Publications (FIS)

Participatory interventions for collective action and sustainable resource management

linking actors, situations and contexts through the IAD, NAS and SES frameworks

authored by
Juan Felipe Ortiz-Riomalo, Ann Kathrin Koessler, Yaddi Miranda-Montagut, Juan Camilo Cardenas
Abstract

Overcoming complex environmental challenges demands different forms of stakeholder participation and collective action. While informative and relevant for participatory interventions, the literatures on collective action and participatory governance have largely remained disconnected. We illustrate how the institutional analysis and development (IAD), network of (adjacent) action situation (NAS) and social–ecological system (SES) frameworks can be combined to provide a coherent approach that integrates these literatures, applies their insights and bridges this disconnect. We compare two similar participatory interventions, one in Colombia and one in Peru, whose design and implementation we supported. Transdisciplinary in nature, both sought to foster collective action for watershed management. The frameworks allow us to demarcate, characterise and reflect upon the action situations (ASs) for the collective choice, coordination and knowledge generation that constituted each participatory intervention (i.e. the constituent NAS) and other relevant operational and institutional ASs that lay outside the boundaries of the participatory interventions. These other ASs may not be linked to one another or to the intervention’s constituent NAS, but they influence the outcomes of interest nevertheless, thereby shaping the potential of the participatory interventions for collective action and sustainable natural resource management. The framework then suggests, and our comparative analysis illustrates, that organisers and researchers of participatory interventions, such as multi-actor deliberative platforms and transdisciplinary research projects, should carefully consider, reflect upon and address the constellation of relevant actors, ASs and contexts co-determining the outcomes of interest. Our study demonstrates how the IAD, SES and NAS frameworks can support that endeavour.

Organisation(s)
Institute of Environmental Planning
Environmental Behaviour and Planning
External Organisation(s)
Osnabrück University
London School of Economics and Political Science
Isenberg Umass Amherst
Universidad de Los Andes Colombia
Type
Article
Journal
Sustainability science
Volume
18
Pages
79-96
No. of pages
18
ISSN
1862-4065
Publication date
01.2023
Publication status
Published
Peer reviewed
Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Global and Planetary Change, Health(social science), Geography, Planning and Development, Ecology, Sociology and Political Science, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Electronic version(s)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01215-x (Access: Open)