Citation:
Muro, M., and P. Jeffrey. 2012, Time to talk? How the structure of dialog processes shapes stakeholder learning in participatory water resources management, Ecology and Society, Volume 17, Issue 1, Article 3
Abstract:
Public participation is increasingly viewed as a means to initiate social
learning among stakeholders, resource managers, and policy makers rather than to
ensure democratic representation. This growing understanding of participatory
activities as learning platforms can be seen as a direct response to shifts in
how natural resources management is framed, namely as uncertain, non-linear, and
interlinked with the human dimensions. Social learning as it is discussed within
the natural resources management (NRM) context features a process of collective
and communicative learning that is thought to enable stakeholders to arrive at a
shared understanding of a specific environmental situation and to develop new
solutions as well as ways of acting together in pursuit of a shared ambition.
Yet, although case-study research on social-learning processes provides multiple
accounts of positive experiences, there are also reports of mistaken learning,
the intensification of tensions or conflict, and failure to reach agreement or
verifiable consensus. Based on results of a postal survey of stakeholder
experiences in two involvement initiatives, we can draw two main conclusions:
First, social learning is a multidimensional and dynamic process and, as such,
evolves in stages and to various degrees. Second, stakeholder processes are
shaped and affected by a multitude of factors that constrain the occurrence of
learning processes and eventually limit the extent to which these can contribute
to sustainable NRM. Foremost, the fact that the intensity of stakeholder
learning differed in the two investigated initiatives reinforces the role
organizational arrangements play in encouraging the type of communicative
process necessary for stakeholder learning.