ABSTRACT. Social scientists, and scholars in related interdisciplinary fields, have critiqued resilience thinking's oversimplification of social dimensions of coupled social-ecological systems. Resilience scholars have countered with "where is the ecology" in social analyses? My aim is to contribute to current efforts to strengthen inter-and transdisciplinary debate and inquiry between the social-ecological resilience community and the social sciences. I synthesize three social science perspectives, which stress the complex, dynamic, and multiscalar interconnections between the biophysical and social realms in explaining social-environmental change, and which place both the social and ecology centre stage in their analyses: materio-spatial world systems analysis, critical realist political ecology, and actor-network theory. By integrating, in a nondeterministic and nonessentialist manner, the biophysical environment into social inquiries (integrative approaches) or by altogether abolishing the ecology/nature and human/culture divide (hybrid perspectives), these three social-science perspectives are well placed to foster stronger inter-and transdisciplinary ties with social-ecological resilience. Materiospatial world systems analysis is highly compatible with resilience thinking. The emphasis on world systems structures and processes offers the potential to enrich resilience analyses of global environmental change, global governance and stewardship, planetary boundaries, and multiscale resilience. Critical realist political ecology offers avenues for more in-depth interdisciplinary inquiries around local/traditional/indigenous knowledge systems and power. It also challenges resilience scholars to incorporate critical analyses of resilience's core concepts and practices. Actor-network theory proposes a very different starting point for understanding and assessing social-ecological resilience. Its focus on "resilience-in-the-making" offers unique insights but also pushes the conceptual boundaries of resilience thinking.

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ABSTRACT. Although the broad concept of mental models is gaining currency as a way to explore the link between how people think and interact with their world, this concept is limited by a theoretical and practical understanding of how it can be applied in the study of human-environment relationships. Tools and processes are needed to be able to elicit and analyze mental models. Because mental models are not directly observable, it is also important to understand how the application of any tools and processes affects what is measured. Equally important are the needs to be clear on the intent of the elicitation and to design the methods and choose the settings accordingly. Through this special edition, we explore how mental models are elicited using two approaches applied in two case-study regions. We analyze two approaches used in the Crocodile River catchment of South Africa: a graphically based approach, i.e., actors, resources, dynamics, and interactions (ARDI); and an interview-or text-based approach, i.e., consensus analysis (CA). A further experiment in the Rhone Delta (Camargue), France, enabled us to test a crossover between these two methods using ARDI methodology to collect data and CA to analyse it. Here, we compare and explore the limitations and challenges in applying these two methods in context and conclude that they have much to offer when used singly or in combination. We first develop a conceptual framework as a synthesis of key social and cognitive psychology literature. We then use this framework to guide the enquiry into the key lessons emerging from the comparative application of these approaches to eliciting mental models in the two case regions. We identify key gaps in our knowledge and suggest important research questions that remain to be addressed.

ABSTRACT. The mass media has ensured that the challenging and complex phenomenon of climate change now has the household familiarity of a brand name. But what is it that is understood by climate change, and by whom? What frame of reference is drawn upon to communicate meaningfully about climate change? Do particular subgroups within our society hold different understandings, or have the debate and the prolific dissemination of information about this issue coalesced around a core perception or image of what climate change is? To answer these questions, we conceptualized climate change within the theory of social representations as emergent socially constructed knowledge. We analyzed word association data collected in Australia from persons identifying as having a scientific, government, or general public background (N = 3300). All respondents were asked to write the first words that came to mind when they thought about climate change. Comparative analyses of the word associations reveal that respondents from different backgrounds define climate change in different ways. The results suggest that there is a common core set of concepts shared by the different groups, but there are also a great many differences in how climate change is framed and conceived by respondents. The results are discussed in relation to what they imply for responses to climate change by these social groups and in relation to interventions designed to encourage climate adaptation.

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ABSTRACT. The content, structure, and distribution of mental models can be elicited and measured using a variety of methods. In this article we explore a method for eliciting mental models within the context of water use and management in South Africa. This method is consensus analysis, a technique developed in cognitive anthropology. We used it to analyze qualitative data from semistructured interviews, pilesorts, and questionnaires to test quantitatively the degree of sharing and diversity of mental models within and across social groups. The consensus analysis method focused on comparing the mental models of two key stakeholder groups in the Crocodile River catchment in South Africa, i.e., conservationists and irrigators, to better understand the level of consensus between these groups. We specifically investigated the level of agreement regarding: (1) major water users of the Crocodile River, (2) causes of the current problems with flows in the river, (3) consequences of the river not flowing, and 4) priorities for future use. We discuss the results and examine the strengths and challenges of consensus analysis for eliciting and measuring mental models. We also evaluated the usefulness of this method in assisting natural resource managers to identify strategies for improving integrated management of water resources.

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. 2018. Expanding the contribution of the social sciences to social-ecological resilience research. Ecology and Society 23 (1) INTRODUCTIONAs we are confronted with mounting evidence of the profound and potentially irreversible impacts of human activities on the planet-encapsulated in the notion of the Anthropocene-the need to engage across a range of ways of knowing and doing becomes increasingly urgent. The intersection and interdependence of human-environment systems is seen by scholars, policy makers, and other stakeholders as providing a promising vehicle for bridging understandings and guiding actions toward a more sustainable future Folke 1998, Berkes et al. 2008).Growing attention is thus being focused on social-ecological resilience. Indeed, it is increasingly being adopted as a centerpiece of policy making, planning processes, and management strategies (e.g., Field et al. 2014; http://www.100resilientcities.org). It also is being embraced in other fora-such as civil society and social movements (e.g., the Transition Movement) and in arts and creative practice-as a means to invoke and provoke critical reflection and debates about society directions and alternative visions (e.g., Rathwell and Armitage 2016, Brown et al. 2017; https://transitionnetwork.org).The effectiveness of social-ecological resilience in informing transitions to more sustainable futures and actions depends on an understanding of biophysical, environmental, and human systems. There is widespread agreement that we need integrative research that transcends disciplinary boundaries and embraces ideas from the natural and social sciences, as well as other bodies of knowledge (e.g., Castree et al. 2014, Brondizio et al. 2016). This is not new to social-ecological resilience. Over the past decade, the field has taken a "social turn" (Brown 2013) as resilience researchers broadened their theoretical and methodological lens to incorporate insights and approaches from a wide range of non-natural science disciplines: from the social and behavioral sciences (e.g., sociology, anthropology, human geography, economics, psychology) to closely aligned interdisciplinary fields (e.g., sustainability sciences, global environmental change sciences, environmental education, architecture, planning, law) and, to some extent, the humanities (e.g., literature, philosophy, religion, arts, and music). The field also has widened its concept of what are credible knowledge practices, expanding from a positivist tradition of scientific inquiry to interpretive and participatory modes of research (e.g., Fazey et al. 2018). This crossdisciplinary engagement has gained momentum over the years, as evidenced in the expansion in number and scope of integrative work presented at the Resilience conferences since 2008 (see Bousquet et al. 2016) and related publications.This Special Feature emerged in response to this mounting crossdisciplinary appetite and the opportunity to open up a discussion about how and in what ways this collaboration can be strengthened moving forwar...