A brief voyage into the world of polycentric systems was a
nice way to tie together the major ideas from this course as well as the entire
online portion of this program. It’s
easy to get lost in the world of wordy academic vernacular and lose sight of
the big picture, or better yet the local picture. As Ostrom (2010) alludes to, people seem to
be waiting for some agreement at a global level to validate or motivate them to
alter their values or shift their behaviour in a more sustainable direction,
when in truth, this change, in order to be effective, needs to start at a local
level. As was mentioned in the group
discussions on Moodle, centralized authority can result in fast changes, but it
usually precludes any local knowledge, undermines adaptability, and in the end
results in the alienation of local stakeholders.
Change needs to come from everywhere, cascading vertically,
laterally and diagonally. Values
oriented approaches have the capacity to motivate change that can build
resilience at local levels and in the end create the paradigm shift necessary
to address global concerns. Ostrom
(2010) mentions that there is perhaps no better catch phrase than “think
global, act local,” and it is at this level that change can and must
begin. In the words of Margret Mead: “Never
doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the
world. Indeed, it is the only thing that
ever has."
Ostrom, E. (2010). Polycentric systems for coping with
collective action and global environmental change. Global
Environmental Change, 20(4), 550-557.
I like what you said about cascading vertically, laterally and diagonally. It has a nice ring to it and creates beautiful imagery. Indeed it is from all directions and arenas that change must come. “Bottoms up to top down” - a confusing statement that can be read with different meanings, but the way I see it is that work needs to be done on a local level. And work needs to be done on the global level. And they need to meet in the middle where VOILA... positive change all around, from all angles. I used to do a lot of work with the International Climate Change Movement, spending time at international conventions and trying to change policy at the highest scale possible. The only thing that allowed me (mentally) to do this work, was that I was also running a charity at home, working directly with kids on how to make local changes in their own lives. This combination of extremely top down, and extremely bottom up, worked well for me as it provided the balance that I needed and represented the way that I think change has to occur. That being said, I am not the right person for the high-level policy stuff, so I have shied away from that towards taking a more grassroots and empowerment approach to my global-scale work.
ReplyDelete