Shared, plural and cultural values of nature: Deliberative valuations as new democratic spaces

Dr Jasper Kenter (SAMS)

Date and time:

9 December 2016 12pm to 1pm

Venues:

SAMS (room TBC) and Room 619 (Goodlyburn, Perth College)

Abstract:

To help resolve conflicts between nature and other priorities, we need valuations that act as transformative processes bringing together different voices that develop shared understandings of conflicts between different ecosystem services, and values around how to resolve them. I will synthesise the knowledge of 14 research papers in a special issue of the journal Ecosystem Services to develop a discourse of shared, plural and cultural values. Key themes include the formation and institutionalisation of shared values through socialisation, formal and informal deliberation; deliberative alternatives for value-aggregation; understandings and critiques of deliberation; and interrelations between values, place and identity. The importance of institutional factors, such as power issues, and the inevitable subjectivity of valuations around complex and contested environmental issues are highlighted. I give examples of integrations between a wide range of monetary and non-monetary analytical, deliberative, interpretive and psychometric methods for valuing nature. I present shared, plural and cultural values are presented as a knowledge intervention critiqueing the increasing tendency to artificially separate economic and sociocultural values, and monetary and non-monetary valuation in the ecosystem services field. Deliberative valuations are advocated as a means to integrate plural values and as a boundary object between research, practitioner and policy communities, enabling more effective translation of values into decisions and creating new democratic spaces for transformative social change.

About the speaker:

Jasper Kenter is a researcher at The Scottish Association for Marine Science, UHI and is the Principal Investigator in Ecological Economics. Find out more about Jasper Kenter, his current research projects and publication list.

If you would like to attend this seminar either in person or via VC/Jabber please email Dr Amy Woolvin.