From Experiential Knowledge to Public Participation: Social Learning at the Community Fisheries Action Roundtable
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RESEARCH
From Experiential Knowledge to Public Participation: Social Learning at the Community Fisheries Action Roundtable Jennifer F. Brewer
Received: 19 September 2011 / Accepted: 2 April 2013 / Published online: 22 May 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
Abstract Extensive research demonstrates that public participation in environmental decision making can increase understanding of diverse worldviews and knowledge bases, public faith in governance institutions, and compliance with resulting rules. Concerns linger around costs, possibilities of polarization and decreased legitimacy in cases of poorly executed processes, and the ability of newly empowered groups to gain political leverage over others. If participants in public processes can bracket their personal experience to better assess other viewpoints, establishing mutual respect and understanding through deliberative exchange, they increase the likelihood of maximizing participatory benefits and minimizing risks. Such reflexivity indicates double-loop social learning, change undertaken through collective discussion and interaction. A capacity-building workshop program aims to foster such learning within the Maine fishing industry. Case material draws primarily on participant observation and interview data, using a grounded theory approach to qualitative analysis. Evidence indicates that in social contexts removed from the norms of daily life and the frustrations of past fishery management confrontations, harvesters acquire knowledge and skills that facilitate more strategic and productive behavior in formal and informal marine resource decision venues. Suspensions of longstanding spatio-temporal assumptions around the prosecution and management of fisheries comprise key learning moments, and yield corresponding changes in industry attitudes and actions. With heightened appreciation for a
J. F. Brewer (&) Department of Geography and Institute for Coastal Science and Policy, Brewster A230, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858, USA e-mail: [email protected]
diversity of experiences and management priorities, harvesters can better mobilize a broad spectrum of local knowledge to develop viable regulatory proposals and collaborative decision processes. Keywords Governance Co-management Civics education LEK New England
Introduction Over more than two decades, open-minded environmental policy professionals and engaged scholars have expressed increasing support for resource user participation in resource management decision processes, sometimes including proposals for more decentralized governance structures, such as sharing of decision responsibility between government and resource users in co-management or collaborative management (Chambers 1983; Dryzek 1990; Chess and Purcell 1999; National Research Council 1999; Ostrom and others 2002; Olsson and others 2004; Creighton 2005; Mohan 2007; Armitage and others 2008b; National Research Council 2008; Pinkerton and others 2008; Berkes 2010; Mun˜oz Erickson and others 2010). A majori
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