The emergence of ecological restoration through perceptual reframing: Applying Gregory Bateson's living systems approach to the Minnesota River Basin environmental dilemma

In this dissertation a qualitative living systems approach based on the work of ecological anthropologist Gregory Bateson was applied to the growing worldwide problem of environmental degradation. Bateson viewed contemporary environmental problems as arising principally from the culture, or complex communicative system, of modern western society. He believed ecological restoration of the planet was best accomplished by concentrating on the epistemological assumptions regarding nature that shape modern society's interaction with the environment. The findings suggest that when ecologically oriented ideas, including epistemological assumptions and aesthetics, are "reframed" by major stakeholder groups and reinforced through a communicative network, movement toward resolution of intractable double bind dilemmas and restoration of the environment increases. Furthermore, these positive changes occur not through top-down planning or local political initiatives, but through the "emergence" of novel and creative solutions based on allowing the self-organizational tendency inherent in all living systems, including the living system that is culture, to be expressed.; The environmental problem researched was deteriorated water quality in the Minnesota River Basin and the environmental dilemma it engendered between opposing stakeholder groups. The research was performed from 1997-2001 as part of a multi-disciplinary National Science Foundation/Environmental Protection Agency study. Preliminary investigation indicated that after 150 years of increasing agriculturally-based environmental pollution of the Minnesota River and its tributaries, at the turn of the 21st century water quality in this segment of the North American tallgrass prairie began to improve. This dissertation strove to clarify why an ecologically beneficial directional shift occurred so changes that fostered restoration could be understood and emulated in other environmentally degraded areas. Application of key Bateson concepts to stakeholder data, such as cultural maps, perceptual frames, and double bind dilemmas, permitted discernment of four major stakeholder groups that cognitively held "multiple versions" of the Minnesota River Basin environment. A general pattern of disagreement and agreement with Bateson's formulation of modern Western society's "separation from nature" epistemology placed stakeholders on an economic development/ecological restoration continuum. Perceptual frame differences between the stakeholders showed that a move toward ecologically-oriented reframing was occurring in the Minnesota River Basin.