Social resilience and ecological resilience are related and distinguished, and the potential of social resilience to enhance resilience of encompassing social-ecological systems is discussed. The value of resilience thinking is recognized, yet social resilience needs to be better understood in its distinctive qualities, while resisting identification of social resilience with one particular form of governance or organization. Emerging self-organizing citizen’s initiatives in The Netherlands, initiatives involving re-relating to nature in the living environment, are analyzed, using a systems theoretical framework which resists reduction of nature to culture or vice versa. It is argued that space for self-organization needs to be cultivated, that local self-organization and mobilization around themes of nature in daily life and space have the potential to re-link social and ecological systems in a more resilient manner, yet that maintaining the diversity of forms of knowing and organizing in the overall governance system is essential to the maintenance of social resilience and of diverse capacities to know human-environment relations and to reorganize them in an adaptive manner. Conclusions are drawn in the light of the new Biodiversity Strategy.

This chapter introduces a number of concepts from Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory as they relate to innovation, transition and transition management. An understanding of Luhmann’s ideas on innovation and steering is essential to grasp a Luhmannian view of system innovation and transition management. Two levels of analysis are developed. The first level centres on the political system, pushing innovation and trying to manage transition, while the second level focuses on organisations and their attempts to innovate. Luhmann is eminently useful in relating the two levels and thus in laying the groundwork for a theory of innovation and transition. An analysis of the development of Dutch discourse on systems innovation, social engineering and transition management since the 1990s serves to illustrate and apply the social systems perspective. Finally, the chapter argues that modernist notions of steering pervading the governance system overestimate the role of governmental actors and underestimate other sources of innovation and systemic innovation that could be labeled ‘transition’.

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss reflexivity in action research, because a lot of action researchers do not pay attention to reflexivity and we find it crucial not only for understanding the position of an action researcher, but also for understanding the process and results of action research. Reflexivity refers to the capability of a researcher to detach from the scientific disciplinary paradigm of his/her discipline and take a different perspective. We start by describing two concepts necessary to understand reflexivity: performativity and self-referentiality. Performativity refers to the way that actors redirect and reconstruct their activities to fit a theoretical model. Self-reference can be defined as the process of reasoning, in which new information in communication is reframed by means of predefined concepts. Two studied cases, Noordwaard and Wieringerrandmeer, demonstrate how citizens mobilise research and researchers to strengthen their negotiating position, because they were marginalised. The action researchers primarily provided action-oriented knowledge, but from their perspective raised very interesting scientific questions about democracy and science. Concerning democracy the issue was raised as to whether planning procedures contradict the inclusiveness that is required to respect the intentions and knowledge that ground alternative plans. At a more scientific principal level the question can be posed if action research can be free of normative positions towards the issue of developments that are preferred or considered inappropriate. The danger of an action researcher who limits his focus to the performance of his knowledge contribution and therefore contributes to self-referentiality can be opposed by reflexivity. We consider it a mission impossible if both positions are equally balanced by one researcher. A first level of reflexivity can be organised by a second action researcher if he/she at least includes a similar theoretical framework. Reflexivity based on a competing theoretical framework should be organised in a secondary analysis.