Open Property Regimes as Complex Adaptive Systems

In 2008 I started an interdisciplinary study of complex social-ecological systems that is funded by the National Geographic Society and a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the Cultural Anthropology and the Geography and Regional Science Programs at the National Science Foundation. This interdisciplinary study of a complex social-ecological system has contributed to a better understanding of management of common-pool resources in situations of open access. Specifically, the study examined how mobile pastoralists in the Logone floodplain in the Far North of Cameroon coordinate their movements to avoid conflict and overgrazing in a land tenure system that is commonly described as open access, a situation generally regarded as leading to a tragedy of the commons.

The hypothesis is that this management system is best understood as a case of complex adaptive system, in which individual decision-making, coordination of movements among pastoralists, and participation in an information sharing network result in the emergence of a complex adaptive system in which access to and use of grazing resources is managed. We have evaluated this hypothesis in an interdisciplinary study of pastoral mobility that integrates spatial and ethnographic analyses as well as multi-agent simulations. Understanding how these emergent systems work is critical for the management of rangelands across West Africa, most of which have some form of open access as well as the management of other common-pool resources, including marine fisheries. Our findings thus far have supported our hypothesis and the project has resulted in several peer-reviewed articles that are listed below.

Publications