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La gobernanza es a la vez un concepto controvertido y una creciente preocupación empírica relacionada con una miríada de desafíos sociales contemporáneos y dilemas de acción colectiva. El propósito de este número especial es invitar a una conversación sobre nuevos conceptos de gobernanza y su relación con las redes y el territorio en los estudios ambientales, regionales y urbanos.

Governance is both a contested concept and an increasingly empirical concern. On the one hand, it has become an almost universal and all-encompassing concept, which has attracted scholarly interest from many disciplines and over many decades to tackle the dilemmas of collective action and to facilitate effective coordination of interests and resources toward commonly accepted goals. On the other hand, conceptions of governance vary considerably, and their meanings depend on disciplinary perspectives, theoretical traditions, and empirical focus. Although it is easy to agree what governance is not, it is more challenging to create broad consensus on what it is and how it works effectively. Most capaciously, governance denotes the coordination of collective action. These actions take place in institutionally or physically organized spaces of interaction, where knowledge is needed to shape governance appropriately. Organized spaces and knowledge are both conditions as well as consequences of the governance process.

Chilean society is confronted with increasing risk from wildfires. Individual rather than collective risk management solutions predominate. Large forest companies, for example, reduce the probability of wildfires affecting their tree plantations with hierarchically-ordered management routines. Additionally, they purchase insurance policies to protect themselves from economic losses. Other stakeholders in the Chilean forest regions, however, do not have the same access to these forms of risk management due to the high degree of technical knowledge and organizational competences required. In his contribution, Michael Handke assesses the strengths and weaknesses of interacting hierarchical and market forms of risk management and calls for a deeper geographical approach to risk governance. He reveals that detailed geographical knowledge of wildfires is explicitly decontextualized and even ignored in current risk management practices. As a result, essential knowledge about the causes and effects of arson, which seem to be on the rise in Chile, is lost.

La (des)contextualización del conocimiento geográfico en el manejo del riesgo de incendios forestales en Chile como un desafío para la gobernanza 1 The (de-)contextualization of geographical knowledge in forest fire risk management in Chile as a challenge for governance Michael Handke RESUMEN La economía y la sociedad chilena se enfrentan a riesgos crecientes de incendios forestales. Predominan las soluciones de gestión de riesgos individuales en lugar de las colectivas. Las grandes empresas forestales reducen la probabilidad de que los incendios afecten a sus plantaciones con rutinas de gestión de orden jerárquico, compran pólizas de seguro para protegerse de pérdidas económicas desastrosas y diversifican y externalizan su riesgo en el mercado. Estos mecanismos no son disponibles para todos actores en las regiones forestales chilenas que experimentan los incendios principalmente como efectos externos negativos. El articulo evalúa las ventajas y desventajas de las formas jerárquicas y mercantiles de la gestión del riesgo y denuncia la necesidad de un enfoque geográfico más profundo en cuanto a la gobernanza. Así, se revela que el conocimiento geográfico detallado sobre los riesgos de incendios forestales se descontextualiza explícitamente en las prácticas actuales de gestión de riesgos en Chile. El conocimiento detallado de las causas y efectos de los incendios, se pierde en el proceso.

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