Social dilemmas and individual/group coordination strategies in a complex rural land-use game

Strengthening ongoing bottom-up capacity building processes for local and sustainable landscape-level governance is a multi-dimensional social endeavor. One of the tasks involved – participatory rural land use planning – requires more understanding and more awareness among all stakeholders regarding...

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Main Authors: Luis García-Barrios, Raúl García-Barrios, Andrew Waterman, Juana Cruz-Morales
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Utrecht University Library Open Access Journals (Publishing Services) 2011-09-01
Series:International Journal of the Commons
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.thecommonsjournal.org/articles/289
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author Luis García-Barrios
Raúl García-Barrios
Andrew Waterman
Juana Cruz-Morales
author_facet Luis García-Barrios
Raúl García-Barrios
Andrew Waterman
Juana Cruz-Morales
author_sort Luis García-Barrios
collection DOAJ
description Strengthening ongoing bottom-up capacity building processes for local and sustainable landscape-level governance is a multi-dimensional social endeavor. One of the tasks involved – participatory rural land use planning – requires more understanding and more awareness among all stakeholders regarding the social dilemmas local people confront when responding to each other’s land-use decisions. In this paper we will analyze and discuss a version of our game SIERRA SPRINGS that is simple to play for any stakeholder that can count to 24, yet entails a complex-coordination land use game – with an extensive and yet finite set of solutions – which can mimic in a stylized form some of the dilemmas landowners could confront in a landscape planning process where there livelihoods are at stake. The game has helped researchers and players observe and reflect on the individual coordination strategies that emerge within a group in response to these stylized dilemmas. This paper (1) develops a game-theoretical approach to cooperation, competition and coordination of land uses in small rural watersheds, (2) describe the goal, rules and mechanics of the game, (3) analyzes the structure of each farms’ solution set vs. the whole watershed’s solution set, (4) derives from them the coordination dilemmas and the risk of coordination failure, (5) describes four individual coordination strategies consistently displayed by players; mapping them in a plane we have called Group-Level Coordination Space, and (6) discusses the strengths, limitations and actual and potential uses of the game both for research and as an introductory tool for stakeholders involved in participatory land use planning.
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spelling doaj.art-9d9833ffaf2946c9a13d98bc2f85090c2022-12-22T02:34:33ZengUtrecht University Library Open Access Journals (Publishing Services)International Journal of the Commons1875-02812011-09-015236438710.18352/ijc.289134Social dilemmas and individual/group coordination strategies in a complex rural land-use gameLuis García-Barrios0Raúl García-Barrios1Andrew Waterman2Juana Cruz-Morales3El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Campus San Cristóbal de las Casas Chiapas, Mexico Strengthening ongoing bottom-up capacity building processes for local and sustainable landscape-level governance is a multi-dimensional social endeavor. One of the tasks involved – participatory rural land use planning – requires more understanding and more awareness among all stakeholders regarding the social dilemmas local people confront when responding to each other’s land-use decisions. In this paper we will analyze and discuss a version of our game SIERRA SPRINGS that is simple to play for any stakeholder that can count to 24, yet entails a complex-coordination land use game – with an extensive and yet finite set of solutions – which can mimic in a stylized form some of the dilemmas landowners could confront in a landscape planning process where there livelihoods are at stake. The game has helped researchers and players observe and reflect on the individual coordination strategies that emerge within a group in response to these stylized dilemmas. This paper (1) develops a game-theoretical approach to cooperation, competition and coordination of land uses in small rural watersheds, (2) describe the goal, rules and mechanics of the game, (3) analyzes the structure of each farms’ solution set vs. the whole watershed’s solution set, (4) derives from them the coordination dilemmas and the risk of coordination failure, (5) describes four individual coordination strategies consistently displayed by players; mapping them in a plane we have called Group-Level Coordination Space, and (6) discusses the strengths, limitations and actual and potential uses of the game both for research and as an introductory tool for stakeholders involved in participatory land use planning.https://www.thecommonsjournal.org/articles/289common pool resourcescoordination dilemmascoordination strategiesrole playing gamerural land use planning
spellingShingle Luis García-Barrios
Raúl García-Barrios
Andrew Waterman
Juana Cruz-Morales
Social dilemmas and individual/group coordination strategies in a complex rural land-use game
International Journal of the Commons
common pool resources
coordination dilemmas
coordination strategies
role playing game
rural land use planning
title Social dilemmas and individual/group coordination strategies in a complex rural land-use game
title_full Social dilemmas and individual/group coordination strategies in a complex rural land-use game
title_fullStr Social dilemmas and individual/group coordination strategies in a complex rural land-use game
title_full_unstemmed Social dilemmas and individual/group coordination strategies in a complex rural land-use game
title_short Social dilemmas and individual/group coordination strategies in a complex rural land-use game
title_sort social dilemmas and individual group coordination strategies in a complex rural land use game
topic common pool resources
coordination dilemmas
coordination strategies
role playing game
rural land use planning
url https://www.thecommonsjournal.org/articles/289
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