‘Heimat’ as a boundary object? Exploring the potentialities of a boundary object to instigate productive science-stakeholder interaction in North Frisia (Germany)

Productive science–policy interactions for sustainable coastal management: Conclusions from the Wadden Sea area

“…Next to the more classical way of bringing science and policy together by means of communication and organising conferences for scientists, policy-makers, and stakeholders, the use of boundary objects (Star and Griesemer, 1989) is a strategy that often appears in the cases examined. Boundary objects employed include reports, matrices that provide overviews of knowledge needs and available knowledge, models that rank main threats to Wadden Sea ecology, and concepts or notions such as 'flexible zoning' ( Van der Molen et al, 2016), 'significant effect' (Floor et al, 2016), or 'Heimat' (Do ¨ring and Ratter, 2016). The diversity in boundary objects suggest these have to be fitted to the specific context in which they are employed but also to the aim of the science-policy interaction: providing credible knowledge, salient knowledge, and/or legitimate knowledge.…”

How Distant is Climate Change? Construal Level Theory Analysis of German and Taiwanese Students Statements

“…But where is the median point between all of these aspects that can trigger engagement? As seen in the introduction of this paper, the answer cannot lie in providing sheer numbers, graphs and scientific definition to the public: a new focus on individuals must be introduced which acknowledges the relevance of sociocultural backgrounds in the context of science-stakeholder interaction (Döring and Ratter, 2015). The CLT approach and, in particular, the analysis of construals and of psychological distances at the individual level offer a great opportunity to delve into individual understandings of climate change.…”

Conceptualizing indicators as boundary objects in integrating Inuit knowledge and western science for marine resource management

“…The existence of a boundary object helps create an operating space for the different knowledge holders to share their understanding and interpretations without consensus being a necessary condition (Star and Griesemer 1989;Shackley and Wynne 1996;van Pelt et al 2015). Prominent examples of proposed applications of boundary objects to bridge the heterogeneity of different knowledge systems and support improved decision-making in marine and coastal environments include coastal zone management (van Enst et al 2018), uses of coastal and marine protected areas (Bainbridge 2014;Döring and Ratter 2015;Floor et al 2016), ocean acidification (Dannevig et al 2019), coastal resilience and hazard-risk mitigation (Becker 2017) as well as adaptation (Shaw et al 2013). Relevant to broader applications in environmental decision-making, a diverse body of literature highlights the potential of boundary work and boundary objects for improved environmental sustainability and ecosystem outcomes (Clark et al 2016;Bednarek et al 2018;Ainscough et al 2019; Posner and Cvitanovic 2019) with a considerable portion of this scholarship focusing on climate change policies and adaptation (Miller 2001;Adelle 2015;Kirchhoff et al 2015;Laudien et al 2019).…”