Agriculture Reference
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(Ackoff, 1980). A mess is a complex of interrelated problems in which there is no
common agreement about the nature of the problems or potential solutions.
The second predicament stems from the fact that many of the relationships
between elements in the model reflect human intentions (Caws, 1988), many of
which are characterized by a high degree of uncertainty. The third predicament is
that information and knowledge needed to build the model depend on human expe-
rience. Methods for eliciting experience-based knowledge are characterized by a
high degree of subjectivity. The question of how to analyze and interpret community
values, goals, and objectives in an agroecosystem is therefore one of how to formu-
late a problem holon as a composite of all stakeholder perspectives on the problem
situation. Such a problem holon must be a problem-determined system (rather than
a system-determined problem) that is a sociocultural construct based on the com-
munity's perception of biophysical phenomena (Ison et al., 1997).
One way in which a problem-determined holon of an agroecosystem can be
derived is by generating a cognitive map of the community's assertions with regard
to their collective values, goals, and problems. A cognitive map is a representation of
people's assertions about a specified domain. It is derived by depicting how people
think an action will achieve their objectives (based on how they understand the world
to work) in a graphical form in which concepts are connected to each other by lines
and arrows (Ridgley and Lumpkin, 2000). The concepts are represented as words or
phrases referring to actions, contexts, quality, or quantities of things in the physical
world. The connections reflect relationships thought to exist between the connected
concepts. Such relationships can be cause and effect, precedence, or even affinity.
Depending on their characteristics, the resulting depictions are variously referred to
as cognitive maps, influence diagrams, or directed graphs (digraphs) (Ridgley and
Lumpkin, 2000).
The usefulness of cognitive maps depends on two questions (Axelrod, 1976a):
(1) Do processes in the modeled domain occur in accordance with the laws of cogni-
tive maps? (2) If they do, is it possible to measure accurately assertions and beliefs of
a community in such a way that a model can be applied? Several techniques for elicit-
ing people's assertions have been applied (Axelrod, 1976b), including questionnaire
surveys and open-ended interviews. To elicit assertions on factors influencing agro-
ecosystem health and sustainability from communities, the methods should satisfy
three requirements. First, the derivation should not require a priori specification of the
concepts a particular community may use in its cognitive map. Second, the options,
goals, ultimate utility, and relevant intervening concepts should all be included in
the cognitive map for it to be useful in evaluating different management options
(Axelrod, 1976b). Last, the map should be an accurate representation of the collective
assertions (and relationships among them) of the community. Such a cognitive map
is better perceived as a signed directed graph, simply known as a digraph (Axelrod,
1976a), with points representing each of the named concepts and arrows representing
the relationships between concepts. The arrows are drawn from the “cause” variable
to the “effect” variable, with either a positive sign to indicate a direct (or positive)
relationship or a minus sign to indicate an inverse (or negative) relationship.
Visual inspection is not a reliable way of analyzing digraphs. A mathematical
framework is essential to identify the underlying properties of the digraphs and to
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