Simulating rural environmentally and socio-economically constrained multi-activity and multi-decision societies in a low-data context: A challenge through empirical agent-based modeling

Development issues in developing countries belong to complex situations where society and environment are intricate. However, such sites lack the necessary amount of reliable, checkable data and information, while these very constraining factors determine the populations' evolutions, such as village...

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Autores principales: Saqalli, M., Gerard, Bruno G., Bielders, Charles L., Defourny, Pierre
Formato: Journal Article
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: 2010
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/3558
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author Saqalli, M.
Gerard, Bruno G.
Bielders, Charles L.
Defourny, Pierre
author_browse Bielders, Charles L.
Defourny, Pierre
Gerard, Bruno G.
Saqalli, M.
author_facet Saqalli, M.
Gerard, Bruno G.
Bielders, Charles L.
Defourny, Pierre
author_sort Saqalli, M.
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description Development issues in developing countries belong to complex situations where society and environment are intricate. However, such sites lack the necessary amount of reliable, checkable data and information, while these very constraining factors determine the populations' evolutions, such as villagers living in Sahelian environments. Beyond a game-theory model that leads to a premature selection of the relevant variables, we build an individual-centered, empirical, KIDS-oriented (Keep It Descriptive & Simple), and multidisciplinary agent-based model focusing on the villagers\' differential accesses to economic and production activities according to social rules and norms, mainly driven by social criteria from which gender and rank within the family are the most important, as they were observed and registered during individual interviews. The purpose of the work is to build a valid and robust model that overcome this lack of data by building a individual specific system of behaviour rules conditioning these differential accesses showing the long-term catalytic effects of small changes of social rules. The model-building methodology is thereby crucial: the interviewing process provided the behaviour rules and criteria while the context, i.e. the economic, demographic and agro-ecological environment is described following published or unpublished literature. Thanks to a sensitivity analysis on several selected parameters, the model appears fairly robust and sensitive enough. The confidence building simulation outputs reasonably reproduces the dynamics of local situations and is consistent with three authors having investigated in our site. Thanks to its empirical approach and its balanced conception between sociology and agro-ecology at the relevant scale, i.e. the individual tied to social relations, limitations and obligations and connected with his/her biophysical and economic environment, the model can be considered as an efficient "trend provider" but not an absolute "figure provider" for simulating rural societies of the Nigrien Sahel and testing scenarios on the same context. Such ABMs can be a useful interface to analyze social stakes in development projects.
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spelling CGSpace35582016-05-30T17:48:21Z Simulating rural environmentally and socio-economically constrained multi-activity and multi-decision societies in a low-data context: A challenge through empirical agent-based modeling Saqalli, M. Gerard, Bruno G. Bielders, Charles L. Defourny, Pierre Development issues in developing countries belong to complex situations where society and environment are intricate. However, such sites lack the necessary amount of reliable, checkable data and information, while these very constraining factors determine the populations' evolutions, such as villagers living in Sahelian environments. Beyond a game-theory model that leads to a premature selection of the relevant variables, we build an individual-centered, empirical, KIDS-oriented (Keep It Descriptive & Simple), and multidisciplinary agent-based model focusing on the villagers\' differential accesses to economic and production activities according to social rules and norms, mainly driven by social criteria from which gender and rank within the family are the most important, as they were observed and registered during individual interviews. The purpose of the work is to build a valid and robust model that overcome this lack of data by building a individual specific system of behaviour rules conditioning these differential accesses showing the long-term catalytic effects of small changes of social rules. The model-building methodology is thereby crucial: the interviewing process provided the behaviour rules and criteria while the context, i.e. the economic, demographic and agro-ecological environment is described following published or unpublished literature. Thanks to a sensitivity analysis on several selected parameters, the model appears fairly robust and sensitive enough. The confidence building simulation outputs reasonably reproduces the dynamics of local situations and is consistent with three authors having investigated in our site. Thanks to its empirical approach and its balanced conception between sociology and agro-ecology at the relevant scale, i.e. the individual tied to social relations, limitations and obligations and connected with his/her biophysical and economic environment, the model can be considered as an efficient "trend provider" but not an absolute "figure provider" for simulating rural societies of the Nigrien Sahel and testing scenarios on the same context. Such ABMs can be a useful interface to analyze social stakes in development projects. 2010-03-31 2011-04-28T13:40:05Z 2011-04-28T13:40:05Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/3558 en Open Access Saqalli, M., Gérard, B., Bielders, C. and Defourny, P. 2010. Simulating rural environmentally and socio-economically constrained multi-activity and multi-decision societies in a low-data context: A challenge through empirical agent-based modeling. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 13 (2) 1.
spellingShingle Saqalli, M.
Gerard, Bruno G.
Bielders, Charles L.
Defourny, Pierre
Simulating rural environmentally and socio-economically constrained multi-activity and multi-decision societies in a low-data context: A challenge through empirical agent-based modeling
title Simulating rural environmentally and socio-economically constrained multi-activity and multi-decision societies in a low-data context: A challenge through empirical agent-based modeling
title_full Simulating rural environmentally and socio-economically constrained multi-activity and multi-decision societies in a low-data context: A challenge through empirical agent-based modeling
title_fullStr Simulating rural environmentally and socio-economically constrained multi-activity and multi-decision societies in a low-data context: A challenge through empirical agent-based modeling
title_full_unstemmed Simulating rural environmentally and socio-economically constrained multi-activity and multi-decision societies in a low-data context: A challenge through empirical agent-based modeling
title_short Simulating rural environmentally and socio-economically constrained multi-activity and multi-decision societies in a low-data context: A challenge through empirical agent-based modeling
title_sort simulating rural environmentally and socio economically constrained multi activity and multi decision societies in a low data context a challenge through empirical agent based modeling
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/3558
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