ACCESS Seminar: Catalysing collective action: from bees and seas to weeds

Many of the world's most challenging environmental problems, such as biosecurity, climate change and water scarcity, are transboundary in nature and require cooperation of diverse actors. Yet achieving long-lasting and widespread cooperation is challenging because actors have varying levels of interest, skills, resources, capacity, and time to commit to delivering a common goal. Social norms and trust are required to develop a common understanding of the problem, agree on a common goal, identify measures of success, and encourage participation in individual and group activities. In this talk, Sonia will discuss her research on collective action, which has spanned two decades and has weaved its way through a range of natural and social collective action problems; from the precise regulation of the temperature of bee hives, to adaptation to sea-level rise, and weed management. This exploration provides the context for her current DECRA project, which aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how collective weed management evolves, and establish robust evidence that collaborative approaches are more effective than individualistic approaches.

Dr Sonia Graham is a DECRA fellow at ACCESS. Her research investigates collective action, environmental justice, and lived values. She is passionate about undertaking applied and transdisciplinary environmental research in Australia and internationally.

Zoom passcode: 469043