Oberlack, C., D. Sietz, E. Bürgi Bonanomi, A. De Bremond, J. Dell'Angelo, K. Eisenack, E. C. Ellis, G. Epstein, M. Giger, A. Heinimann, C. Kimmich, M. T. J. Kok, D. Manuel-Navarrete, P. Messerli, P. Meyfroidt, T. Václavík, and S. Villamayor-Tomas. 2019. Archetype analysis in sustainability research: meanings, motivations, and evidence-based policy making. Ecology and Society 24(2):26. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10747-240226

“Action situations”—events, venues, or physically interdependent instances of decision-making—have become a central unit of analysis in the social–environmental sciences, particularly among scholars interested in bridging the social with the biophysical or ecological side of interdependent decisions. A growing body of empirical studies in social–ecological systems research has recently used case and comparative studies to analyse multiple interdependent action situations, structured into networks. In this article, we take stock of this body of empirical research, synthesize the diverse approaches that scholars have taken to assess “networks of action situations”, and identify fruitful paths forward. We conduct a systematic review of the empirical literature in the field, reviewing and summarizing the key characteristics of the empirical studies, including network features, topologies, methods, and data sources used in each case. We summarize and discuss the conceptualizations, methods, diagnostic procedures, and conclusions used in this body of work in a narrative framework synthesis. The review indicates that an increasingly coherent approach is taking shape, but a systematic, protocol-driven, or formalized approach is only partly emerging. We derive future research needs that could help accumulate knowledge from empirical research.

Participatory modeling is a potentially high‐impact approach for catalyzing fundamental sustainability transformations. We test if participation in a group system dynamics modeling exercise increases participants' agency through a novel method to evaluate potential behavioral change using expectation measures. A water‐energy‐food nexus—a functionally interdependent but underconceptualized system with low consensus and high scientific uncertainty—was mapped, and its evolution simulated by 46 participants in three interventions in a region undergoing hydropower infrastructure development in Northeastern Cambodia. Participants' system‐related expectations were measured before and after the interventions. Our results suggest that participants became significantly more optimistic about their individual agency to increase agricultural and fishing income and, interestingly, less likely to participate in local government development planning procedures. Findings also reveal how some uncertainties for multiple variables were reduced within and across the groups. Such converging expectations suggest that participatory modeling could contribute to making collective solutions and institutionalized agreements more likely. This research contributes to innovation in sustainability because it unpacks some underlying mechanics of how participatory processes can lead to new adaptive capacities, shared perspectives, and collective actions.