ABSTRACT
Ecosystem Services (ES) is an approach that circulates widely among researchers and resource managers to inform environmental management decision-making. However, most studies presuppose that ‘values’ are ontologically distinct from ‘ecosystem services’, undermining its capacity to register a diversity of human and other-than-human entities and relations. This chapter argues that ES methods are both descriptive and productive as they participate in the valuation process. To reveal how ES research carries certain values and assumptions we employed a photo elicitation survey among four groups in Moorea, French Polynesia, and documented participants interactions with it. This study found that survey participants often responded to the content of the photos rather than the ES they represented. Taken alongside participants commentary about the valuation process, this chapter suggests that these responses indicate how the ES framework commits to nature-culture dualism, engendering specific ways of ordering human and other-than-human relations, while limiting awareness of other epistemologies and modes of worlding. The chapter argues that researchers should approach ES research as a situated practice, acknowledging that the researcher and participants jointly produce intended and unintended results. It provides guidance on increasing the sensitivity of ES approaches to diverse modes of thought and being through continual reflexive inquiry.
