AN EVEN LESS CONVENIENT TRUTH: ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGE OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT THROUGH AN INTEGRATION OF COGNITION AND CULTURE by Jordan Levine A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Interdisciplinary Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) September 2014 © Jordan Levine, 2014 Abstract ‘Sustainable development,’ or how to achieve durably desirable states in our planet’s nested social-ecological systems, has been heralded by many as the core civilizational challenge of the 21st century. Adding to this challenge is the fact that the scientific study of how to model and manage such complex systems is confounded by a number of archaic intellectual legacies from predecessor disciplines. Chief among these is a relatively crude, low-resolution ‘rational actor’ theory of human behaviour, which lies in tension with a range of more recent, empirical insights regarding how humans absorb information, make decisions, and act, in situ. I argue that, while authors widely acknowledge the former theory to be insufficient, terminological inconsistencies and conceptual opacity have prevented the latter insights from being fully integrated into much sustainable development research. This dissertation aims to help bridge that gap on the level of both theory and practice. First, I present an accessible, original synthesis of cumulative recent findings on human cognition. This synthesis suggests a key object of analysis should be the particular ways in which people reduce the deep complexity of their social-ecological context into actionable information. I then apply this theoretical lens to the study of two areas designated by the UN as sites for experimentation with the concept of sustainable development: Mt. Carmel UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in Israel, and Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in British Columbia, Canada. Both Mt. Carmel and Clayoquot Sound are reeling from major ecological shifts, and discordant multistakeholder relations. In my data chapters, I show that by (a) applying my synthesized theoretical lens to an analysis of how ii the various stakeholders perceive their local context, and (b) adapting and combining a range of elicitation and analysis methods that heretofore have been applied in isolation, I am able to generate insights that have direct, actionable significance for the management of these sensitive, politically fraught social-ecological systems. I conclude with a discussion of implications, caveats, prospects of scalability, and suggestions for future research. iii Preface The physical collection and collation of the interview data reported in this dissertation was done by me. The analysis of the data in this dissertation was also largely my own work, but I had considerable technical support from a number of people. Namely, Coral Kasirer assisted in analysis of all Hebrew-language print material, and Michael Muthukrishna collaborated with me on the statistical analysis of the Clayoquot Sound data (see Acknowledgements). Supervisors Dr. Kai M.A. Chan, and Dr. Terre Satterfield, played important roles as advisors throughout the process. However, unless otherwise stated, all other work described in this dissertation, from concept to completion, was entirely my own. The fieldwork I conducted both on the west coast of Vancouver Island and in northern Israel was explicitly approved by UBC’s Behavioural Research Ethics Board. The identifying number of the two Ethics Certificates we obtained for the research were H09-02523 and H11- 00835. The former pertained to an initial round of exploratory interview research I conducted in various locations on the west coast of Vancouver Island, while the latter pertained to the interviews I conducted in and around the two biosphere reserves, specifically. iv Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................ ii Preface ................................................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents .................................................................................................................. v List of Tables ........................................................................................................................ xi List of Figures ...................................................................................................................... xiii List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................................. xv Glossary .............................................................................................................................. xvi Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ xxii Dedication ........................................................................................................................ xxvii Chapter 1: Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 An even less convenient truth ......................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Why UNESCO biosphere reserves? .................................................................................................. 7 1.3 Structure of the dissertation .......................................................................................................... 14 1.3.1 Synthesizing a theoretical foundation ...................................................................................................... 14 1.3.2 Mt. Carmel UNESCO biosphere reserve ................................................................................................... 16 1.3.3 Clayoquot Sound UNESCO biosphere reserve .......................................................................................... 19 1.3.4 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 28 v Chapter 2: From Rational Actor to Efficient Complexity Manager—exorcising the ghost of Homo economicus with a unified synthesis of cognition research ......................................... 29 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 29 2.2 Spotting the ghost .......................................................................................................................... 32 2.3 A set of empirically-derived principles for a descriptive model of the human actor .................... 36 2.3.1 Cognition is triage: we are efficient within our computational, energetic and temporal limits .............. 37 2.3.2 Different goals, different glasses: what we perceive is a function of our goals ....................................... 39 2.3.3 The emotional elephant and rational rider: emotions bound reason, not the inverse ............................ 40 2.3.4 Filter then fill-in-the-blanks: we mostly filter complexity and complete patterns ................................... 42 2.3.5 Efficient cognition is distributed: the ‘elephant and rider’ belong to a herd ........................................... 44 2.3.6 Heuristics are the rule, not the exception: brains are not lazy computers .............................................. 45 2.3.7 Analogy as the unit of thought: the elephant rider navigates with maps ................................................ 47 2.3.7.1 Analogies are chosen by availability, associations, and contextual cues ........................................ 53 2.3.7.1.1 Availability .................................................................................................................................. 53 2.3.7.1.2 Context and associative networks .............................................................................................. 54 2.4 A formalized synthesis: the efficient complexity manager (ECM) model ...................................... 58 2.5 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 64 Chapter 3: The Salient Moustache and the Silent Majority—cognition, culture and (un)sustainable development in the Mt. Carmel UNESCO Biosphere Reserve ........................ 67 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 67 3.2 Mt. Carmel UNESCO biosphere reserve ......................................................................................... 68 3.3 Ignited tensions and fatalistic essentialisms .................................................................................. 72 3.4 Theorizing the growing impasse .................................................................................................... 74 3.5 Imagining the other: perceiving stagnation in Druze society ........................................................ 78 vi 3.6 Housing: a surprising diversity of opinions and rationales ............................................................ 80 3.7 A case of mistaken preferences ....................................................................................................