drink.

Feb 8 update: It’s off to the printer today!

Feb 23 update: Pre-orders are discounted -40% until May using the code SHER24 at http://upcolorado.com

Opening Windows – Co-editing a new state-of-knowledge book

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.

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