ABSTRACT. The governance of ecosystem services (ES) has been predominantly thought of in terms of market or state-based instruments. Comparatively, collective action mechanisms have rarely been considered. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a conceptual framework that brings together ES, social interdependencies, and collective action thinking. We use an ES conceptual lens to highlight social interdependencies among people so as to reflect on existing or potential collective actions among them. This framework can also contribute to increasing people's awareness of their mutual interdependencies and thereby fostering, framing, or enriching collective action, in ways that take into account the diversity and complexity of ecological processes underlying human activities. Our approach can contribute in particular to agroecological transitions that require landscape level innovations and coordination mechanisms among land users and managers. The framework distinguishes three types of social interdependencies: (i) between ES beneficiaries and ES providers, (ii) among beneficiaries, and (iii) among providers. These social interdependencies are in turn analyzed according to four main dimensions that are critical for collective action: (i) cognitive framing of interdependencies, (ii) levels of organization, (iii) formal and informal institutions, and (iv) power relations. Finally, we propose a strategy to turn this framework into action in contexts of participatory action research, a strategy grounded on a number of methodological principles and tools that convey complexity and increase people's awareness of interdependencies in agrarian social-ecological systems.
Because of its success, the concept of ecosystem services (ES) is increasingly taken for granted, without sufficient questioning of the strong uncertainties and controversies that surround it. In this paper, we consider this concept as socially constructed and we analyze the surrounding controversies in order to decipher the process through which it is constructed. From a literature review, we identify five main domains of controversies: (i) scientific uncertainties relating to causal relationships that underlie ES production, (ii) multiple understandings of the very concept of ES due to different representations of human-nature relationships, (iii) diverging opinions regarding the idea of valuing ES and the notion of value itself, (iv) conflicts of interests, power plays, and scale issues associated with the management of ES, and (v) controversies around the policy tools derived from the ES concept. In conclusion, we advocate for a greater engagement of human geographers in these debates. We emphasize in particular the need to study the complex social interdependences underlying ES dynamics, and to engage in participatory research exploring the potential of collaborative options for the management of ES. (Résumé d'auteur
ABSTRACT. Many papers in the recent literature on participatory approaches emphasize the need to take better account of the complexity of the social contexts in which they are conducted. Without attention to power asymmetries, there is a risk that the most powerful stakeholders will have greater influence on the outcomes of the participatory process than marginalized stakeholders. However, very few authors address the question of how to deal with such power asymmetries. This question puts designers of participatory processes in a dilemma. On the one hand, if they claim a neutral posture, they are accused of being naively manipulated by the most powerful stakeholders and of increasing initial power asymmetries; but, on the other hand, if they adopt a nonneutral posture and decide to empower some particular stakeholders, their legitimacy to do so is questioned. We test a particular posture to overcome this dilemma: that is, a "critical companion" posture, which strategically deals with power asymmetries to avoid increasing initial power asymmetries, and which suggests that designers should make explicit their assumptions and objectives regarding the social context so that local stakeholders can choose to accept them as legitimate or to reject them. Legitimacy is seen as the product of a coconstruction process between the designers and the participants. This posture was tested in the context of a participatory process conducted in northern Thailand to address a conflict between the creation of a national park and two local communities. While we show that this posture makes it possible for designers to be both strategic and legitimate at the same time, it also raises new questions and new dilemmas. Can we, and should we, really make all our assumptions explicit? How can we deal with stakeholders who refuse to engage in any form of dialog? We conclude that there is no "right" posture to adopt, but that designers need to be more reflexive about their own postures.
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