In this paper we revisit the conceptualization of poverty and rigidity traps (Carpenter and Brock 2008) by considering how representations of stability landscapes can affect spatial and temporal micro- and macro-dynamics which shape the very landscapes that contain these traps. Transformations are radical changes of micro- and/or macro-dynamics that reshape the possibilities to escape these traps by reshaping the basins of attraction and the landscape as a whole. Conceptualizing and then representing via heuristic models broader scale dynamics in the form of dynamic landscapes and smaller scale dynamics in the form of stability landscapes and basins of attraction raises new questions and new understanding of how the lenses with which we approach time and space dynamics impact the way SES develop and/or can be managed over time. In this thinking, institutions and how they operate in relation to micro- and macro-dynamics resemble some archetypical behavioral patterns conceptualized as institutional traps. According to Victor Polterovich (2008), institutional traps are basically inefficient yet stable norms of behavior. Institutional traps are supported by mechanisms of coordination, learning, linkage and cultural inertia. The acceleration of economic growth, systemic crisis, the evolution of some cultural characteristics and the development of civil society may result in breaking out of institutional traps (Ibid). Hence, within the field of social-ecological systems resilience and transition studies, motivated by the possibility of breaking out of traps, understanding these traps from the stand-point of systems modeling, especially through visualizations such as the now almost ubiquitous ball and cup diagrams and stability landscapes, has become de rigueur. Unquestionably, these visualizations have contributed in important ways to our collective understanding of social-ecological systems, and to better illustrating not only traps, but also possibilities for escaping or avoiding them. We do not intend here to diminish the value of these important initial contributions (add cites here), rather, our hope is to creatively and somewhat critically approach them for the purposes of expanding their explanatory utility, to acknowledge both limits to as well new frontiers in that explanatory utility. In so doing, we must state clearly that we understand the nuances between metaphors and models, and the complexity of their use in scientific discourse (for an excellent review of this subject, see Kretzenbacher 2003), and that in the process of proposing novel perspectives on traps in social-ecological systems, we may fall into traps of our own making. We take this risk happily, confident that the contribution outweighs the consternation, especially if such risks lead to a wider discussion of traps and how we conceive of their existence, their emergence, and their ability to be mitigated, avoided, or deconstructed entirely.

1. Session 56
“Tips or Traps? Advancing understanding
to steer clear of impoverishment traps
and tipping points”
Keith Tidball
Dept. of Natural Resources
Cornell University
USA
Niki Frantzeskaki
DRIFT, Erasmus University
Rotterdam
The Netherlands
Wednesday 05-05-2014
10:20-11:20
Programme page 26
Thomas Elmqvist
Stockholm Resilience Center
Stockholm University,
Sweden

2. • History of the Karklö Group
• Revisit the conceptualization of poverty and rigidity traps (Carpenter and Brock 2008) by
considering how representations of stability landscapes can affect spatial and temporal
micro- and macro-dynamics which shape the very landscapes that contain these traps.
• Institutional traps are basically inefficient yet stable norms of behavior… supported by
mechanisms of coordination, learning, linkage and cultural inertia (Polterovich 2008).
• In SES resilience and transition studies, motivated by the possibility of breaking out of
traps, understanding these traps from the stand-point of systems modeling, especially
through visualizations such as the now almost ubiquitous ball and cup diagrams and
stability landscapes, has become common.
Liao, K. 2012Scheffer et al. 1993, Walker et al. 2004 Scheffer et al. 2001

3. • These visualizations have contributed in important ways to our collective understanding
of SES and to better illustrating not only traps, but also possibilities for escaping or
avoiding them.
• We do not intend here to diminish the value of these important initial contributions --
our hope is to creatively and somewhat critically approach them for the purposes of
expanding their explanatory utility, to acknowledge both limits to as well new frontiers in
that explanatory utility.
• We take a constructive critical approach via novel conceptual and empirical observations
on traps, motivated by the existence of contested interpretations of traps and the
landscapes within which they are described.
• Can we surface new types of traps? Are all traps describing ‘shades’ of the two
archetypical traps already well known in the literature? (rigidity and poverty)
• With this in mind, in this session we approach traps in new and novel ways, from diverse
perspectives while remaining critical to the concept itself: examining the subjectivity of
traps, issues of scale and related unintended consequences.

4. Critical analysis of social-ecological systems,
their stability landscapes and traps

5. - Richard Stedman – Reification trap
- Jamila Haider – Perverse resilience
- Timon McPhearson – Avoiding urban SES traps by
ecosystem services and disservices
- Jakub Kronenberg – From poverty trap to ecosystem
service curse
- Keith Tidball – Anthropocentric discursive traps
- Niki Frantzeskaki – Scale traps of transformative
innovations
Subjectivity
Lens
Spatial Scale
Lens
Subjectivity
Lens
Spatial & Time
Scale Lenses

6. Richard C. Stedman
Director, Human Dimensions Research Unit
Department of Natural Resources
Cornell University
rcs6@cornell.edu
The Reification Trap, or “Following the Data Around”:
Resilience and the Sustainability Hangover?

7. • Proposition 1: “The Subjectivity of Tips”
Key regime shifts in social-ecological systems are “in the eye of
the beholder”; (subjectively) experienced, perceived, interpreted
and acted on. This makes language such as “desirable states”
potentially problematic.
• Proposition 2: “The Data Trap”
Systematic analyses of subjectivity at multiple levels, multiple
forms, have not been well-integrated into social-ecological
systems’ work, especially around regime shifts. There is a need
to understand variation in this subjectivity and its sources;
quantitative research is especially good for this.

8. Has this landscape tipped?

9. State X State Y State X State Y
Is the system actually
in a trap?
According to Whom?
Are we here? Or here?

10. Stockholm Resilience Centre, jamila.haider@su.se
Perverse resilience: A systematic review of traps in
social-ecological systems
Jamila Haider

11. • Proposition 1: The emphasis on overcoming ONE
single threshold in trap situations leads to
inappropriate interventions in social ecological
systems.
• Proposition 2: Different types of traps exist and can
reinforce each other across spatial, organisational
and temporal scales.

12. Trap defined as being under ONE material productivity threshold: 80% of studies reviewed
Big push of material input: 50% of studies reviewed

13. Temporal
GovernanceLevel
Soviet Era à 1992 1992 – 2005 2005 – Present
CentralisedDecentralised
Centralised
Afforestation
Anarchy/elite capture
Deforestation
Decentralisation
Reforestation
No case studies reviewed identify cross scale
interacting traps

14. “Avoiding social-ecological system traps by accounting
for both ecosystem services and disservices in cities”
Timon McPhearson
Assistant Professor of Urban Ecology
Tishman Environment and Design Center, The New
School, New York
email: mcphearp@newschool.edu
twitter: @timonmcphearson

15. Proposition 1: Social-ecological governance of ecosystems can tip
systems toward sustainability
Ecosystems provide important benefits to urban residents and can
increase adaptive capacity of social-ecological systems at multiple
scales. However, because ecosystem services are generated by social-
ecological systems, they require social-ecological governance and
planning in order to increase adaptive capacity and to tip urban
system transitions towards sustainability.
Proposition 2: Ecosystem disservices can lead to social-ecological
system traps
Ecosystems do not only provide services, they also provide disservices.
Ecosystem disservices have been poorly studied and largely
overlooked. Policy, planning and management for ecosystem services
may inadvertently lock in the accumulation of disservices, leading to
social-ecological traps that decrease the adaptive capacity of the
system.

17. State X State Y State X State Y
Ecosystem disservices
reinforce traps
Time tz Time tz+1
Ecosystems provide critical services that can tip social-ecological systems towards
sustainability, but may also generate disservices that create system lock-in and trap the
system in an undesirable state

18. From poverty trap to ecosystem service curse:
A review of the payments for ecosystem services literature
Jakub Kronenberg
University of Lodz, Poland
kronenbe@uni.lodz.pl
Klaus Hubacek
University of Maryland, USA
hubacek@umd.edu

19. • Proposition 1:
When institutions are not able to prevent rent seeking,
the exploitation of unequal bargaining power and
payment volatility, traps translate into a regime shift.
• Proposition 2:
Socio-economic conditions change once payment for
ecosystem services is introduced. In some circumstances,
they damage strangely enough to create a new socio-
economic setting within which the poor get even poorer
(this is in contrast with the frequently assumed side
objective of payment for ES: poverty alleviation)

20. ES buyers ES providers
ecosystem service
payment
Powerful
stakeholders rent
seeking
VOLATILITY
Unequal bargaining power

21. State X State Y State X State Y
Payment of ecosystem
services creates
unintended side effects
and reinforces traps
Time tz Time tz+1

22. Keith G. Tidball
Cornell University
KGTidball@Cornell.edu
A gilded trap of our own making: anthropocentric
discursive traps as barriers to transformation

23. • Proposition 1:
Discursive traps exist, and they are a unique type of either
rigidity or poverty traps
• Proposition 2:
Anthropocentric discursive traps act as barriers to
transformation and must therefore be understood in
order to be able to mitigate, dismantle, adapt to or
ameliorate.
What we say and think about our selves within Social-Ecological Systems matters …

24. Discourse Reflects Ecological Identity

25. Anthropocentric discursive traps
Humans are exempt from the “laws of
nature”
Humans are exceptional, not like any
other creature on Earth
Humans should “Save” nature
Humans are a blight upon nature

26. Intervention that temporarily alters the landscape allows for slower
variables to take action e.g. altering ecological identity
State X
Time tz+2
Time tz+1
Temporary system
state
Time tz

27. How does discourse
contribute?
How does discourse
contribute?

28. Niki Frantzeskaki
Dutch Research Institute For Transitions
Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Wil Thissen
Policy Analysis Section
Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
The transitions perspective on the institutional
mechanisms behind traps in social-ecological systems

29. • Proposition 1:
Transformative innovations are neglected from
institutions due to mismatch between scale of problem
and scale of solution.
• Proposition 2:
Transformations of the landscape and of the basins of
attraction can alleviate some traps and at the same time
create new ones.

30. Mham & Frantzeskaki –
In Review
Tamala’s Urban Water
Transition (Ghana)

32. WASH sector network

33. State Y
State X State Y
Innovations transform
the landscape and have the potential to steer away from traps
Time tz
Time tz+1
State X
State X State Y

34. So what?