Roles of Strong and Weak Social Ties in Collaborative Network Formation for Building Livelihood Resilience of Herders: A Case Study on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

IF 2.4 3区 环境科学与生态学 Q2 ECOLOGY
Bingbing Wei , Haibin Chen , Liqun Shao , Xuexi Huo , Xianli Xia
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Abstract

In remote and sparsely populated pastoral areas where formal institution is often insufficiently supplied and slackly enforced, informal peer collaboration provides a critical support for local smallholder farmers to maintain livelihood resilience against uncertain environments. A set of key drivers to the formation of such self-organized collaboration have been identified by the existing literature, but studies that quantitatively investigate the roles of existing institution therein have been rarely seen, presumably because of measurement difficulty. Using household survey data collected from a case village on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, we applied network modeling methods to quantitatively examine the effects of preexisting strong and weak social ties on the formation of collaborative network among herders. The results show that the odds of establishing collaborative relationship between a pair of herders with a strong or weak tie was 21.06 or 10.86 times higher than those without, implying that trust and social norms embedded in the strong-tie network effectively reduced collaborative cost and mitigated collaborative risk, whereas novel nonredundant knowledge and resources carried by the weak-tie network facilitated collaboration across boundaries of social groups. Popularity and transitivity were two key endogenous structural relationship development mechanisms, signaling the emergence of Matthew effect and relational clusters. Social status and group affiliation were the key attributes that herders considered in choosing collaborative partners. To enhance livelihood resilience, local policymakers can regularly organize collective activities to reinforce emotional bonds between herders, and proactively engage with broader stakeholders to develop more diverse weak ties. Meanwhile, the leadership of central network actors should be fully mobilized and effectively supervised to facilitate successful collective actions.
强弱社会关系在构建牧民生计恢复力协同网络中的作用——以青藏高原牧民为例
在偏远和人口稀少的牧区,正式制度往往供应不足,执行不力,非正式的同伴合作为当地小农在不确定环境中保持生计弹性提供了关键支持。现有文献已经确定了形成这种自组织合作的一系列关键驱动因素,但可能是因为测量困难,很少看到定量调查现有机构在其中的作用的研究。本文利用青藏高原某案例村的入户调查数据,运用网络建模方法定量考察了先前存在的强、弱社会关系对牧民协作网络形成的影响。结果表明,有强纽带和弱纽带的牧民建立合作关系的几率分别是无强纽带和弱纽带的牧民的21.06倍和10.86倍,表明强纽带网络中嵌入的信任和社会规范有效地降低了合作成本和风险,而弱纽带网络所携带的新颖的、非冗余的知识和资源促进了跨社会群体的合作。受欢迎程度和传递性是两种重要的内生结构关系发展机制,标志着马太效应和关系集群的产生。社会地位和群体隶属关系是牧民在选择合作伙伴时所考虑的关键属性。为提高生计复原力,地方政策制定者可以定期组织集体活动,加强牧民之间的情感纽带,并积极与更广泛的利益攸关方接触,发展更多样化的弱联系。同时,应充分动员和有效监督中央网络行动者的领导,以促进集体行动的成功。
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来源期刊
Rangeland Ecology & Management
Rangeland Ecology & Management 农林科学-环境科学
CiteScore
4.60
自引率
13.00%
发文量
87
审稿时长
12-24 weeks
期刊介绍: Rangeland Ecology & Management publishes all topics-including ecology, management, socioeconomic and policy-pertaining to global rangelands. The journal''s mission is to inform academics, ecosystem managers and policy makers of science-based information to promote sound rangeland stewardship. Author submissions are published in five manuscript categories: original research papers, high-profile forum topics, concept syntheses, as well as research and technical notes. Rangelands represent approximately 50% of the Earth''s land area and provision multiple ecosystem services for large human populations. This expansive and diverse land area functions as coupled human-ecological systems. Knowledge of both social and biophysical system components and their interactions represent the foundation for informed rangeland stewardship. Rangeland Ecology & Management uniquely integrates information from multiple system components to address current and pending challenges confronting global rangelands.
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