Vanwindekens, Frédéric
[UCL]
Stilmant, Didier
[FUNDP]
Baret, Philippe
[UCL]
This paper presents a new cognitive mapping approach for analysing systems of practices in social-ecological systems. These systems are mapped from people's views collected during open-ended interviews. Cognitive maps are made up of diverse variables (e.g., operations, drivers, constraints) linked to each other by a range of relationships: cause-effect, fluxes of matter, information flows and sequence of two operations. Individual cognitive maps heuristically model the practices and decision-making processes expressed by interviewees. The mathematical formulation of cognitive maps allows individual cognitive maps to be aggregated into a social cognitive map. The latter can be used to model the system of practices used by a particular group of people. Using this approach, we analysed the practices and decision-making processes linked to grassland management in a Belgian grassland-based livestock farming system. Our work confirmed that a social cognitive map could be drawn up for multiple locations. The results showed how this inductive cognitive mapping approach overcame two limitations frequently highlighted in previous studies: the diverse interpretations of variables and relationships; and the difficulty in revealing the rationale in cognitive maps. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.
Bibliographic reference |
Vanwindekens, Frédéric ; Stilmant, Didier ; Baret, Philippe. Development of a broadened cognitive mapping approach for analysing systems of practices in social-ecological systems. In: Ecological Modelling, Vol. 250, p. 352-362 (2013) |
Permanent URL |
http://hdl.handle.net/2078/120560 |