Social and Cultural Impacts

Many of the social, cultural, and environmental losses experienced by communities have not been represented adequately as part of impact assessments or compensation agreements. Robin and his colleagues, working closely with affected communities, use well-established methods to identify and evaluate these losses so they can be included in quantitative assessments, mitigation or compensation agreements, and the information provided to decision makers.

Resource developments -- oil pipelines, hydroelectric dams, mining operations, transmission lines -- have altered the ecology of many areas and adversely affected the lives of people living in adjacent area. The main rationale is usually economic -- the creation of revenue, profits, and jobs. Over many decades, this narrow focus has resulted in devastating losses for Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents, other resource users, and the animals and plants on which they depend.

The work of Robin and his colleagues seeks to level the playing field by working with community members to carefully identify the full range of qualitative and quantitative impacts, including not just those to the cash economy but also changes to livelihood, physical and mental health, wellbeing, culture and language, the environment, self-determination & stewardship, and impacts on families and social relations.

6 requirements to accurately assess social and cultural impacts

based on a 2023 paper published in Science co-authored with Nicole Kaechele,

 Philip Halteman,

 Terry Satterfield.

Respect community practices and the cultural context within which losses have occurred, even though they might be difficult to define precisely or to measure
Identify and articulate multiple dimensions of impact, accurately describing the full range of gains and losses while educating others about the impacts
Account for shifts in the magnitude or severity of impacts over time due to mitigation or adaptation, either within society or the natural environment
Clarify the relative importance of net impacts: which losses are considered most significant and why, and what does this mean for restoration or compensation efforts
Consult multiple factual sources including local community resource users as well as previous studies or relevant work completed in other locations
Acknowledge and communicate uncertainties and their implications, develop adaptive plans to adjust actions over time as more is learned
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Identifying social and cultural impacts

In collaboration with community members, leaders, and technical experts the role of Robin and his colleagues is to comprehensively identify the range of impacts to social, cultural, and environmental values over time. This requires highlighting the distinction between tangible impacts (e.g., changes in jobs and emissions), which can be identified and enumerated, and intangible impacts (e.g., changes in culture, social relations or mental health), which are more difficult to identify and often challenging to measure.

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Compensating Indigenous Social and Cultural Losses

The general neglect of social and cultural losses experienced by Indigenous Peoples -- not only in North America but throughout the world -- is particularly egregious because of the devastating effects on traditional practices and the place-based lives of many Indigenous communities. Although monetary payments alone cannot fully offset losses experienced over many decades, they can bring additional funds into an Indigenous community and also provide a public acknowledgement of faults, experienced damages, and certain rights.

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Compassion and Comprehending Social and Cultural Losses

Social and cultural losses often occur at a large scale: impacts are experienced by many thousands or millions of people, sometimes over decades, and result in conditions difficult for outsiders to understand. It's overwhelming. Yet making the link to victims' experiences of the people most affected is the essence of compassion and a necessary precursor to effective and morally sound responses, whether by individuals or by society. Working closely with colleagues, Robin has worked on a range of humanitarian initiatives using insights from the decision sciences to help clarify the nature and extent of losses and overcome compassion fatigue, as summarized in the Decision Research website Arithmetic of Compassion.

Robin's work with community partners and decision-science colleagues seeks to expand the assessment methods used to evaluate damages and calculate compensation for losses experienced due to resource developments undertaken by outside interests without prior consultation or consent. These include losses to culture, social relations, governance, mental and physical health, and the environment. Despite their importance to many communities, these less tangible losses -- very real to community members -- typically are not included as part of impact assessments or compensation settlements. A key to success is combining careful analysis with open discussions as part of a sequenced, adaptive decision-aiding approach that is tailored to each context and decision-making opportunity.

Featured Publications

Methods for assessing social and cultural losses. R.Gregory, P. Halteman, N. Kaechele, T. Satterfield.

Science, August 2023: Vol 381, pp. 478-481.

Iconic photographs and the ebb and flow of empathic response to humanitarian disasters. P.

Slovic, D. Vastfjall A. Erlandsson, R. Gregory. Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, 2016.

The promise and reality of social and cultural metrics.

D. Bessette & R. Gregory. 2020. Ecology and Society 25, vol 3.

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